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A KERRY WOMAN, who has Vietnamese heritage, has told how she was racially abused and spat on in Dublin city centre yesterday afternoon.
Úna-Minh Kavanagh was waiting for a friend outside a hotel on Parnell Street yesterday evening when she noticed a group of about seven teenagers walking towards her and yelling.
As they passed her one of them shouted: “And you’re a f***ing chink”. Then one of the youths grabbed her face, shook it and spat on her.
“He spat in my hair, it was just incredibly degrading. The whole incident lasted a couple of seconds, less than ten seconds,” she told TheJournal.ie today, saying she was left “disgusted” by the whole incident.
Kavanagh’s story came to light after she blogged about it yesterday evening, writing: “I gathered my thoughts and posted my outrage and I reported it to the Gardaí. It was horrible and terrifying but I am not a coward.”
The 21-year-old journalism graduate and gaeilgeoir says she is subjected to verbal attacks “pretty much on a weekly basis” but said this was the first time she had been on the receiving end of a physical attack.
Kavanagh’s decision to blog about the incident saw a huge pick up on Twitter with prolific tweeter and comedy writer Graham Linehan highlighting the incident to his nearly 300,000 followers:
“Twitter has been absolutely amazing,” Kavanagh said. “They actually got me through it because I was feeling a bit depressed about the whole thing. I am so grateful for the support, it’s fantastic.”
Kavanagh said she has experienced abuse because of her background for her entire life and would like this incident to give her an opportunity to speak to young people from a background similar to hers to encourage them to report racist abuse.
She confirmed she has spoken to gardaí at Store Street in Dublin in relation to the incident.
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He sounds like a colossal prat.
Not this tosser again. Calling female customers c**nts,classy guy.
Outrageous. And on facebook everyone is lauding the guy for calling her that, and for somehow “telling it like it is”.
He seems like a collossal arsehole, and I sure as hell wouldn’t even entertain the idea of going to any place he works at.
Also, if I was the owner of the place I would sack Stenson immediately. Horrific business strategy to let a fool like that speak for your company.
Veronica he’s probably generated more publicity for the company than anyone else ever could. When he penned this response he was hoping to god that it would make the national media again and low and behold it has worked. In all honesty I would never go to the restaurant but judging by the responses under his comments on Facebook he has as much support as he has haters so it might be another great business move.
As an aside if you have a bad experience in a restaurant it should be brought to their attention immediately while you are there instead of this modern idea of getting your own back with a bad review, especially if you go over the top as this original poster is alleged to have.
Counts?
It’s ‘lo and behold’ not ‘low and behold’
That’s great news, please feel free never to go there then
The “positive” responses to his post and to his picture of the letter from the DPC with “F**k Off” written across it are almost all from the US. They continually refer to the woman in extremely derogatory terms that are possibly actionable. Those supporters are not going to travel to Ireland to visit his restaurant, and the comments from Irish people tend to not to be on his side.
Exactly diarmuid- he has a huge fan base of angry hate-filled Americans who are aligned because of his ‘war’ against vegans. A handful will actually be his customers. He might sell a few t-shirts but he has to continue this persona of arrogant hatred to keep his fans happy. He’s created a monster
” The Journal has reached out ” WTF ?
I hate that term. “The Journal contacted…” would be more appropriate.
It”s the latest Americanisim that you hear expecially in cop shows, “So,I reached out to the FBI”. Actually that’s another thing, starting every scentence with “So,” ie. “So, I wrote an article for the Journal and I reached out to to the cafe owenr”.
Methinks Cianan watches a lot of Castle, Elementary and Hamaii Five-O because evey second scentence seem to involve either so or reach out.
Let’s reach out and touch base to promote synergy in our cross functional team.
Unless you’re a member of the Four Tops, don’t be saying “Reach Out”.
How can a still photo show someone enjoying a meal, she could be puking rings around her, in the next still.
(Reach out) Come on girl reach on out for me
(Reach out) Reach out for me
(Reach out) Come on girl reach out for me
Reach out, just look over your shoulder
(Reach out) Come on girl reach on out for me
(Reach out) Reach out for me
(Reach out) Come on girl reach out for me
Reach out, just look over your shoulder
Reach out and touch faith
There is nothing wrong with Castle!
Moving forward, that is strategically on point and I will touch base on this with stakeholders
I might check into his hotel and just thrash the place. Just to see if it makes it onto the Journal.
I’ll join you. Tray of Dutch Gold?
You can get two 2 litres of Devils Bit for €11.99 in my local off licence. We’ll go with that.
And a €12.99 bottle of vodka from Aldi. You can’t go wrong.
And a gram of coke.
Jesus. Better bring some rennies so.
And a couple of Lithuanian escorts.
He sounds like an ex-employee from Ryanair’s Marketing Department. Does he check bag sizes on the way in?
And the Journal is just doing what they want by advertising them with this story???
Yes people go there in hopes of being called names or threatened by the staff.
If that’s the gig they can come to my house for christmas dinner… lots of name calling going on. Oddly enough its in direct proportion to the amount of wine which has been consumed.
Joanna, yes some people like that, they do it on the X Factor??? lol.
Tony, see what happens with the spirits lol…
No such thing as bad publicity.
Paul Gascoigne?
Well none of the publicity this place has received makes me want to eat there so…
Still publicity joanna and free at that.
I’d be interested to know how much revenue they’re actually generating out of this publicity. I would say you’ve a 50:50 split straight away with some loving his response and others hating it. Lets just say that he’s not chasing the more liberal people in society and his comments on vegans/vegetarians would suggest that is the case. Might be for the best that similar minds have one place to convene and keep the rest of us from having to endure it.
The cafe regularly advertises on the coupon deal sites so he cant be raking that much in.
Yeah Ray – Cliff Richard loved all that PR he got when the cops stormed his house. And Hulk Hogan was chuffed when that sex tape came out where he said he was racist and said “f*ckin n*ggers” multiple times – the endorsement deals just flooded in.
“No such thing as bad publicity.” – a phrase coined by an idiot and rattled off by even bigger idiots.
Sounds like nothing but a bully. And there’s nothing worse than a bully.
Two bullies ?
Brilliant, Diarmuid!
Bullies are like the speed of light, no matter how many you add together you still get the same result.
Can’t argue there Diarmuid
Have a look at his Facebook page, his C–otmer came in, a rather large bear-like “woman”, inhaled her lunch and left without uttering a bad word, then went online to slate the place..
I think every business and person has a right to defend themselves against baseless unwarranted reviews…
Big difference between a restaurant defending itself against a bad review and publicly insulting and shaming the customer. I’ve seen restaurants respond to bad reviews in a polite mannerly way and make their case well, but this crass tw@t just loves the attention
“Reached out” no no no no “you contacted them” ffs
I agree with him to a point. Someone writes a poor review of his business on a public forum without making the complaint in person on the day and with video evidence of them eating all of their meal can be challanged right back on a public forum in my view. What’s good for one is good for the other!
I reallllly want to disagree with you there Reg but your logic is impeccable… publicly shaming a business means you put yourself and your visit in the public domain, the manager’s language would make me refuse to visit the place but his refuting the public complaint is fair enough
To be fair, I work in the hotel industry and guests have too much free reign on sites like trip advisor to blackmail the hotel when they are fishing for free stuff, fair play to this guy, speaking what every hotel manager is thinking!!
So you have spoken to every hotel manager in Ireland in the last 30 minutes and made a comment on their behalf. I don’t know you did it but fair play.
Bit of a Basil Fawlty.
I would not like to upset the Chef in that dump if he takes his lead from his manager. The mind boggles and the stomach churns. Yuck!!
One must wonder just what the DPC are at?
While they might argue, publication of a photo of an individual sitting in a place is a breach of privacy (I would contend it is not as others there would have seen the person anyhow, there is not in Ireland any right to your own image, were there, you could not walk past an RTE camera without being able to take a case for such so, time the DPC stopped wasting public monies trying to make a name for itself and concentrated on other more pressing matters.
The owners are correct, shoot any vegans even near the place!
CCTV is a funny one though Joey, there are very strict rules about what it can and cannot be used for. Perhaps the rules are wrong and maybe that is what should be changed but I suspect that once the rules have been breached the DPC are obliged to investigate and were therefore forced to wade head first into this one.
Joey, you opened a parenthesis without closing it. Why would you do this to me?
Joey, that woman wasn’t vegan.
I am referencing the article, not the person who is mentioned as having been shown on CCTV.
Ta bron orm mór, realised this after posting.
Amateur food critics harbouring personal grudges.
Leave it to the pros.
I agree with you, but downvoted your comment because you’re a knob in general.
Another eejit trying to be Gordon Ramsey, not realising that what he doesn’t on TV is not how he acts in real life. Reality television has a lot to answer for.
I’m behind him 100% Cowards who have no concern about a business’s reputation or the livelihood of its employees deserve to be outed. Bet all the bleeding hearts here have no clue how hard it is to run a business.
Is this the same hotel involved in the Garth Brooks fiasco last year?
Stenson is going to land a VERY heavy fine for wasting the DPC’s time.It is obvious that the so called customer was in on the publicity stunt from the beginning.
I wouldn’t trust any food put on my plate by an obvious conman.
Its a rip off kip
He criticised the lady’s grammar yet described himself as a “restauranteur” (which is what some yanks seem to call a restaurateur).
Cianan is probably just back from a j1 visa.
Hi, have a look at what the man said on Facebook,get the facts before you start criticizing the man here.
Good on ya, WMC
Sure paper will never refuse ink, it’s all advertising for the place.
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