I really feel for the family given all they’ve been through but I think they’ll end up as a textbook example of how not to conduct yourselves in a highly charged situation.

How the actions of some of the children were construed, and the subsequent fervour that that was whipped up around Blanchardstown in the aftermath of the shooting really emboldened the racists to conduct this type of behaviour. I think what also badly upended support for the family was this ‘all white/Irish people are racist’ rhetoric that was bandied around on Twitter and in opinion pieces in the press, such to the point where normal people just weren’t even willing to defend them against actual racists.