Gardaí have arrested far-right agitator Graham Carey. The Garda Press Office confirmed to The Beacon that “A man in his 30s has been arrested and detained under Section 30 of the Offences against the State act 1939 at a South Dublin Garda station”. According to a report in the Sunday World, members of the Special Detective Unit (SDU), who are armed, raided Carey’s house this morning and took him into custody.
In recent days the Dublin man published a number of threats online towards activists, asylum seekers, and gardaí.
Escalation
Carey, who lives in Finglas, is a loud voice in the Irish far-right ecosphere. He’s become well-known for his regular and explosive livestreams in which he rails against the “elite” and others he perceives as enemies such as Jewish people. On 24 January Carey led a mob of roughly 100 men around Finglas and ended up outside the office of a local Sinn Féin representative. There he demanded that only Irish people are housed and attacked asylum seekers and attempts to help them.
More recently he posted another video in which he declared that he and his supporters would “go through” gardaí at an upcoming anti-asylum seeker protest due to take place later today. In the run-up to it he also called on people to “bring whatever the fuck you feel you need to bring to defend yourself”. Going on, he suggested that they should “go get a gun licence” and “go get a shotgun”.
Under the Offences Against the State Act, a person can be detained for up to 48 hours if the authorities suspect the individual has committed or is about to commit an illegal act. If serious enough the case can be heard by the Special Criminal Court.
An old pattern
The arrest follows years of provocations and promotion of conspiracy theories by Carey during his many livestreams on Facebook. In 2021 he claimed that Jewish people were behind the promotion of the COVID-19 vaccinations because they want “to chip all the children in the world”. In the same rant he went on to say “that the world is going to be drawn to Jerusalem”. And because Jewish people have been vaccinating children simply for “financial gain”, Carey insisted “We need to wipe the Jews out”.
Not long after this Carey attended a protest outside the home of Leo Varadkar. While livestreaming he accused the then Tánaiste of being a paedophile and of treason. Going on, he also said Varadkar was covering up child abuse.
Then in July 2022 Carey suggested that he could disrupt Dublin Airport. During the video he said it’d be easy for one person “take over the airport”. And he told his supporters that they’d “probably find out some day” how he could do it and that it’d be possible to do so “with a rucksack”. At the time the Garda Press Office said it “considers any suggestion in respect of the threat to use violence and/or perpetration of violence or intimidation in any general sense or against named individuals or organisations as a matter of serious concern”. And, as a result, this could lead to “criminal investigation in respect of such matters”.
Featured image via Facebook – The Banner Against Spanners
