On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings the crowds reach 2,000 people. encountered riot police defending Citywest, a hotel and conference center southwest of Dublin that has become the state's largest shelter for asylum seekers. The area has one of the highest rates of spoiled ballots.
And on Friday, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou Macdonald, who decided not to run for president herselfwas subjected to vulgar threats by an anti-immigration activist while she was campaigning in her central Dublin constituency for Connolly. The person who posted video footage his verbal attacks on Macdonald and other Sinn Féin propagandists, were arrested on Saturday.
Humphreys, who stepped into the breach when Fine Gael's original candidate, former European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness, quit the race citing health problems, he admitted defeat a few hours before the official result. Humphreys also raised concerns about rising levels of harassment on social media.
Humphreys, a member of the Irish Republic's tiny Protestant minority, said she had no regrets about running despite a barrage of online abuse disparaging her family's background. She said the acrimony showed her country was not yet ready to reconcile and potentially unite, as Irish nationalists want, with Protestants in the neighboring British territory of Northern Ireland.
“My family and I were subjected to absolutely horrific religious abuse. As a country, I thought we had moved on from that,” Humphreys said. “If we ever want to have a united Ireland, we must respect all traditions.”
