Justine McCarthy: Young people are the new frontier in the hatred wars

When did children become fair game in the hatred wars? Was it in March this year when some players on the Republic of Ireland under-15 boys football team were abused on social media for not being sufficiently pink-skinned and red-haired for the liking of subscribers to the barmy theory of the Great Replacement?

The weaponising of children certainly did not start last weekend when two or three Cork City fans jeered rival manager Stephen Bradley about his seriously ill nine-year-old son after his team, Shamrock Rovers, lost a match. How can some hearts be so hardened that their companion brains think it is acceptable to taunt a father because his child is sick? After Bradley deplored the chants during media interviews, Cork City club said it would ban the chanters for life from its home ground at Turner’s Cross and a podcast by three of the club’s supporters, called The Other Three Amigos, launched a fundraiser for two children’s healthcare charities.

No such gesture of atonement has been made by Gemma O’Doherty for the torme...
[Short citation of 8% of the original article]