The award for the most crass moment of the lockdown has been wrapped up just a couple of months in. The Dice Bar, a Dublin bar situated in Smithfield, caused some outrage and lot of eye-rolling when they compared the closing of pubs during the Covid crisis to the Holocaust.
In a deleted post on Facebook, Dice Bar's account suggested the pubs and festivals being taken away was somehow comparable to Jews on the train to Auschwitz.
Some how or other we've had our pubs gigs festivals taken from us We're like the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto being told to hop on the train to Auschwitz Birkenau. "It's for your own good"
Ok great, sign me up
As you would expect, the post drew fairly astonished responses.
no one:
dice bar: the pubs not being allowed to open is like being in the holocaust pic.twitter.com/sFl0gkfB2h— Eva Short (@evadiminutive) May 15, 2020
The post was deleted, though was quickly followed by an explanation from owner Kieran Finnerty, possibly making matters worse.
If i’d been in the Dice Bar on Wednesday night and made those kind of outlandish connections, even with the excuse of 6 pints of Revolution and watching a double header of “The Pianist” & “Downfall” I would have got a yellow card from the committee and barred for the next 2 weeks.
Sorry for drawing any connection between the war crimes, which were committed by the Nazis on the Jewish pop in Europe and any events here, but what occurred during the war was the direct result of 20 years of propaganda and the whittling away of people’s liberties.
In Ireland we are over 100 days into a propaganda campaign by an unelected government that has passed emergency laws which are likely to remain in place for the next few years. The fear that is being feed to people on a daily basis will have dire consequences for people in entertainment, like musicians whose only chance to make money was live gigs or bars which were the social place to drink and meet strangers.
Our liberties are slowly being removed and we don’t know what part of our lives we will be allowed get back under the narrative of Da Covid War, and Covid is likely to be with us for some year’s until the mythical silver bullet arrives.
Do we have a choice in any of this or is it just follow directions and “hop on the bus, we know what’s best for you"
When Dice Bar reopens don’t forget
LEAVE YOUR SPEARS AT THE DOOR
It's not really an apology. In fact, after the "apology", he re-emphasises the comparison. It's an excuse for an inexcusable comment.
Mostly, it's the peddling of unhelpful conspiracy theories we've seen emerge around the world in recent weeks. While Finnerty is certainly entitled to his opinion, unfortunately the public share that right, and this has not gone down well for the Dice Bar.
NOTE: Since this article was first published, Kieran Finnerty has released a further statement to Balls.ie.
In over 20 years in business, Dice Bar has never had any time for any right wing ideas or racism in the bar. I was the only sponsor of Sports Against Racism Ireland in 1997.
We do not and have never aligned ourselves to any of the unsavoury people taking action in the Irish courts in the past few weeksPersonally, I apologise for getting drunk and making the connections to Nazi Germany in my previous posts, and for the offence I've cause to so many people.The 'hop on the bus' comment was supposed to be a metaphor for not questioning orders from the powers that be, and I think in a functioning democracy we should always be able to question the actions of governmentWe are all suffering, but from my own perspective, I am concerned about the detrimental effect of a sustained lockdown on so many smaller businesses and how it will change our personal lives for the worseKieran FinnertyDice Bar since 2000
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