I headed into Dublin customs tired yet bright eyed with excitement! I was waved over to a customs window and this is where the shocking set of events began!
The immigration official harshly said, “Where are your documents?”
My chipper demeanor did not bode well with this customs teller.
I quickly handed him my passport.
“What are you doing in Dublin?”
“How long are you staying?”
His eyes frantically moved from me, to my passport, then to the long line behind me, and back to me, as he tightly held my passport in his left hand. His irritation was obvious, so I quickly told him again about how excited I am to be in Dublin, and that I planned to be there for a month. Before I even finished saying the word month, he said with volcanic anger, “Alright, what's your deal?!”
“What is your real reason for being here?!”
I said with excitement but shocked by his rising disdain for me that I had come to travel.
He was outraged, “What's your real reason for being here, because I'm not buying it?! I’m not buying that you’re here for travel, that's f**king bollocks!”
I’m just here to travel…
The immigration officer shouted, “Why are you really here?!”
“Did you meet someone on the internet?”
“Did you meet someone online?”
“Is it a scam you’ve gotten yourself into?”
No! No! I just came here to travel because I love Ireland!
I started weeping and he said, “Shut up! Stop your f**king crying because that doesn’t work on me! Stop your f**king crying! Stop it! He looked around frantically at the people in the line behind me, then at me, and he kept looking back and forth, from them to me. The official wildly said again, “Stop it! Shut up! Stop crying!” I started hyperventilating and trying to control my tears, but the more I tried to hold back my tears the worse it became; it was worse! Horrible!
Then he got quiet with me and he said, “Okay just let me know why you are here. I just want to know why you are really here.”
I said again to him that I had just come to travel. I wanted to come to Ireland since I was little. He screamed again, “That’s f**king bollocks! That’s a bunch of lies! You are lying!”
Then the official said, “Where’s your documentation?” I pointed, confused by his question because he had my passport in his hand still. He yelled, “No, where is your documentation?!”
My phone had no charge because the battery had died. I was going to pull up the hotel to show it to him that I really did have the reservations, and then he asked me, “Okay, so how long were you going to stay at the hotel?” I was still in shock that he wasn’t being civil and was full of rage towards me. I told him I was going to stay at the first hotel for seven days, and then make reservations with a Bed and Breakfast when I arrived.
“That’s bollocks! What’s your real reason for being here? What’s your real reason for being here?!”
To travel, I said! I really am here to travel!
“You’re not f**king traveling! That’s f’**king bollocks! You can’t possibly be here for that reason! That’s… You got an f**king hotel for seven days, and you expect me to believe that?!”
“Where are your bags?!”
I told the official that my bags are right here, and I pointed to near my feet. I just had my purse and one large carry-on bag. I told him again I have two.
He said, “You don’t have any checked bags that have gone to baggage claim?!”
I said, no.
“Do you expect me to believe that you packed those bags for a month?!”
I said to him, it’s really full. It really is! I told the official that I did that on purpose, because I was afraid of having to worry about lost luggage. I emphatically told him that what I was saying really was true, and that I tried to pack light. “You want me to f**king believe that! Bollocks! Bollocks! You're full of it and f**king lying. You expect me to believe that?! …that one bag is what you have for a month?!”
This official said, “What’s the name of the hotel again?” I told him the Dublin Ballymun hotel, so he went to look through his phone book, and he said, “I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you! See, it’s not even here! It’s not here!” Then I sadly said to him, it really is a place!
“So how long were you going to stay there? How many days?” I told him again, I was going to stay there for seven days. “Then what were you going to do?” I planned to stay at the Fitzwilliam Bed and Breakfast. He proceeded to call the Fitzwilliam B&B, and I said to him that I didn’t make a reservation with them yet, because I was going to wait till I got to the Hotel Ballymun. He said, “Hmm…” I was in shock because I told him the truth and he wouldn’t believe what I said. He got so angry that he ended up calling different hotels and different places and he ended up calling some information center. Finally he did get the number for the Ballymun Hotel.
“What’s your real reason for being here?” He would ask me again, “How much money did you come with?” “How many bags did you say you carried?” “How many siblings do you have?” “Where are you from?” He would ask me all these questions over and over again to see if my answers would change, but I always answered the same way, because I was telling him the truth! This immigration officer became more and more hostile.
When he did call the Ballymun Hotel, he screamed at the person on the phone, and said, “How much does it cost per night? If you don’t f**king tell me how much it is? …This is the f**king immigration at the airport! Tell me how much it is!” He said, “Okay.” This immigration officer then said, “Do you have someone registered under the last name Facey?” He hung up the phone and asked me again, “So how many days did you say you were going to stay with them again?!” I told him seven day, but he kept asking me questions over again.
I told him that my phone just needed to be charged, because I have all of my reservation information on it. “Give it to me! Let me see it!” I handed him the phone and the charger. He didn’t really know what to do with the phone. “I can’t be f**king doing this for everyone! If I f**king do this…” I quickly said I know sir! I’m so sorry! I understand… “I can’t be f**king doing this! This was your responsibility to have this information!”
“What’s your real reason for being here?! Are you bored? It doesn’t add up. Did you need something new because you’re bored with your life? What’s your real reason for being here?!” I said to travel again. “So you want me to f**king believe you’ve come here to stay for a month to travel? You don’t have any documentation! It’s not adding up! It doesn’t add up!”
“You know what; I am sending you back right now because you aren’t telling me the truth! It doesn’t add up and you aren’t telling me your real reason for being here! I am going to send you back right now. I’m not saying you can’t come back to Dublin, but you won’t tell me the truth, so I’m just sending you back!” I started crying again and he said, “Stop crying, I already told you not to cry! It just pisses me off more! It doesn’t affect me at all!” I said to the officer that I just felt so bad, because I have always wanted to travel here, and that I am sad that I won’t be able to see Dublin. “What were you going to see?” I excitedly said the Blarney stone, Cork, and Temple bar. He said, “Okay, that is two days, what were you going to do for the rest?” I said that I wish my phone was charged because there is a site I was looking at called Discovering Ireland. The immigration officer shouted, “But where else!” I mentioned Kilarney, EN Dublin, Trinity College, and Westport too. He was outraged! “Okay, stop it! I am sending you back! There is no f**king way I can believe any of this! If you would have just told me the truth… I am sending you back right now.”
The immigration officer handed me my phone back and he said, “Come with me! Come with me!” And he took me to another room and said, “I will take you here to charge your phone.” He took me to a little waiting room two booths down from his customs teller’s window. He had me sit there for a while and he came back and said, “Do you have your phone charged yet?” And I told him, you said there was no outlet in here, and he said, “Oh yeah, yeah, that’s right. Follow me! Come with me!”
He took me to an immigration custom’s room, but he didn’t tell me anything. Nothing! And then he locked me in a small, rectangular-shaped room that felt like a closet. It had four silver chair and closed blinds. I sat down, and suddenly he locked me in there! He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing or what was going on! He came back about forty-five minutes later with a piece of paper. The first sheet of paper said that there is reason to believe that the non-national intends to enter the State for purposes other than those expressed by the non-national. He shouted, “Are you going to sign it?” I shook my head no, and he yelled, “So you’re not going to sign it?” I cried no, this isn’t true, because I just came here to travel. He left and locked the door and then came back about fifteen minutes later and brought a second piece of paper that said that the non-national is not in a position to support himself or herself and any accompanying dependents. “Are you going to sign it?” I said I just want to stay here in Dublin. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just want to travel in Dublin. “You aren’t well prepared to be in Dublin!” He shouted again, “So you aren’t going to sign them?” I shook my head no and before he locked the door, the official said, “So you refuse?” I nodded and he angrily locked the door again. I could hear this official yelling, “She refuses to sign; she refused!” He left me in the room for hours, and then unlocked the door and brought me copies of the papers and wrote on these papers that I refused to sign, and walked out and didn’t say a word to me and locked the door. He didn’t come back. I was in there for around forty-five minutes again, and I never saw him again. I could hear rustling and someone going through my carry-on bags, and putting things on a table outside the locked door.
I had over a thousand US dollars that I had converted to Euros, and also a bank card in case I should need more money, so what he said was untrue.
I was locked in this room and it was all about what you could hear, because I could hear people outside of the door arguing regarding me. It was suspenseful and I was extremely afraid! I heard a woman’s voice outside the door, and she said, “You know from the video, I can tell that she wasn’t lying. She is really just here to travel.” Then I heard the hostile official who intimidated me, yelling at the woman saying, “But I don’t know who she is! I don’t know who she! No, I just feel there is some other reason!” The woman said, “But I don’t think that’s true; I think she’s telling you the truth, and you’re wrong!” The enraged officer said to her, “She’s lying! We’ll just have to choose to disagree because I know there is some other reason!” It felt like they were quarreling for ten minutes.
Two men, I had never seen, unlocked the door and came in. I was frightened and the whole time they were shouting, “Come this way! Come this way! They kept expecting me to know where to go, but I didn’t! They still kept my bags and wouldn’t let me touch them. All the time I was in that room they were searching through my bags. I wasn’t allowed to take my bags. All I was allowed to take with me was the money I had, and they still had my passport and wouldn’t return it to me! I didn’t even have my identification. Crazy! The two men sternly said, “Come here!” These men took me through all these locked doors; they finally took me through another door.
I was petrified, because the door was to a deserted garage… …a deserted, paved garage! There were only a few huge vans with no windows in it. I mean these vans were the kind that you would see in Burn Notice! It looked like a SWAT van. It was an unmarked, windowless van! They opened the back of the van and forced me into a barred cage with thin black benches on each side. That’s it! I started weeping!
Mind you I was in shock! The last thing I heard was that I was getting sent back to Toronto right away, but I was fearful for my life now! I was scared that they would take me somewhere and kill me! The back of the caged van was frigid, horrible, and I kept slipping off the bench; there was nothing to hold onto. I couldn’t see anything! I couldn’t see any of Dublin! I had no clue where I was being taken. I was traumatized and alarmed! All I had was my little pink money bag with me. We were driving for a bit and there were lots of turns, curves and stops, and I kept falling off of the bench, because there was nothing I could hold onto; I had to slap the side of the walls of the cage because I was being tossed around! I can’t see anything and I have no clue where I am. One of the men open the locked cage, and takes me into this facility that is loud and noisy. You can’t really understand what people are saying in this place because it’s like a mad house! I was standing there so intimidated and fearful. I kept saying that I didn’t know what was going on and asked what was going on, but my questions were never answered! I don’t know why I am even here! Where am I? The man said, “We are going to come back for you in the morning and he left me there!” I was forced through a glass door I didn’t have access to anything! The immigration officials kept my passport the whole, entire time, and all of my bags! They had everything. EVERYTHING!
The woman talked to me and said all kinds of stuff but I didn't understand her jargon. She assumed that I was supposed to automatically understand what was going on and what the place was about. What is this place?! Where am I? What is here?
Suddenly a woman said, “Wait here! Come! Come on!” I was ordered to go through another door, and she would loudly say again, “Wait here! Okay, come on!” I was taken to a little entry way. There’s a bathroom to my right and then when I passed that bathroom it came to this little desk around the corner. There was a red head and she orders me to fill out information. “Put your name here! Your information!” She flipped open a huge documentation book, and she was writing in my name, time, etc. “Okay how much money do you have?” The red-head ordered me to give her my money bag and my hat. Then, a brunette working with the red-head said, “Okay get in there!” I said, go in where? “In the shower now!” Confused I said, in the shower?! “Strip down! Get in there! I said, Um, what?! The brunette shouted, “Give me your clothes!” Frustrated she screamed, “We need to check your clothes!”
All this time they are getting annoyed with me because I don’t know what is going on. I freak out! What?! I had to take off every single article of clothing… I was totally naked! I was naked! Naked and standing there in shock and I said, this is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me! The brunette rolls her eyes at me. And I said, ...ever in my life! The brunette says, “Okay, whatever give me your clothes!” The brunette took all my clothing from me, and all I had was a towel! She handed me a soap bar and a packet of shampoo and conditioner. I stared at her in shock, and she said, “You just go in there! Go in there!” Irritated, she shouted, “Keep pushing the button till the water gets hot!” I kept pushing it because it was freezing. It is crazy because all of the doors lock except for the showers and bathrooms which you would want those to lock! Crazy! So the shower finally heats up and I am wondering if I am going to be able to get my clothes back. My mind is racing! I had to take a shower and I was naked in this place with no name! I don’t know where I am, so then finally I wrap myself in the towel and I said, do I come out, what do I do? Can I get my clothes back? I have no clue what is going on and my questions were not answered, and when they were, it was vague and short. The brunette said, “Yeah, here are your clothes!” She pitched a chair with my clothes into the shower with me! I walked backwards into this small shower, and got dressed.
Perturbed, the red-head said, “Do you know why you’re here? Do you understand? Did someone explain that to you?” I said I don’t know what’s going on! This is crazy! I don’t know what’s happening! She harshly said, “Okay, you didn’t have a visa!” I say again, I don’t know what this place is! I don’t know what’s going on! She said, “You’re basically here because you didn’t have a visa!”They still wouldn’t tell me where I was when I asked them. And they said, “Okay, come in here in this room, because the nurse has to check you out first!”
There was this big clear plastic bag on the floor that they said belonged to me now, and I asked where I need to put the towel, and they said, “You have to hold onto it because it is yours.” The bag had a comforter, a nightgown, and some kind of bathrobe, and two bars of soap, a sheet, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. All of that stuff was just thrown into this bag. “Leave your towel there; just leave your towel there! Go in there!”
They put me in this tiny room that was smaller than the room I was locked away in at the immigration office. They locked the door. It smelled horrible! There were cigarette butts and strings that are attached to bras that were lying on the filthy, disgusting ground. The smell was horrendous! There was this perverse newspaper on the ground with vile images of women, and a carton of cigarettes resting on top of that newspaper. There were a row of blue chairs that were broken and worn down by dirt and nasty gunk! All of the walls were covered in carved writing and revolting comments. I decided I didn’t want to sit down! I kind of stood in that tiny room and I just started singing songs. Before I was locked in the room, they made me get on a scale and I just started weeping, because the brunette shouted out to the red head for records how may stones I was. I sat in the chair crying and she said, “Okay I need you to fill this out and I need to ask you some more information. I have your money here and I need you to see that I am counting it out in front of you!”
She told me that she needed to take my hat and then I kept touching my hair and she said, “Your hair is fine!” I was still kind of crying and she I started touching my hair again and she screamed, “Your hair is fine don’t touch your hair, your hair is fine!”
I promise you I was in that locked room for two hours! All I heard was people screaming and making frightening sounds! I didn’t know what was going on; I had to just go by the sounds I was hearing! It’s all about the sounds! The suspense and the sounds were alarming. That is when I started singing songs and I heard them outside saying she hasn’t even been here that long and she is singing songs. I was trying to make this place that was not normal, normal for me. I started braiding my hair because I was held in that small room for over three and a half hours.
Eventually they opened the door and then I was taken somewhere, but I am yelled at every moment. “Make sure you take this!” It was the clear plastic bag with the comforter and sheets in it. I still had no clue what was going on. They open another locked door and I went through and it’s like a courtyard. “Come with me! Come on! Wait here! Come on! Wait here! Okay let’s go, come through this door! Wait here! Sit there!” I sat down with the huge plastic bag full of bedding in my hands. The red head had to knock and wait for the nurse to answer the door. She left and the nurse didn’t come out until approximately forty minutes later even though she saw me there.
Someone banged on the door and it startled me, and the nurse said, “Oh, it’s okay.” Appalled, I said, no, this is crazy! She said, “I wouldn’t call it that.” I said, this is insane and crazy! This is mad! I was irritated and confused because no one would give me answers! They walked me through the locked doors and said, “Take your bag! Pick up your bag! Let’s go! Bring your bag in here!” The nurse had me sit down and took my blood pressure and my temperature. She asked me all these questions about my health. I kept answering. No! No! Nope! No! Nope! No! No! No! No! She said, “You are very healthy then.”
She asked me if I am on any medications. Did I have any allergies? Did I want any medications? She escorted me to another room and ordered me to give her a urine sample. She put my urine into a container and told me that this will tell her if I had anything in my system. Hashish, cocaine, speed, heroine, vicodan, and I said what’s hashish? She said surprised, you know, hash, pot, marijuana, and she rattled off other names for it. She then says I need to take a pregnancy test and that’s when I said, I’m a virgin, and she said, “That’s fine, but we still need to take the test because we can’t have someone who’s pregnant riding with other prisoners.” This is the first time I heard the word prisoner! I freaked out and I was in utter shock! She said with surprise, “Yep, you’re not pregnant, and I can also tell you that you don’t have hashish in your system; you don’t have cocaine or speed in your system, and you don’t have heroine or vicodan in your system.” After these examinations she sent me off with someone else who said, “Wait here! Stop! Grab your bag! Come here! Stop!”
Another door was unlocked and I was in a doorway where there were all these girls walking through the hall. Then she said, “Come on! Stop!” I finally realized that you are supposed to wait till they opened the door and then you were supposed to immediately go through it when it opens, but how was I to know that. “We are going to put you in the room with two others.”
Ten minutes later she takes me down a hallway to another unknown room. "I am going to be putting you in a room with Becky and Angie. You’re not on any medications are you?” I said, no, I am not! She told me, “The doors lock at seven o’clock.” This female officer turned to the nurse who had come upstairs through the locked door, and she asked her if it is okay for me to go outside, and I realized I was a prisoner, and the nurse said, “Yes that is fine.” She takes me down to the room and it is number four and I go into this room and it has a cloud of smoke There are two people. There is one girl wrapped in her comforter like a cocoon, and then the other was smoking and sipping tea. Three beds are in this room in a row. “She said this is going to be your bed,” pointing at the middle bed. “Spread up your bed and you can go with Angie. If you need to know anything she will let you know.”
I start to spread up my bed and Angie said, “I’ll help you!” Angie apologizes for the smoky room. I was trying not to be rude to them, because they didn’t do anything and didn’t know what was going on, so I couldn’t take it out on them. Angie chatted with me while she helped me spread up my bed;
Becky was wrapped in her comforter to the point where you could barely see her eyes and she had dark hair. She had some greeting cards above her head. The television was on.
Angie said she was about to go for a walk, and asked me if I wanted to go. She and I go in the courtyard and walk around and she tells me about the place. She told me that it is a detention center for women and it is the Gaelic word for hope. Angie starts talking to me about certain women there being in gangs and gave me her background; she told me about the building where she and Becky were previously, and how they needed to get away from the gang, and how they really felt safe being locked away because it protects them.
They locked us away and they said they lock the door at seven o’clock. Becky opened up and shared with me too, and she didn’t ever really converse with anyone, and would lay in her bed depressed, but when I got there, she became responsive. Becky and Angie kept saying it was wrong that I was there. “You don’t belong here. You don’t belong here! You are so lucky because you get to leave. You are so lucky! You are such a positive person. You are such a breath of fresh air.”
We had no concept of time We only knew the time based on what the officers told us. It felt like every thirty minutes the lights were turned on suddenly, and an officer would look through an oval-shaped, wooden peephole, and that happened over ten times. I was constantly startled and would hop up on the cot.
Finally, I was awakened to the bright light coming on and an Asian officer saying that it’s time to go! She told me she would come back for me in ten minutes. She came back and was surprised that I had all my comforters and sheets folded. This officer took me through all these locked doors.
The officers made me take off all of my articles of clothing again, checked my clothes, and then had me dress again. Once again they locked me in a room, and said that they immigration officers were coming to get me. They finally came about forty-five minutes later and the morning warden wondered where my bags were and was screaming at the other officer. I heard her saying to the other officer to bring me out! She asked me where my bags and stuff was, and I said the immigration officers kept them. She was shocked and said, "they have all of your stuff?!” The officers in the prison unlocked the door and told me to go through the glass door.
Two young men had the word Garda on their uniforms. They took me in a little car marked Garda, and brought me back to the airport. That is the first time I saw any of Ireland. I eventually asked the guys what time it was and they said it was 6:50a.m. We arrived at the paved garage where I was taken from previously, and I asked them if it is okay for me to get out of the vehicle, and the officers said, “Yes!” They took me through looked doors and back to the immigration office, and I went to pick up my bags and they stopped me and locked me in a different room. I was held in there for at least two and a half hours! No one came in and no one talked to me, but I could hear many officials passing by outside of my locked room. I could also hear them in the office next to the room where I was held. I could hear officials arguing with each other, and there was a woman who was saying, “She is a black girl and she has rights! A man said, “But she doesn’t have a visa!”And the woman shouted, “But she has a US passport!” I could hear them yelling at each other.
There were more officials who kept passing by my door and leaving the office, but there was one man who was going to leave, and he stopped and looked at me in the locked room, and went back into the office and I could hear him saying, “Did she eat anything? Didn’t she get here very early? Get her something!” Someone else shouted, “I’m not getting her any f**king thing!” About fifteen minutes later, two men opened the locked door and I asked where my passport was, and he told me that the pilot had my passport, and that he was going to talk to me after I arrived in Canada. I asked if I could get my bags and he said, “Yes, are these your three bags?” I said I only have two. I picked up my bags and they took me through locked doors again and brought me back into the paved garage and put me in the caged van again.
They did not talk to me at all and then I said, may I please ask a question, and one of the officers said, “Yes.” I asked, could you please tell me what is going on? Mind you the last time they told me they were taking me to the plane, they really brought me to some unknown prison. He interrupted me and said, “You are going to the plane and going back to Canada.” I said, and then, what about after that? The officer said, “There will probably be some officials to meet you in Canada, and then you will go to your next destination after that. The pilot has your passport and he is going to talk to you after you arrive. Did someone not tell you? Oh I thought someone told you.”
They were still trying to intimidate me! I waited in the back of this caged van humiliated and then, forty-five minutes later, they told me I could get on the plane. As I walked up to the plane I indistinctly heard one of the men say, “Sorry!” I couldn’t believe he could possibly be talking to me, because they hadn’t spoken to me the majority of the time, so I kept walking up the ramp onto the plane. I had so much fear and hesitancy because I didn’t want to make anyone angry, and I had just been in a prison where I had no freedoms or rights, but they welcomed me onto the plane. Then before I was through the door, one of the officials called my name, “Marini!” I turned around and he came up the ramp half-way to meet me. He said, “When you arrive to Canada, they will show you where to go from there, okay.”
I got on the plane but I still felt shaky and scared! Air Canada flight attendants were surprised I was there, because I was on their flight two days ago, and they were shocked when I briefly told them what happened to me. I was treated with dignity again, and one of the flight attendants brought me a large pillow, because she was concerned that I didn’t get any sleep because of the circumstances. I felt normal again for the first time, but was still intimidated and fearful because they said the pilot wants to talk to me after we arrived. When we go to Toronto, the pilot didn’t meet with me, and one of the women from Toronto customs asked the flight attendant where my passport was, and they told her someone took it down the terminal aisle, and she said, “We don’t do that! We don’t take people’s passports from them!” She ran down the ramp and came back with my passport. The custom’s official asked me what was going on because she was clueless and appalled! She treated me with respect; she took me to a custom’s information booth to look up my flight, and the person behind the counter was surprised I wasn’t given a direct flight, because it was available. She was confused and wondered why I was given such a difficult flight.
The woman who assisted me realized that I would have to stay in Canada because I had a lay-over till the next day, so I had to go to immigration, and as I went up to the immigration officer, she was very courteous, helpful, and asked me questions about what happened; she was shocked and appalled by what took place in Dublin, and said I didn’t need a visa because I wasn’t staying longer than a month. The official also stated that, most importantly, I have a US passport, so there was no reason I should have been detained and locked away at all! She continued to ask me the required questions, and then she told me I should go see the ticket purchase in the airport to see if my flight could be changed.
Everyone in Toronto was very professional and extremely helpful. I wasn’t looked at as if I was a criminal, but as an American citizen. I was respected and treated with dignity. The Canadian officials were very frustrated and angered by the nonsense that took place in Dublin, and said, “We don’t do that here. That is not how it should be done. We are extremely sorry you had to experience that!”
My trip to Dublin was one that was supposed to be memorable, but now it is memorable for the wrong reasons. I just wanted to travel to see this beautiful place that I have always loved, that is all! There were no other reasons and no other motives! This traumatic experience made me feel like I was in invisible handcuffs. I was treated like a criminal or terrorist, but I am not! It was wrong! I felt like a kidnapped and like a hostage, and I didn’t know where I was being taken. I feared that I was going to be harmed and that I was in danger. I was never told where I was being taken, even though I asked. If I wasn’t being ignored, I was being lied to, because I was told that I was being sent back home right away, and that didn’t happen. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else! These immigration officials are representatives of Ireland, but when they are hateful and unjust, it gives a false representation of their country. Ireland is known for being such a beautiful place and no one should experience someone’s horrible actions that mar the beauty and name of Ireland.