Irish Antifa Project: TCDSU President Laura Beston & Ethnic Minorities Officer Sé Ó hEidhin

This is the latest part of an undercover investigation into the tacit and sometimes overt support for antifascist harassment among elements of the Irish media and political class. We advise you to listen to all leaked audio and read all leaked data in full before reading the below article. All audio can be found on our Youtube. Audio has been edited in parts for legal reasons, as well as to protect the names of third parties.

Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) represents 17,000 students at an undergraduate and postgraduate level. Membership of the Union is obligatory for every student attending the college, with the portion of the annual fee going straight to the Student Union.

In 2018, a referendum on abolishing the mandatory Union membership failed by only a few percentage points. As such, Trinity students who may not agree with the union are stuck paying for it. 

Senior officials within the union have gone on to enter positions of power within the Irish media and political scene, such as Senator Ivana Bacik and Broadcaster Mark Little, both being former presidents of the Union.

@IrishAntifa made initial contact with the Union’s Ethnic Minority officer Sé Ó hEidhin. Ó hEidhin expressed a complete willingness to cooperate with our reporters, including passing on third party information on students garnered from private logged incidents in order for them to be harassed.

This information Ó hEidhin said had come from some sort of TCDSU catalog, either formal or informal, of students ‘flagged’ as an issue. What such flagging involves, or what a student has to do to be flagged, remains unknown. Ó hEidhin however did state that all those known to have worked with the Burkean were flagged, calling this publication a “fascist magazine”.

Officer Ó hEidhin also repeatedly made reference to Trinity Jewish Society’s Jacob Woolf in regards to documenting the ‘far-right’ within TCD. Officer Ó hEidhin said that Woolf was “better at keeping notes” and “keeping receipts” in regards to knowing the names of those involved in the ‘far-right’.

Also of note is that some of the information passed on to @IrishAntifa by Ó hEidhin we at the Burkean have now confirmed to be false. Again, it must be stressed that this info was passed on to @IrishAntifa for the express purpose of harassing students.

Following on from this conversation, Ó hEidhin privately passed on the information of a student to @IrishAntifa. This info, Ó hEidhin claimed, was sourced through his office.

@IrishAntifa then made contact with TCDSU President Laura Beston, partly thanks to a recommendation from Officer Ó hEidhin, who responded and arranged a call using her official TCDSU email.

In a recorded call with President Beston, she expressed her support for @IrishAntifa and their methods, including their stated desire to harass students accused of engaging in right-wing politics.

President Beston also harshly criticized a number of TCD student societies, including Trinity’s ‘University Philosophical Society’ and ‘College Historical Society’, saying that such societies had a tendency of inviting “people related to” “literal nazi(s)” onto campus.

President Beston also stated that she was aware that union documents were being passed on by her Ethnic Minority Officer to @IrishAntifa.

President Beston also offered @IrishAntifa aid in shaping policy within the college, saying that, with her help, the Antifa cell could gain formative influence in areas as senior as “The Board of Trinity”.

President Beston went on to say that progress on shaping such policy within the union could be slowed down by people with an aversion to Antifa tactics and beliefs. Beston described these people as being “people who seem to think that their opinion is really important even though it isn’t”.

Finally she expressed her willingness to pass on further information to our reporters regarding students including but not limited to names, course details and employment information. She also mentioned that she would implore other “friends” within TCD to pass on similar information.

The Phil, The Hist, Officer Sé Ó hEidhin and President Laura Beston were all approached for comment prior to the publishing of this article. None responded.

Officer Sé Ó hEidhin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZWXs0__M58

President Laura Beston: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1t7fQmgOIU