President Michael D Higgins has said that protecting public libraries and their staff from “intimidation from protests by far-right groups” is not just “a matter for the Gardaí” but should be a priority for everyone in a civilised society.

His words come after numerous protests outside public libraries over the past year. The demonstrations, organised by far-right political parties, targeted LGBTQ+ reading materials, with speakers often presenting anti-refugee and anti-climate policy sentiment, as well as a number of conspiracy theories.

Speaking at the Bloomsday Garden Party at Áras an Uachtaráin, to celebrate the 1922 novel Ulysses by James Joyce, President Higgins said it is essential that libraries “do not fall foul to a reactionary and ignorant censorship” and can continue to hold the “widest range of literature reflecting the diversity” of contemporary Ireland.

He said those who seek to intimate staff and destroy books “hide behind the mask of ‘protesters’, but must be called out for what they are: vigilantes attempting to censor, some of whom are committing criminal offences”.

The President explained that libraries are “one of the last remaining public spaces to have been spared commodification, where there is no requirement to spend money or purchase anything to spend time or be welcomed there” he added that staff “created an atmosphere so conducive for intellectual curiosity for generations of Irish children, women and men”.

He further noted that it would be intolerable for libraries in Ireland to be forced to close their doors.

“The destruction of books must always be called out as an outrageous act, so many of our great writers, including Joyce, endured the consequences of such activities of censorship and book burning. There can be no place in our modern society for such immoral acts of vandalism,” said president Higgins.

“Libraries must remain places for the quiet engagement of the soul, for a peaceful contemplating of any neglected curiosity, of intellectual awakening. We must do all we can to ensure that libraries continue to be so, for they are, to use Socrates’ metaphor, the ‘delivery room for the birth of ideas’.

“A world without libraries would be a dystopian one, indeed it would be a very frightening prospect. Today, as we recall Joyce in all his complex, everlasting brilliance, by committing to ensure that our public libraries remain, are developed, extended and protected, continue to be the special places of learning and sated curiosity that they must always be, we honour Joyce’s legacy."

President and Sabina Higgins this afternoon welcomed members of the public, including librarians from across the country, to Áras an Uachtaráin for a Bloomsday Garden Party to celebrate the life and work of James Joyce. Read more at https://t.co/sD0DsmvlMI pic.twitter.com/mt8OndiBuQ

— President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) June 16, 2024