January 18, 2025

By Sarah Burke

Recently, a playground in Dublin 4 had “sickening graffiti” including racist, anti-semitic and misogynistic comments.

Fine Gael Councillor James Geoghegan stated that a resident of Ballsbridge alerted him about the vandalism at Herbert Park and sent him photos of the playground.

Cllr Geoghegan said: “Everything had been defaced, with the most disgusting writing, such as swastikas, anti-Jewish symbols, Neanderthal racist slurs and misogynistic contents.”

The park has a lot of diversity. It is truly sickening to bring your children to the local playground and see this.

He added, “I have never seen anti-semitic or racist graffiti. This is an all new low. Especially with what’s happening in the world right now.”

In council meetings, there has been discussion about whether CCTV cameras in playgrounds should be installed to capture acts of vandalism.

It’s disgusting. And the fact that we would have to install a CCTV around a play area to capture these criminals, is equally gross,” said cllr Geoghegan.

Nobody wants to see a “big brother” approach on playgrounds. But we must make it clear that such behavior will not be tolerated.

I think we could use more engagement from the local gardai. Residents working together with local gardai will increase the visibility of the local gardai.

There have been more patrols in Ranelagh, as burglaries increased recently. He added: “I see Gardai in the parks and maybe more community meetings will help.”

The garda confirmed that they were “investigating an act of criminal damages which occurred in Herbert Park, Dublin 4 on Thursday October 12,”.

Dublin City Council was contacted to get a comment.

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