Something is deeply wrong, when Ireland tolerates terrorist symbols but ignores the murder of Private Seán Rooney.
Private Seán Rooney was not a politician, activist or a celebrity; he belonged to a far higher order of human achievement and character. He was a 24-year-old Irish soldier from Donegal serving his country on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
By all accounts he was courageous, decent and deeply committed to protecting his fellow soldiers.
On December 14th 2022, just 11 days before Christmas, while travelling in a clearly marked UN vehicle near the Hezbollah stronghold of Al-Aqbiya, Private Seán Rooney and his colleagues came under sustained gunfire from Hezbollah-linked attackers. Seán, sadly, was killed trying to protect his comrades, while another Irish soldier was seriously injured.
The aftermath of this event has been a grotesque insult to his family and indeed to the Island of Ireland itself.
The main suspect, Hezbollah member Mohammad Ayyad, was eventually convicted and sentenced in his absence after repeatedly avoiding court appearances. He still remains at large today, after previously being released on “medical grounds.”
Meanwhile, others involved received sentences so absurdly lenient that even the Irish Government publicly condemned them as unacceptable.
Private Seán Rooney’s mother correctly described the process as a “sham trial” and said justice had neither been done nor even seen to be done.
While Seán Rooney’s family continue to fight for accountability, Ireland has witnessed crowds marching openly through Dublin and Cork waving Hezbollah and Hamas flags, latter organisations synonymous with sectarian violence, terrorism, hostage-taking and the murder of civilians.
Perhaps nothing captures the moral confusion of our modern-day Ireland more than the sight of Irish Tricolours being waved beside Hezbollah and Hamas flags on the streets of Dublin and Cork, as though the values represented by our national flag are somehow compatible with organisations linked to terrorism, sectarian hatred and the murder of an Irish peacekeeper, Private Seán Rooney.
For Seán Rooney’s family, and for many decent Irish people, that image is not “solidarity” or “activism.” It is a profound national disgrace and an insult to the memory of a young Irish soldier who died serving under the UN flag at the hands of Hezbollah-linked gunmen.
What is truly repellent is not only that these flags appear, but that so many so-called and self-appointed champions of “human rights” refuse to condemn them. Many politicians, activists and celebrity figures appear far more interested in performative anti-Israel activism than in showing even basic solidarity with the family of an Irish peacekeeper, murdered by extremists, linked to Hezbollah. That silence is not moral courage; it is moral bankruptcy.
Jerome Lawrence rightly warned in his 1955 play, “Inherit the Wind”, that: “Fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding.”
That is exactly what we are witnessing today. Fanaticism survives when hatred becomes fashionable, when ideological tribalism replaces moral consistency, and when people excuse or romanticise violent extremism because it aligns with their political worldview.
Bigotry is not confined to race or religion; it also includes the irrational hatred and dehumanisation of anyone considered politically inconvenient, including Israelis, Jews, or even Irish soldiers whose deaths disrupt a preferred narrative.
Supporting innocent Palestinians does not require anyone to glorify Hamas or Hezbollah. But too many people in Ireland have crossed that line. They excuse terrorist symbolism, ignore antisemitism when it comes disguised as activism, and remain conspicuously silent about the murder of Private Seán Rooney because acknowledging it would force them to confront uncomfortable truths about the movements they openly, through ignorance, tolerate.
The Rooney family deserved national outrage, unity and relentless demands for justice. Instead, they got evasions, hypocrisy and silence from people who claim to stand against violence and extremism; latter a disgrace on modern Ireland.
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