'It's not nice being called Cyclops,' says Mayor of Limerick

MAYOR of Limerick John Moran held meetings with council director general, Dr Pat Daly this Tuesday morning over his safety.

It comes in the wake of gardai launching an investigation into death threats made against Ireland’s first directly elected mayor.

A number of abusive comments, some of a homophobic and explicit nature, have been made towards Mayor Moran across the past few weeks.

Having initially revealed the abuse at Monday night’s metropolitan meeting, he spoke on RTE’s Morning Ireland to give further details this Tuesday.

Some of the comments have focused on his appearance.

In relation to this, Mayor Moran said: “There have been comments relating to the fact I have a lazy eyelid all my life. It's not nice being called Cyclops and having references to that. A lot of the time if you're working hard , it becomes more obvious. It hurts me, it probably hurts other people who have physical differences. then you have the clear homophobic references to me, plus the associations around if you're a friend of the mayor, that you're also an open target for this. In the last week or so, it has gone even worse.”

Asked by Morning Ireland host Justin McCarthy if these threats have prompted him to change his pattern of work and review his safety, he said: “I'm having a meeting about that this morning with the director general, because I've been talking about this for some time. It's not just about John Moran, it's about the office of the mayor, it's about making sure nothing happens that discourages other people from entering public life and public service.”

He said the issues have made him think twice about events, and referenced the late British Labour MP Jo Cox, who was gunned down in her constituency days before the Brexit vote a decade ago.

Perhaps more disturbingly, Mayor Moran said many people handing out abuse to him on the internet are no longer “faceless accounts”, and are identifiable people.

“People are coming out of the shadows,” he said.

“It does seem to be an emboldened group of people, many of them on the same pages. They are not Russian bots by any stretch. It's very specific. It's sad to think this gets triggered by something as nice as putting a beach down by the river for kids , or putting a Christmas market in town,” Mayor Moran said.

For him, it’s also raised the question of the supports he gets as Mayor of Limerick.

“It’s part of the support issues I am talking about in relation to the role of the mayor which has not necessarily been given the support it could have been if you're an employee in another company or indeed even a politician at national level. There are supports there which are not available at local level,” he said.

Mayor Moran said the gardai have been very supportive, and he is engaged with them in an exercise of collecting the messages.

“I spent quite a long time not doing anything as you don’t want to make a bigger issue out of it. But will this just encourage more people,” he added.

Asked if he has contacted the social media companies which the threatening remarks have been published on, he said: “We have been doing some reporting. Initially, the guards were hoping they could pick all the comments off. I’m sure people will probably listen now and go rushing off trying to delete their comments from the pages. It’s surprising to me. You expect this to happen in the shadows. You expect these to be faceless accounts. You don’t expect the level of vitriol to be coming out openly. But maybe that’s the society we live in. It is a more dangerous society and one needs to be more careful.”