The former lord mayor of Dublin has revealed he was hospitalised following a racist attack in west London on Tuesday night.
Nial Ring, 63, travelled to London to watch Chelsea play Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday night.
After attending the game, Mr Ring said he and his son, Emmet, went to a pub in Fulham where they were racially abused and assaulted.
“The two of us were sitting down,” Mr Ring told RTE’s Liveline.
“Emmet went up to get a drink and I noticed he’s having an altercation with a chap about the same age as himself, in his mid-20s. I got up and told him to leave it, and it turns out the man had been saying ‘f**k off back to Ireland you Irish pigs’.
“At this stage I went back over to Emmet and we’re getting out of here, let’s get out. And then another guy in his mid-40s started shouting.
“We had no way out except to go past them so I said ‘just calm down and everything will be okay’, but this fella came over, started arguing again.
“Next thing he hits Emmet, full smack in the face, so Emmet sort of went backwards, I turned around and from another group, some fella threw a bottle and hit me in the head.
“I staggered, blood all over the place, and then the next thing that fella started wading in and throwing digs again. So we had to respond.”
Both Mr Ring and his son were hospitalised with facial injuries. Mr Ring added that two men had been arrested following the “xenophobic attack”.
“It was overtly racist. I’ve gone to Chelsea matches for years and there is a huge anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant group, there is a group there who are absolutely appalling, but it’s just what it is.
“We were called Irish everything and it was ‘get back to your country’ and I mean you hear it here in some of the protests, and we don’t want that.
“I thought the days of the no Irish, no blacks, no dogs were well over in England.”
The Met Police has been approached for comment.
