If the politics of public face-masking was fraught in pandemic times, watch what happens next. Back then the “freedom” boys swaggered through lockdown Dublin flaunting their anti-mask sensibilities. Now a Venn diagram of the heavily-masked “patriots” on the “[Any town] Says No” circuit on the one hand and the “freedom” boys on the other would probably yield a massive overlap.

The inconsistency won’t bother them of course, in the same way that Tommy Robinson’s foot-soldiers in Dublin and Belfast will see no irony in the far-right criminal stoking race riots from a Cypriot holiday resort while simultaneously whinging that “quality time” with his children has been ruined by newspaper exposure of his whereabouts. “My kids are crying … Now they are scared people are coming to get them…” The fact that his tormentor is the Daily Mail with its rich history of race-baiting headlines, raises the irony meter to combustion levels.

Robinson’s Irish fans and other freedom-fighters will be interested to hear that the Minister for Justice is exploring ways to ban protesters from wearing masks with the intention to intimidate others and frustrating Garda efforts to identify them in a suspected criminal act.

To the “common sense” caucus, unmasking the thugs would be the obvious law and order move. But awkwardly they overlap heavily with........

© The Irish Times