The Dublin riots shocked Ireland – but some of us saw this creep to the far right coming | Stephen McDermott

Perhaps the mayhem in the city centre last week will finally end politicians' complacency about violent anti-immigrant groups

• Stephen McDermott is the editorial lead for The Journal's factchecking unit

A strange duality characterised Thursday's riots in Dublin: the level of violence caught most people by surprise, and yet there was also a feeling of inevitability about it. Ireland's Booker prize-winning novelist Paul Lynch captured the mood in his acceptance speech on Sunday, when he said he was astonished" by the disturbances but that the possibility for such disquiet to break out is always under the surface".

Few expected to see the capital descend into a violent hellscape during evening rush hour. But factcheckers like myself who monitor Ireland's far right - as part of our work verifying online content and debunking misinformation - have witnessed how the movement instigated city-wide destruction after building on anti-immigrant sentiment over the past year.