Dublin has now joined every other major city in Western Europe in making armoured barriers, designed to prevent the vehicle attacks that have been seen in London, Berlin, Nice, New York, Stockholm and other cities and urban areas.
The new protective measures, dubbed “diversity barriers” in Germany and France, mark a sad fact of reality for Dubliners, that they too may face the prospect of random and savage violence at the hands of religious fanatics.
In December, when more of these measures were rolled out in Europe, activists in Germany ironically daubed many of these barriers with the words “Danke Merkel” in reference to Merkel’s flagship policy of open borders to Muslim migrants which many have directly linked to multitude of terrorist atrocities across Europe.
While the likelihood of an attack in Ireland remains relatively low, Gardaí, emergency responders and the Defence Forces have been regularly training for a multitude of potential scenarios involving a terrorist attack.