A Dublin councillor and his son were subjected to a vicious attack while on a trip to London to watch a football game because they were Irish.
Independent Councillor Nial Ring and his son Emmet were innocently having a pint after watching a Chelsea football match when their accents drew the attention of other punters. The Councillor said four English men attacked them for being Irish.
Cllr Ring told Joe Duffy's Liveline: "Myself and Emmet, we went over to the Chelsea vs Dortmund match. I hadn't been there in a good while.
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"Now I have to say I am a Shels fan first then Chelsea. We went to the match and met a few of the Irish lads over there and had a bit of craic in the local pubs and that.
"We were on the way back to our hotel and we stopped into the lobby for a pint - you know, one for the road as they say. The two of us were sitting down and Emmet went up to get a drink.
"I noticed he was having an altercation with a chap about the same age as himself - in his mid 20s or so. I got up and said, 'c'mon, leave this'."
Cllr Ring added that the man had been telling his son to "f**k off back to Ireland" and used other derogatory terms such as "Irish pig". Nial tried to get himself and his son out of the situation but another English man in his 40s intervened.
Cllr Ring said: "He started shouting stuff across at us. We had no way out except to go past him. But this fella came over and started arguing again.
"I tried to say, 'c'mon let's leave it. We are all grown men'. My fighting days are well over."
"Next thing he hits Emmet full smack in the face. So Emmet sort of went backwards. I turned around and some fella threw a bottle and hit me on the head."
"I staggered and there is blood all over the place. Next thing the other fella waded in and started throwing digs again.
"So we had to respond and suddenly there were four of them. We were trying to fight our way out more or less.
"You don't know how long something like that goes on for but it seemed like an eternity before the police arrived. It was a horrible experience - a xenophobic attack. We just want to forget about it."
Despite the horrific ordeal, Cllr Ring and his son did not want to press charges. They wanted to simply forget about the whole thing.
But after the police told them about what they saw on the CCTV, they changed their minds. Cllr Ring said: "I was in the hospital for about an hour or so and one of the police came in and said, 'Look we have actually looked at the CCTV. It was a totally unprovoked attack on you'."
The police officer added that one of them threw a chair at Nial and it would have hit him in the head if the Cllr hadn't of moved. They added that they were "definitely" charging the attackers and that two of them were arrested.
Cllr Ring added: "It was just a vicious, racist-motivated attack. I thought those days were gone."
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