DUNMANWAY- based rights activist Fiona O’Leary has said she welcomes the news that the Irish government has been reprimanded by the European Commission over its failure to update legislation to combat racism and xenophobia, in line with EU law.
The Commission said recently that the Irish courts were not considering racism or xenophobia as a motive by those carrying out crimes, including Holocaust denial.
Ms O’Leary has been campaigning for some years against ultra conservative group SSPX Resistance, founded by convicted Holocaust denier Richard Williamson, who have a base at a former farm at Reenascreena outside Dunmanway.
The farmhouse was purchased by a ‘Fr Giacomao Ballini’ in 2016 – who is the head of the Irish arm of the group.
SSPX is a disgruntled spin-off from the controversial Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) group, founded in 1970 by former archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who clashed with the church following his rejection of Vatican II reforms.
One of the founding members of the SSPX Resistance is convicted Holocaust denier Richard Williamson, who visited the West Cork premises and said mass there in 2020.
In a letter to the Irish government, the EU Commission said Ireland ‘has not fully transposed the provisions related to incitement to hatred or violence, including the condoning, denial or gross trivialisation of international crimes and the Holocaust’.
Ms O’Leary was arrested in 2020 after visiting the SSPX site in Reenascreena. ‘When I went to the gardaí in 2020 to tell them of my concerns about this group, I thought, in my naivete, that Holocaust denial was a crime,’ she said.
She had hoped the gardaí would investigate her fears about the group and their links to Holocaust deniers. But the activist was shocked when she was, instead, arrested for trespass. After a court case in 2023, Ms O’Leary, a mother of five, from Dunmanway, was sentenced to 60 days’ jail, suspended for two years, and was ordered not to post anything on social media ‘that is abusive or offensive to any person’ – an order which Ms O’Leary described as effectively ‘gagging’ her. After challenging the order via a judicial review, the ‘gag order’ was quashed.
This week Ms O’Leary said she was hopeful that SSPX could now be challenged under hatred legislation. ‘The head of the sect in West Cork was recently seen with a holocaust denier in the Philippines, and Fr Ballini also runs an organisation – the Society of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary – which has been approved by the Irish Charities Regulator,’ she said.
The Regulator said it does not comment on ‘individual charities’.
