A suspected arson attack set a mosque in Dublin city centre ablaze in broad daylight on Monday 29 June at 3:35pm. Police subsequently arrested a man in his 40s in connection with the fire.
In video footage, the man shouted:
Go back to your country. We don’t want Islam in this country.
People have repeatedly targeted the mosque by walking in during prayers, confronting worshippers, and filming videos to post on social media in an attempt to demonise Muslims in Ireland.
Now, this suspected arson attack marks a dangerous escalation. It shows just how far anti-Muslim hate has spread and how the normalisation of Islamophobia in public debate is leaving Muslim communities across the UK and Ireland facing an ever more serious threat.
Dublin: Islamophobia normalised
The chairman of the Irish Muslim Council, Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, said after the horrific incident:
The Irish Muslim Council has repeatedly warned about the growing threat posed by anti-Muslim hatred and far-right extremism.
Today’s attack demonstrates that when hatred is normalised and incitement is left unchecked, the consequences can be grave.
A man in his 40s has been arrested following an arson attack on a mosque in Dublin city centre.
He was filmed shouting, “Go back to your country. We don’t want Islam in this country.”
This is the kind of rhetoric Tommy Robinson and the far right push every day. It fuels hatred… pic.twitter.com/HKLD0ONBFH
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) June 29, 2026
Al-Qadri also spoke about previous attacks on the mosque, making it clear that this is part of an escalating pattern. As he powerfully warned, unless this blatant anti-Muslim incitement is confronted head-on, the situation could become even worse:
On numerous occasions, individuals have entered the mosque, live streamed worshippers on social media platforms, interrogated members of the congregation, and spread inflammatory and false narratives portraying Muslims as a threat to Irish society.
Such campaigns of harassment and dehumanisation are reckless and dangerous.
However, a Garda spokesperson in Ireland issued a statement that made no reference to the building being a mosque, prompting concerns that the nature of the attack is being downplayed:
Gardaí are investigating an incident of criminal damage by fire at a premises on Talbot Street Dublin 1, this afternoon, Monday, June 29, 2026.
No injuries have been reported at this time. Inquiries are ongoing.
This woefully inept statement which fails to grasp the gravity of this terrifying incident echoes the pattern of behaviour seen in the UK following other Islamophobic attacks.
This is horrendous
We have seen mosques repeatedly targeted by racists with camera phones. A Muslim man was punched in Poppintree earlier today. Now an arson attack.
We have to stand up against those who spread hate to divide people.https://t.co/tdp0BDKkHX
— Paul Murphy
(@paulmurphy_TD) June 29, 2026
Where is the COBRA meeting?
Anti-Muslim hate crimes are increasing in the UK and Ireland as far-right pundits and politicians encourage and embolden divisive rhetoric demonising the Muslim community. Coupled with anti-immigrant bile churned out by Farage’s Reform UK and Lowe’s Restore Britain, violent attacks have been mounting with little to no pushback from the powers that be.
We wrote recently about another arson attack in the UK mid-June which targeted a family home with children as young as 7-months old inside:
The Muslim Social Justice Initiative (MSJI) shared footage on Thursday showing a Muslim family’s home in Blackburn being firebombed, blaming the “silence and lack of urgency” over the rise in anti-Muslim violence.
It’s hard to ignore the bigger picture. At home, far-right rhetoric has become increasingly normalised by much of the political class. Abroad, many Muslims see Western governments offering far less urgency or concern over Palestinian suffering and the Israeli genocide waged against them than they do in other conflicts like Ukraine.
Taken together, it’s no surprise that many Muslims feel abandoned by an establishment they believe has repeatedly failed to treat Islamophobia with the seriousness it deserves.
Following this arson, there was a terror attack by white supremacists in Edinburgh, with another man proclaiming that his violent, murderous actions were some sort of patriotic attempt to save the UK from Islam.
Similar to this arson attack in Ireland, there was little mainstream media coverage, and what little coverage there was did not recognise the gravity of the Islamophobic fascism on the rise, unchecked.
There has also been a complete failure by both the government and much of the corporate media to confront far-right extremism. That failure is all the more alarming given that Tommy Robinson recently called for Pakistani men to be lynched, describing it as the “only solution.”
As a result, the hierarchy of racism in the West is becoming harder and harder to ignore, exposing itself in all its deplorable and shameful ugliness.
A Muslim woman was smashed with a concrete slab in Dewsbury.
75% of Muslim women feared for their safety after the summer 2024 riots.
Before the riots: 16%.
Parliament held its first ever inquiry into gendered Islamophobia.
The Government published its response.
You probably… pic.twitter.com/uW4nghzTfq
— IslamophobiaUK (@uk_islamophobia) June 23, 2026
Reform UK and much of the establishment is Islamophobic
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Islamophobia has become so normalised across UK politics that the scale of the anti-Muslim threat is impossible to ignore.
And nothing makes that clearer than the fact that only 27 MPs backed referring Reform UK to the equalities watchdog. Given the party’s blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric, that number should have been far higher.
Anti-Muslim hatred can have deadly consequences, leaving an already marginalised community vulnerable to violence and increasingly isolated.
The rapid escalation in arson and hate attacks, including the threatening incident in Dublin yesterday, has made that vulnerability abundantly clear.
Featured image via the Irish Independent
From Canary via This RSS Feed.