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83-year-old Mount Druitt woman Niamh Kennedy had heard that violence was escalating once again in Northern Ireland during the pandemic, but she didn’t expect to see it spilling over into her own backyard.
This comes after a recent run to the grocery store, where she witnessed 30 grown men kitted out in sportswear and balaclavas delivering aggressive sermons to camera.
The 2nd generation Irish-Australian says she’d never imagined seeing secteraian violence rearing it’s ugly head in Western Sydney, but here we are.
“I’ve heard Mount Druitt described as a war zone… But the Irish Republican Army?”
“I thought all the Australian Catholics calmed down after Tony Abbott become Prime Minister…”
“But I swore I just seen the IRA singing songs down at the shops”
In 2017, Mount Druitt had the highest rate of gun crime of any suburb in Sydney – in a year that saw 3,459 “gun-enabled” crimes across the city, including 27 gun murders.
It is for this reason that Mrs Kennedy could be forgiven for thinking that the gunshots she hears are related to the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that has been taking place across multiple countries since the 1960s.
“The Troubles have landed in Mount Druitt” she mutters.
“Although I have to say, the gentlemen I saw down at the shops were much better groomed than any Irishman I’ve ever seen”
“The Gucci bumbag is a very welcome addition to the cause!”
