‘People are com­ing in, cor­por­ate groups and indi­vidu­als and they’re decid­ing to do something about it… they’re not going around shrink­ing [any­more].’

‘What you have now is an era of men­ace’

The Dub­lin mar­tial arts expert brought Krave Maga – the self-defence sys­tem taught to the Israeli Defense Forces – to Ire­land almost 25 years ago and has trained more than 80,000 people, as well as 20 mil­it­ary units.

Dur­ing this time, he has wit­nessed soci­ety pro­gress­ively get­ting more viol­ent and says grow­ing num­bers of people are lean­ing how to defend them­selves in what he describes as this ‘era of men­ace’.

‘It used to be something people did in case something happened, very much a tick box, a use­ful skill. But what you have now is an era of men­ace, a sense that something could hap­pen and that you’re on your own if something hap­pens. I’m get­ting that sense from people a lot now.’

He added: ‘The police are telling us – and I’m a big fan of the gardaí – but they’re say­ing that crime is down. This year, it seems that gang­land shoot­ings are down, there are less murders.

‘But you talk to any­one around, and I grew up in Fin­glas in Dub­lin, have lived all over the world and lived in the city for 40 years, and I would hon­estly say I have never had so many people call me.’

This was echoed by

Eamon Cole­man, who spe­cial­ised in provid­ing self-defence train­ing to sec­ond­ary school stu­dents, who he said are increas­ingly tar­geted on pub­lic trans­port.

He told the MoS: ‘I mostly work on pro­grammes for four years [Trans­ition Year], and teen­agers, espe­cially at 16 or so, are def­in­itely one of the groups that see the most viol­ence, and pub­lic trans­port is a par­tic­u­lar area of con­cern.

‘One boy that I worked with in New Ross, had been stabbed by a screw­driver in Ennis­corthy dur­ing his sum­mer hol­i­day, he got in a fight with another boy and then a 14 year old came up behind him and stabbed him in the back.

‘Pub­lic trans­port is espe­cially an issue with girls; it’s an enclosed space and typ­ic­ally men will sit by them and can become viol­ent.’

Racist attacks on for­eign­ers and migrant work­ers, in par­tic­u­lar, have become more com­mon­place, many of which have been high­lighted in this news­pa­per.

These include the cow­ardly attack by two older teen­agers on a ter­ri­fied 13-year-old school­boy in Tuam, Co. Gal­way.

Irfin Uddin Gazi, who was born in Ire­land of Banglade­shi par­ents, was left severely trau­mat­ised after he was bru­tally beaten up while his friend was forced to video the assault.

Last month the MoS revealed how Dub­lin-based mar­tial arts expert, Hamza Belfed­hal from the youth group One Body, One Ummah, has sponsored a year of train­ing for Irfin.

Mr Belfed­hal said his own exper­i­ence grow­ing up in Ire­land deali ing with racist abuse and v viol­ence helps him to con­nect w with teen­agers.

‘I’ve been through it – I’ve paid the price,’ he told the MoS. Once they real­ise that I grew up the same way, it clicks.’

He said many young migrants and Irish-born chil­dren of immig­rants who have settled in Ire­land no longer feel as safe as they once did.

‘There’s def­in­itely a rise, espe­cially towards young women.’

And he said many more par­ents – con­cerned their chil­dren will be easy prey for racist thugs – are push­ing them to learn how to defend them­selves.

‘Par­ents are turn­ing to mar­tial arts not to make their chil­dren fight­ers, but to give them basic pro­tec­tion and con­fid­ence.’

‘I have fam­il­ies learn­ing self-defence together’

Mr Belfed­hal said dis­cip­line forms a ‘major part’ of the train­ing he gives to young­sters.

‘Dis­cip­line is a major part of it. If someone turns up late, that’s pushups. If someone fights out­side the gym, they’re gone. It’s dan­ger­ous to be trained. So we teach con­trol.’

Patrick Cumis­key also said he has been inund­ated with calls from con­cerned par­ents – so much so he has launched a ‘par­ent and teen pro­gramme’.

‘For the last couple of years, people have been ask­ing me to teach their kids, which isn’t really my thing. I work mostly with adults, but I kept get­ting houn­ded.’

Now, he adds, ‘I have entire fam­il­ies com­ing in and learn­ing self-defence together. We’re not going around train­ing people for the apo­ca­lypse… It’s a fun fam­ily day where we teach a set of skills.

‘People are con­cerned for their chil­dren; they want them to learn self-defence. And i t ’s being driven by par­ents want­ing their kids to be safe. I think the key driver is par­ents whose kids start want­ing to go out at 16 or 17, espe­cially young girls.’

Accord­ing to the Krav Maga instructor, hav­ing self-defence train­ing ‘can decrease your risk of attack by 60%... because we don’t just teach the phys­ical stuff, but also the psy­cho­lo­gical stuff, how to spot a pred­ator, and not to wait for con­firm­a­tion, to pro­tect your­self in panic situ­ations, all of that.’

The surge in self-defence train­ing pro­grammes fol­lows a series of high pro­file race-related attacks in recent months.

In August, a six-year-old girl was attacked by a gang of chil­dren as she played out­side her home in Water­ford. Nia’s mother Anupa Achuthan, a HSE nurse, told the MoS at the time her daugh­ter was racially assaul­ted by a ‘gang of five or six’ boys and girls aged between 12 to 14 who ‘hit her on the private parts with the bicycle, punched her right cheek, pulled her hair, and twis­ted her head to one side’.

In another incid­ent, a nine-yearold boy of Indian des­cent was hos­pit­al­ised after a 15-year-old hurled stones at him.

In a sep­ar­ate attack videoed in July, a child was seen repeatedly punch­ing a young man of col­our on a bus. After being hit in the face with a suc­ces­sion of vicious punches, the vic­tim even­tu­ally attempts to flee while clutch­ing his nose in pain.

This happened just days after a sep­ar­ate attack on an Indian man who was assaul­ted by a group of youths in Kil­naman­agh in south­w­est Dub­lin after he was falsely accused of inap­pro­pri­ate beha­viour. The man was stripped of his pants and under­wear by the gang dur­ing the vicious attack.

And last month a black man was chased through White­hall, Rath­farnham, in south Dub­lin by a gang of teen­age boys who attacked him with sticks. A teen­age girl who filmed the attack is heard laugh­ing hys­ter­ic­ally.

Patrick Cun­mis­key noted: ‘There is abso­lutely no doubt that people of col­our are look­ing for classes. The people that are show­ing up are well-estab­lished pro­fes­sion­als, highly tal­en­ted pro­fes­sion­als, who feel there is a racist sen­ti­ment.’

A Depart­ment of Justice spokes­per­son said: ‘The Depart­ment notes that race has remained the most pre­val­ent dis­crim­in­at­ory motive, account­ing for 39 per cent of all motives, and has increased from 36 per cent in 2023. These incid­ents can­not and will not be tol­er­ated. This Gov­ern­ment is determ­ined to stamp out hate-motiv­ated crimes and we are determ­ined to pro­tect vul­ner­able com­munit­ies.’

Gardaí did not respond dir­ectly to quer­ies.