Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Ireland belongs to the Irish people, not 'bogus refugees'

00:00:00.000 tonight the most extreme immigration story you've ever heard it's july 18th and this is the ezra 0.98

00:00:22.100 of ants show shame on you you censorious bug

00:00:29.300 i am in the heart of ireland about two hours south of dublin behind me if you can see it 0.77

00:00:43.800 is a mighty castle later converted into a church it's called the rock of cashel and for centuries

00:00:52.080 it was the seat of the irish kings we're living in a land of history of culture of religion of

00:00:59.400 language the irish indigenous people go back to time immemorial and most of ireland still lives

00:01:08.200 in that way dublin is a modern metropolitan city but in the small town of dundrum which is in the

00:01:17.080 county called tipperary well there's about 175 200 people who live there and although they're

00:01:24.280 modern progressive uh fully high-tech irish like anyone else it's a small community where everyone

00:01:33.000 knows each other and in some ways it's how ireland i expect has been for centuries it's a small place

00:01:41.400 but there is a local community center namely the hotel which now also has a golf course and a country

00:01:48.440 club it's a place where locals would go for meals to play golf it was a meeting place for the community

00:01:55.260 many weddings were held there the hub of the community and a source of economic opportunity

00:02:01.780 for the community making tourism part of the local economy but then the hotel was sold to him an american

00:02:11.180 investor and then the irish government came with a massive contract for this american investor

00:02:18.620 offering him untold millions of dollars if he were to transform this uh hotel which itself is over a hundred

00:02:28.120 years old into a refugee camp i say again this four-star hotel with a gorgeous immaculate golf course

00:02:38.660 being transformed in the heart heart of celtic ireland into a refugee camp is astonishing now by the way 1.00

00:02:47.340 there have been some ukrainian families living there and the folks in the local community tell me

00:02:53.260 they're actually fairly well integrated they're not a threat or a danger the kids are going into

00:02:58.780 the local schools and it's manageable but we're told that those ukrainians are being evicted and that

00:03:05.780 the hotel which currently has a certain number of ukrainians is going to massively increase the

00:03:11.720 numbers of beds available one of the numbers that is being reported in the mainstream press

00:03:16.340 is to 280 people this in a town that doesn't even have 200 people but what we learned today is that

00:03:24.720 the capacity of the hotel is in fact closer to 500 people and that under irish law every one of those

00:03:32.600 500 could apply to bring in five other family members in other words there could be a doorway for

00:03:39.700 three thousand refugee migrants or ipas as they're called in ireland to come and stay in that

00:03:47.820 once central communal irish place of the dundrum hotel we came down here first of all because we

00:03:56.440 couldn't believe it second of all we wanted to get the facts now i've written an email to the owner of the

00:04:02.720 hotel asking him questions about everything from the terms of his contract and why it's secret and

00:04:08.800 why there's been no consultation whatsoever with the community to details about how many migrants

00:04:15.540 will come and from where and for how long do they expect to be holed up in the hotel i haven't heard

00:04:22.320 back yet but if i do i'll let you know it's astonishing to me that in any place in ireland if you seek to

00:04:30.420 build a building dig a mine open a business almost anything you seek to do there is a planning process

00:04:38.140 where other effective people get to feedback what their impact will be you can't just build an office

00:04:44.740 tower in the middle of nowhere what about the traffic what about the parking what about the noise

00:04:49.800 can you build something too close to a school these are the questions that are dealt with by

00:04:55.120 municipalities all the time with zoning laws and public hearings that's the meat and potatoes work 0.89

00:05:01.260 of any town council really in the world but this decision to turn this local hotel into a refugee camp

00:05:08.520 is not made locally it's a national decision and it is being imposed on the local community

00:05:14.960 i asked repeatedly the protesters about town hall meetings or information sessions they say that

00:05:21.800 they have been none there is no political process and there is no legal process open to them

00:05:28.640 to ask questions and get information let alone challenge and feedback there is no back and forth

00:05:36.000 there is no debate it is being opposed in an authoritarian manner from the top down that's bad enough when

00:05:43.640 it's in a larger city like dublin where we were in the neighborhood of kulak and police charged

00:05:49.940 protesters and pepper sprayed them and there was altercation and some of the young kids threw rocks

00:05:55.120 it's bad enough in a large city like that but if this plan goes ahead and if little dundrum a town of

00:06:02.640 200 now has hundreds and potentially thousands of foreign migrants it's no longer dundrum and i wonder what

00:06:12.520 the people who lived so proudly in that fortress behind us that seat of kings for centuries what they would say

00:06:21.240 they fought off invaders they fought to impose a rule of law on this land to create a nation

00:06:28.140 and for centuries it existed but now the same irish the indigenous people

00:06:34.800 are being i don't know what the word is invaded is the wrong word because that implies that the government

00:06:42.680 in ireland is resisting it what do you call it when a town of 200 people

00:06:48.380 has 280 people of a foreign nation added to it the rumors are that they would be from somalia or

00:06:56.800 nigeria but we don't know where they would be from when i was in dublin a few months ago and i went asking

00:07:02.500 migrants where they were from they told me answers like pakistan and palestine they were all single 1.00

00:07:09.660 military-aged men will it be military-aged men will it be families the local community has not been

00:07:16.540 told it's astonishing to me that in a country that calls itself a democracy they don't have the

00:07:22.380 information let alone the democratic right to challenge that information to use that information

00:07:27.920 to have their say over the course of the next half hour you can see what i saw in dundrum

00:07:36.360 we'll talk to one of the local mothers who has become a spokesman in the fight back against this plan

00:07:43.920 we'll talk to someone whose family built up the hotel in the 70s and 80s and is heartbroken to see

00:07:51.960 what's become of it and we'll show you briefly the american owner of the hotel speeding in his bmw i

00:07:59.200 waved at him he waved as he ran in i wrote to him asking for an interview why would he give me an

00:08:05.040 interview he doesn't give interviews even to his own townspeople by the way one of my questions

00:08:10.520 to the owner was does he even live in the village himself i'm here in ireland because i find their

00:08:17.860 immigration policy absolutely astonishing and that's news in itself what's going on in a fellow 0.95

00:08:23.540 democracy but it's also a warning of how things can go in any country that puts the globalist ideology

00:08:31.520 of mass migration over the sovereign decisions of local citizens these citizens i spoke to some of them

00:08:38.680 in tears have no rights whatsoever we heard about irish homeless not having a place to stay irish

00:08:46.720 homeless irish people living below the poverty line imagine bringing people from somalia to the front of

00:08:53.680 the line putting them in a four-star hotel and telling the local people they have no say in it

00:08:59.080 here's the rest of our program in dundrum uh tipperary ireland

00:09:05.680 fiona i'm azra levant from rebel news tell me a little bit about yourself

00:09:21.200 and my name is fiona kennedy i'm a very ordinary uh mother and i live here locally in dundrum and

00:09:30.860 i'm here with a group of people we're the most ordinary people that you could possibly meet

00:09:35.440 and we find ourselves in an extraordinary situation and um really we're standing to

00:09:41.940 protect our hotel our beautiful hotel here dundrum house hotel our golf club and our community

00:09:48.000 yeah i had never heard of dundrum until yesterday i looked it up and it only has

00:09:53.480 about 200 people and i understand that this facility this gorgeous beautiful hotel and country club

00:10:02.100 could theoretically sleep up to 500 people what do you know about the contract that the owner of

00:10:10.540 this facility has to house asylum seekers and refugees what information do you have

00:10:16.740 well unfortunately we very little um information now we have submitted a request for information

00:10:22.400 under the freedom of information act and i'm not sure if the time on that is up but we've had

00:10:27.220 no information back yet we would like to get sight of the contract but nobody's forthcoming on that

00:10:32.080 and and have you had has the owner of the hotel been communicative at all

00:10:36.840 not not in the slightest no he hasn't he hasn't engaged with us at all and what is the government

00:10:42.800 entity that's involved is it just the national government or are there any local governments

00:10:47.140 involved well really it's this has been driven by national government the department of integration

00:10:51.680 and um there are we do have local government here in tipperary in ireland as well and we have some

00:10:57.400 local councillors who are working on our behalf working with us we have um one uh local uh tipperary

00:11:04.420 td member of member of our parliament um just to translate it to canadian and here here is actually

00:11:12.500 the the owner is just about to pass the owner is just i'll have to go and talk to him what's his name

00:11:20.520 his name is jeff jeff leo yeah and i understand he's from away is that right yeah i i understand he's

00:11:26.840 american i've actually never met jeff um so that's my first time seeing him that hasn't been a photograph

00:11:33.220 um he certainly sped by yeah that has been that hasn't he hasn't had any community town halls he

00:11:41.220 hasn't said has he sat down with the media at all not to my knowledge he hasn't i'm guessing you would

00:11:46.620 know we would know and he hasn't engaged with the community at all we've had two public meetings both

00:11:51.500 very heavily attended and did he send anyone to those no he didn't i find that astonishing yeah he

00:11:56.740 was invited how was he invited by email by letter not sure because i wasn't involved he must have

00:12:01.700 known about it i mean he's he's the center of this whole project 100 he knew about it you know but

00:12:06.660 he he didn't come but yeah the only time we see him actually is when he's speeding in or out of the

00:12:11.060 gates yeah he certainly came by quite quickly so right now in in this facility i understand in fact

00:12:17.820 i saw with my own eyes there are some ukrainians can you tell me about who's here now the exact numbers

00:12:24.560 we're not sure of uh there was an initial contract um in place to house we understand in the region of

00:12:30.720 270 ukrainians and those people they were welcomed into the village with open arms men and women and

00:12:38.220 kids like were they families or they were they just military age men no there were there were family

00:12:42.540 groups and they were welcomed into the into the area and the children are going to school locally

00:12:47.300 uh people are working in the community and uh they are very supportive of what we are trying to do

00:12:52.680 here they now are being um i i mentioned that the the contract it was a temporary accommodation

00:12:58.980 um contract that was entered into to house ukrainians who were fleeing from war and um but that situation

00:13:06.480 that was fine because that was always going to be a temporary arrangement but now we have a situation

00:13:10.500 where uh there's going to be a rolling contract to provide accommodation for ipas i heard that the ukrainians are

00:13:17.040 being evicted is that true yeah we understand that they have been told and that they need to be out

00:13:23.420 the information we were given is by the second week in august now we can't we can't um speak to the the

00:13:29.880 the accuracy of any of those reports because we're skeptical of everything we hear because we don't know if

00:13:36.120 if somebody's saying oh to give us a false sense of security that nothing is going to happen here

00:13:40.720 until the second week in august we are behaving every day as if an arrival of ipas is imminent

00:13:46.020 ipa is what you call a protection applicants we would call that refugee claimants in can't yeah well 1.00

00:13:52.440 well here the the um here the uh ukrainians would be deemed refugees in that they were fleeing a war

00:14:00.420 situation in their country and but the asylum seekers it's a it's a different this that's where

00:14:05.580 they fall into under uh international protection applicants now where would the proposed ipas or

00:14:12.340 asylum seekers where would they be coming from look we don't know because we we don't know anything 1.00

00:14:17.580 we're not being told anything we're hearing of course reports from different parts of the country

00:14:22.120 um about they're coming from here they're everywhere we don't really want to speak to that because we

00:14:26.420 don't know and i just want to be really really clear for us this is not a race issue at all for us

00:14:33.400 this is a services issue you mentioned there the um the population of dundrum in the last census i

00:14:39.480 understand the population of the village is 221 people there's a bed capacity inside these gates for

00:14:45.760 in around 550 people and that alone doubles the population of of the village and if you take into

00:14:53.480 account the fact that every person in there can apply under the family reunification option that's

00:14:58.940 open to them to have six more family members come and join them here in their new lives in ireland

00:15:04.140 the 550 people there could turn into 3 000 people very very quickly and it's overwhelming we've got

00:15:10.320 one doctor in the village he has said he won't be taking any anybody on he doesn't have the capacity

00:15:14.980 the i understand there was a doctor in a neighboring town he was look providing care to the ukrainians he

00:15:21.120 said that when the ipas come in he's not taking it he doesn't have the capacity and the schools are

00:15:26.360 under pressure everything is under under pressure here um and we just really want our hotel back to

00:15:33.440 be honest with you we want look we're very compassionate people the irish people are very

00:15:37.940 compassionate people um but we feel that our compassion and our generosity is being taken

00:15:44.820 advantage of by a government who are not enforcing um our immigration laws uh to begin with how are people

00:15:52.540 getting on a plane with documents and then managing to come through with no documents it's a farce it's

00:15:59.500 an absolute joke and that's the first thing in my opinion that should be addressed if somebody gets

00:16:04.080 off a plane you cannot get on without documents if somebody gets off a plane without documents they

00:16:08.120 should be immediately sent back to the country from where they came that's that's my opinion you 1.00

00:16:12.580 mentioned your local td or what we would call a local mp member parliament is supportive i'm going to

00:16:17.900 challenge you on that i haven't heard a single member of the irish parliament speak out against

00:16:22.480 that is he supportive when he's just speaking in whispers with you or is he supportive publicly no

00:16:28.020 you can challenge away ezra the man i'm talking about is matty mcgrath and he is a td here in

00:16:33.940 tipperary and he has not only has he been to the gates here several times he has stood up in the

00:16:38.720 our irish parliament and he has challenged the government okay fair play okay good to hear it he is

00:16:43.940 what party is he with he's an independent well that's why isn't it isn't that and was he elected

00:16:49.040 as an independent elected as an independent well that's a recommendation for independence isn't it

00:16:53.700 can i just say the ridicule that he faces matty is a country person like we're all ordinary country

00:16:59.620 people he's a country accent people ridicule him they make fun of him but he is a man of the utmost

00:17:05.780 integrity and he he is probably the only person that we currently have um who has the courage to

00:17:12.640 speak out and there is a local counselor as well uh liam brown and he is a man of courage also he

00:17:18.720 is standing with us and he is fighting for us so we're very lucky to have both of those but as far

00:17:23.340 as we're concerned the rest of them have sold us out now if there is work going on the background

00:17:27.860 that they're not prepared to speak of i'll always i'm an eternal optimist i would hope for that

00:17:32.420 but we we have seen nothing what i've learned from other places newtown mount kennedy kulak in dublin

00:17:40.700 is that this is a announced to the local community as a fait accompli there's no consultation no town

00:17:49.160 halls it if you were to build a skyscraper here if you were to build a giant wind turbine if you were

00:17:54.980 to build a mine in the ground you would have years of environmental and parking and traffic and

00:18:01.060 congestion impact reports everything and they'd be looking at the impact on services in the community

00:18:07.140 environmental impacts economic impacts i mean the the the one of the huge impacts on the village

00:18:13.480 dundrum was always a thriving village a real economic hub i mean i can't even tell you the

00:18:18.080 number of businesses all doing trade all doing well and um because that's when the hotel was in the

00:18:24.320 hotel so it's a beautiful and the golf course is one of the most beautiful i've ever seen

00:18:28.320 will the golf course remain open if there's hundreds of uh refugees in there it's very hard to know

00:18:34.240 because we don't know we don't the problem imagine it well we don't we don't know we don't know but

00:18:39.040 and that guy who sped by in his bmw is probably not stopping to tell you well no we're not hearing

00:18:43.880 anything direct directly from him i can't suppose to know what's in his head but and i won't speak

00:18:48.340 about him directly but what i would say is if i was somebody who um had a property and was prepared

00:18:55.580 to sell the soul of my community for money this is all about money it's greed pure and simple

00:19:00.240 and then i would shoehorn people into every uh available available place and what a disgrace

00:19:06.620 it's an absolute disgrace as i drove in i went by the rock of cashel which was just so stunning and

00:19:11.560 i looked it up and you know it was the seat of kings and it was saint patrick himself was uh

00:19:16.460 said to have gone through there it's just majestic and i think of the people who would have

00:19:20.560 been in there and their hopes for ireland and if and correct my history if i'm wrong if king angus

00:19:27.680 if the other irish leaders of the past were to see what is being done here for a few pieces of

00:19:33.960 silver i think they would be furious i think they would take out their swords and shields and march

00:19:40.080 on this place i think for for a few millions of dollars this ancient community is being sold out

00:19:48.060 and it disgusts me that's exactly what's been happening this community has been sold out the

00:19:52.700 irish people are being sold out we're not being listened to the politicians appear to have forgotten

00:19:57.260 they work for us what can you do is there a legal mechanism do you have a lawyer who's

00:20:01.720 examined perhaps the law is there some way to appeal this i'm being told there is not

00:20:06.640 but have you investigated that do you have any firepower yeah we do um i i don't want to say

00:20:12.700 too much about what's going on because this we're in at a very delicate stage of this but um for as

00:20:18.340 much as anyone driving past will see a presence at the gate we also have uh teams in the background

00:20:23.500 and they are working to look at the legalities of of contracts and arrangements and agreements that

00:20:29.540 have been entered into um so for instance we we we mentioned there the the contract to house on a

00:20:35.020 temporary basis the ukrainians um and then with a lot of some of the ukrainians are moving on

00:20:40.200 themselves a lot of them maybe are going home and for whatever reason and uh so so now apparently a

00:20:46.500 new hybrid contract is being entered into or has been entered into we don't know because we no one

00:20:51.540 is showing us paperwork um but what that says is that two communities they they cannot mix so for

00:20:58.600 so there's so the government itself thinks i've heard two countries mentioned somalia and nigeria

00:21:04.600 and again listen i i don't have any better information than you so you correct me if i'm wrong

00:21:09.340 so they're moving out the ukrainians because they don't think that they can coexist with this new

00:21:14.060 community wherever they're from and and and you suspect they're from from africa is you have any any

00:21:19.900 intel at all i heard somalia nigeria but that's probably just gossip a lot of that probably is

00:21:24.940 gossip and the truth is we don't know but i want to stress for for us here as a group it doesn't

00:21:30.900 matter where they're from they're if they're incompatible if the government itself thinks

00:21:34.320 they're incompatible with ukrainians look it's the government will have to speak to that i i can't

00:21:39.400 say we know if they're doing you mentioned that there's moms dads and kids you mentioned that

00:21:43.400 some of the ukrainian kids go to school you and i i seem to hear that you're saying that ukrainians

00:21:48.300 have more or less integrated in the community is that correct that is correct well then let me ask

00:21:52.980 you do we know anything about the nature of who will be in here in this next way will they be

00:21:58.080 families mom dad kid or will they be single men will they be single military age men which is what i

00:22:04.260 see when i look around the center of dublin and and what they're worried about happening in kulak

00:22:09.720 do we know anything about the character of the next community that is being foisted on dundrum

00:22:15.180 well that that's really the the nub of the problem that we don't know who is coming in

00:22:19.620 i do want to make one point ezra i'm a mother of four sons so i don't assume that just because

00:22:25.000 someone is male that they will be of a particular disposition whatever age they are and i'll be very

00:22:30.060 upset if someone assumed gosh there's four boys there they must be violent they must be whatever

00:22:34.260 so i i will not stand i won't stand for that but our problem is that we don't know who's coming in

00:22:39.980 and just from our look we've all seen the same reports that you have seen the reality is that

00:22:45.040 we don't know and that's why we are fearful because if what is playing out everywhere plays

00:22:49.820 out here in dundrum we may find ourselves in that situation well that's the thing you don't know and so

00:22:54.180 the mind imagines and listen i'm a man myself and i understand what you're saying about you you cannot

00:22:59.780 cast aspersions on somebody when you bring people in from a different culture that has different

00:23:04.320 approaches to women to a woman out on a bicycle or jogging there are places in the world where that

00:23:11.880 is considered morally and ethically inappropriate there there are different i i would imagine that

00:23:18.140 the ukrainian refugees here have some cultural overlap and if you don't even know who's coming in

00:23:24.300 you don't even know what the challenge is i find that astonishing what will happen if one day or it

00:23:31.680 might be the dead of what you just said go ahead if you don't mind um yeah as i said i'm a mother of

00:23:37.600 four sons and i've made this point here before let's just and because i'm an eternal optimist let's say

00:23:43.540 a busload of people arrives and let's say it is all men let's say they come here and they are fleeing

00:23:50.080 something um and let's say they all by circumstance found themselves on this one bus into a country and

00:23:58.540 a place they've never been before and they then are expected to live in harmony now those four sons i

00:24:03.920 mentioned earlier if i left them on their own in a room for an hour they are brothers and they love

00:24:09.280 each other but war would break out so my concern is if you are shoehorning people who don't necessarily

00:24:15.540 know each other into a compact area and expect them to live in harmony we're fooling ourselves

00:24:20.460 that's just not going to happen and that our things spill over and they don't have language skills and

00:24:24.700 they probably don't have job skills and if they're allowed to work what are they going to work and if

00:24:28.600 they're not allowed to work what are they going to do all day and it's taking an average of 18 months

00:24:32.900 we understand to process somebody's application for asylum to determine if if they they are eligible

00:24:39.220 to be given asylum that's 18 months where you you don't know who's living in your community

00:24:43.920 and you know and i made the point to somebody before you know i moved into this community nobody

00:24:50.540 knew who i was i'm not from here and people could say well sure fiona you rocked on here and no one

00:24:54.920 knew who you were and no one gave you a hard time about being here but if anyone had come to my door

00:24:58.920 and said sorry we do need to verify who you are i can show my passport i can show my driving license

00:25:03.140 and i can show who i am i've got my papers i've got my documents people do not get on planes without

00:25:08.700 documents how could they come out the other side there's no planes from mogadishu to uh dublin

00:25:13.700 there's no planes from um lagos to to like they come from an intermediary country where we know

00:25:20.920 they're coming through the uk as well right and the uk i've been there it's not a war zone there's

00:25:25.640 no threat to anyone these folks are shopping around how can you deny it what do you mean shopping

00:25:30.620 around shopping around for i mean if they're in france if they're in the uk and they choose to come to

00:25:35.180 ireland listen i just spent some time walking through these grounds i would move here from

00:25:38.980 canada it's so gorgeous that's what i mean by shopping around you could be a refugee claimant in 0.97

00:25:44.100 france or in the uk but why not come to the softest touch why not come for the suckers the suckers who 0.85

00:25:52.320 will abide anything put you up in a luxury four-star hotel on a golf course and let you bring five 1.00

00:25:58.800 family members over i love the irish people but your government is probably the stupidest government 0.98

00:26:05.240 in the west look at they're selling us out there's no you won't get any argument from any of us here 0.99

00:26:09.960 they are selling us out um i think we're we are suckers to put up with what we've put up with

00:26:14.720 and we've got a housing crisis in our in ireland there's a health care crisis in ireland

00:26:18.740 i heard a radio interview yesterday there was a poor mother on her little boy has scoliosis and

00:26:24.540 he's he's gone so our our t-shock our prime minister stood up in our doll our parliament

00:26:29.980 and said that no child with scoliosis would wait longer than more than six months for an operation

00:26:35.640 and this child now his mother is fearful that he's reached the point where he cannot be helped 0.87

00:26:40.060 because he's had to wait so long you know we are suckers for putting putting up with it and 0.96

00:26:44.720 you know we are suckers if we don't hold the government accountable i don't even blame the 0.90

00:26:49.520 people coming in to be honest with you i blame the government for not enforcing our immigration laws 0.89

00:26:53.900 and the amounts of money that they're paying to people who are providing this accommodation

00:26:57.820 is outrageous we're taxpayers we're working our fingers to the bone and we've never had as little

00:27:03.100 to show for it and uh you know if they were to if they were to have the money that there are

00:27:09.420 drastically reduce the money that they're paying people to offer this accommodation i'd love to see

00:27:13.640 how generous these property owners would be in that instance or even if they made them pay tax on it

00:27:18.620 well fiona i want to apply for refugee status because i would live on this golf course in this

00:27:24.560 paradise for 18 months or how long i could get away with it yeah well what i'd say about that is if you

00:27:30.040 do do it soon and enjoy the golf course because our fear is that there there may not be a golf course

00:27:36.540 for finish because one of the the the the points i said earlier if i if i was prepared to sell my soul

00:27:42.060 for money there's an awful lot of land attached to that golf course we see modular homes going up

00:27:47.120 in places in ireland who's to say that don drum isn't next last question for you so you have an

00:27:52.700 encampment here you have about a half a dozen people at this moment i imagine the crowd waxes and wanes

00:27:57.660 maybe even have people here overnight but let's say one night at 2 a.m a big coach bus pulls up with

00:28:04.540 50 souls in it from who knows where and it approaches the gates what happens then i mean

00:28:10.920 what it's it's a moral statement it's a political statement that you're here but

00:28:16.840 they might speed through just as quick as the proprietor did well look i mean i'm sure you

00:28:23.280 won't um you won't be insulted if i say we're going to keep our powder dry in that one we're not going

00:28:27.800 to announce what our plans may or may not be the reality of the situation is we probably don't fully

00:28:32.560 fully know ourselves none of us has ever been in a situation like this before but i want to

00:28:37.060 reiterate the point that we are peaceful protest we've been peaceful from the start and we are

00:28:41.420 we are resolved to be peaceful throughout we've seen and we've seen how things flare up in other

00:28:46.580 communities it hasn't that approach has not worked anywhere else i don't see how it's going to approach

00:28:51.420 how it's going to to work here in dundrum and we will just keep keep fighting and we keep working

00:28:56.880 away in the background and um you know but whatever happens we're not giving up on this we're not

00:29:02.360 giving up on a hotel we want our hotel back we want to bring dundrum back to life and we want to

00:29:06.760 restore dundrum as a destination not a place with tumbleweed in the village that people just drive

00:29:11.580 through on their way to somewhere else thanks so much for for talking with us and educating us

00:29:17.160 and we're going to keep an eye on dundrum and what happens here i won't lie to you fiona i'm pessimistic

00:29:25.260 because i've seen the government's iron resolve i've seen how they've denounced other as you say

00:29:33.240 severely normal or ordinary people they denounce anyone who's worried about their community they

00:29:38.780 call them names they call them racist they call them i don't know it's just far right whatever that

00:29:45.160 means we've been called all of those names but we know who we are you know we're good people we're

00:29:50.500 honest people we're decent people we're just people who want to live our lives in the community that we

00:29:54.620 chose to live in and um that's really what what we want and maybe somewhere that you know if we do

00:30:01.280 have a family celebration or a family um a sad occasion that we have got somewhere to go we want

00:30:06.260 to bring back the the hub of the village this hotel was the jewel in west tipperary and we want to bring

00:30:10.980 and we we actually want the the man who owns it to fulfill his his uh promises to restore the hotel

00:30:18.140 upgrade the golf course although it's already magnificent you saw it yourself bring the pool back

00:30:22.700 into use the leisure center is still in in use and um there was talk of a distillery there as well

00:30:28.880 this place can be absolutely magnificent and if there is a hotel you're out there watching this

00:30:32.620 you've heard ezra say this is a beautiful place a beautiful place to live lovely people the nicest

00:30:37.960 people you'll meet anywhere and if you've got a few bob in your pocket and you want to buy a hotel

00:30:42.160 you'll be guaranteed of our support every friday and saturday night if needs be

00:30:45.760 i tell you i come from a beautiful place alberta canada we think of bamf and lake louise

00:31:02.560 i've been to some beautiful places in the world including davos switzerland when we covered the world

00:31:07.500 economic forum but i have to say walking around the grounds of this hotel and country club and golf

00:31:14.540 club in dundrum ireland it's achingly beautiful it reminds me of the poem by the japanese haiku writer

00:31:23.400 basho who said even in kyoto hearing the cuckoo cry i long for kyoto even when he was there he missed it

00:31:30.660 and that's how i felt walking through this it's an impossible beauty and you ache for it and even

00:31:37.300 though i've never been here before and even though i'm here now i feel nostalgic for it your family

00:31:43.380 once owned this and i can only imagine the love you feel for this place yeah um i have they're nice

00:31:51.920 words by the way because i have a huge connection with this uh with the grounds here with the house

00:31:59.220 itself i grew up here pretty much um my parents bought this uh this place um when i was born the

00:32:09.160 year i was born 1978 and they opened it up as a hotel three years later so it's been in my life from a

00:32:19.060 very um early age and all of my family we worked and lived pretty much lived here um my parents worked

00:32:29.360 very very hard to keep it open as a beautiful hotel um my dad established the grounds as a golf course

00:32:38.040 um during that time as well yeah it's it was our lives i heard that it's the used to be a place

00:32:46.040 where weddings and the grounds are spectacular picturesque i could imagine every weekend there

00:32:51.580 would be a wedding here oh yeah weddings were huge here um because yeah obviously aesthetically

00:32:59.020 beautiful but also there was always a great sense of family within the walls of dundrum house all the

00:33:06.320 people who worked there um you know it was it was wonderful to grow up there

00:33:11.480 and it was from what i heard it was not just a meeting place and a beautiful place aesthetically

00:33:20.260 but it was a hub of economic activity jobs not just jobs for people on the grounds but little

00:33:27.180 contracts in town yeah hugely like so you would have been talking about the 80s and the 90s the 80s

00:33:33.780 were a time where people didn't actually have a huge amount people were happy but had didn't have a

00:33:40.100 whole lot um community was really really important really really strong we were there for each other

00:33:46.880 everybody who worked there you know were able to uh raise their families from that um lots of us went

00:33:55.280 through college uh earning our keep there um there was always i i don't think anyone would disagree with

00:34:03.460 the fact that people who worked there we all felt like family like look there's always ups and downs

00:34:10.540 in any situation but i have to say i learned so much from from being part of dundrum house hotel as it

00:34:18.620 was now it feels disconnected now there's secrecy not family now there's backroom deals with the

00:34:28.800 government no scrutiny no open house we saw the owner speed in today didn't stop hasn't made himself

00:34:36.820 available is taking this beautiful place and is ringing it out for money selling selling it not to

00:34:45.200 the local community but selling it to the politicians for their own uses for mass immigration how do you

00:34:50.700 feel about that deeply disappointed deeply deeply disappointed with what's going on nationwide um we are

00:34:59.180 just one of many communities dealing with this this place here dundrum house has still got huge

00:35:06.580 potential to provide uh jobs for our community to provide a place for people to come and stay 0.95

00:35:14.420 and enjoy themselves and go back and tell other people about it uh dundrum is a beautiful beautiful place

00:35:22.000 um i love it very much um it's very sad that the government are doing this to the people of ireland

00:35:30.800 that we have to stand here for weeks on end um it's

00:35:38.040 it feels like an invasion of sorts you know we're not getting a chance to have our say we feel very

00:35:47.620 disempowered and that is a crazy crazy place to be um it's hard to believe yeah it's hard to believe

00:35:57.220 that dundrum house is going through this change um you know and as i said it's nationwide there's many

00:36:06.280 communities being affected by this and we we need to be heard we all have a voice here and we should

00:36:13.140 be heard it's very very important but why why would it be sold out is it just about money is there

00:36:19.880 another force at work why would the government be doing this this is such a picturesque and historical

00:36:25.280 area the rock of cash flow there's there's there's history and culture and language and community

00:36:32.240 and continuity and suddenly the whole population of dundrum is being tripled by people we don't even

00:36:40.120 know who they are i don't understand it why is this happening well look that's i don't know if that's a

00:36:45.580 question for me i don't know if that's even something that we can answer right now um ultimately there

00:36:52.160 are decisions being made and by whom well they're made up in government um are they even being made in

00:37:00.200 ireland again i don't know that that's a question for me right now because it's so huge

00:37:07.580 your family's i'll move away from the political questions i understand that that's not your area

00:37:14.060 of expertise your expertise is this place you grew up here you worked here this was your home and

00:37:18.860 and your your personal home and your communal home what does the rest of your family think about this

00:37:24.060 what is the rest of community what do people in dundrum think about this is it split or is it

00:37:29.720 overwhelming are people afraid to speak out lest they be called racist or something well definitely

00:37:34.840 at the beginning there was a huge element when we started this protest um the word racist was being

00:37:41.140 used or far right or whatever even that mean i know well look ultimately they're just words that are

00:37:49.080 probably put out there to suppress us keep us down keep us quiet um which is you know it's very

00:37:57.480 important that we uh have a freedom of speech that we get to say how we feel i think there is nothing

00:38:05.100 at all wrong with the fact that we stand here for our community we have we have genuine concerns

00:38:12.120 genuine genuine concerns you mentioned about population and the you know we've a relatively small

00:38:18.500 population here and it will be doubled uh quite possibly in time um i don't know that we're ready

00:38:26.640 for that um i don't know that we have the services in place for that we're already under immense pressure

00:38:33.980 let me ask you one last question you grew up here so did your whole family

00:38:38.900 is there any sense that it's possible to take this back to take this hotel back it's got so much

00:38:47.180 potential i've got to say just as a prospective tourist like this is such a gem instead of transforming it

00:38:55.000 into a refugee camp i i've got to think that there's some tycoon or maybe just a group of people who buy it

00:39:02.820 back is that a possibility or am i dreaming well i'm dreaming that same dream um i would so love as i'm

00:39:11.640 sure many others would to see dundrum house hotel being run as it is meant to be um to provide as i

00:39:23.220 already said for the community in the way it's like it was a place for people to come together

00:39:28.680 uh whether it was a wedding or whether it was a funeral it was a place where people would come

00:39:33.880 together there has been amazing times spent in there you know people have so many stories so many

00:39:43.380 stories it's endless and for it would be a dream come true for it to serve in that way again in the

00:39:52.040 future it would be a dream it would be a dream well that's our show for today what do you think of that

00:40:00.080 until next time on behalf of all of us here at rebel news to you at home good night and keep fighting

00:40:07.400 for freedom

00:40:08.040 for freedom

Rebel News Podcast - July 18, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Ireland belongs to the Irish people, not 'bogus refugees'

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