Martina Devlin: Absence of prosecutions makes State look weak and gives far-right arsonists fuel to push sinister agenda

A placard is displayed during a march by anti-immigration protesters in Dublin city centre on Monday. Photo: Collins

Martina Devlin

Humans have been burning things for millennia. Books were set on fire to control dissenting voices; the property of authority figures was set ablaze in resistance to their laws; streets and communities were burned out as an act of war or intimidation; and individual people were ceremonially reduced to ashes because of religious differences.

Torching something is a highly symbolic deed – a shock-and-awe action that causes alarm, and sometimes injury and death. It is used to express social, economic, religious and political grievances.