Ireland will ban “intimidating” protesters from wearing balaclavas after clashes with police at anti-immigration demonstrations.

The government has received legal advice that a ban on face-coverings is possible when there is clear intent to intimidate or to prevent police identifying someone committing a crime.

“The minister intends to introduce a ban on wearing masks at protests in circumstances where the wearing of a mask is intended to intimidate,” a spokesman for Helen McEntee, the Justice Minister, told the Irish Independent.

Balaclavas are particularly menacing in Ireland because of their use by paramilitary groups during the Troubles. Drew Harris, the Garda commissioner, recently said wearing them had “potentially sinister overtures in Ireland” in an internal note.

The new legislation will allow face coverings to be worn for medical reasons or if it is cold in a country, which like the UK, has recently seen far-Right marches and anti-migrant riots.

British police were given the power to arrest masked protesters earlier this year before the riots that erupted after three children were killed at a summer camp in Southport.

People in the UK found guilty of wearing a mask with the intention to intimidate face a £1,000 or a month in prison

Protests across Ireland 

In November last year, businesses were looted and trams torched in Dublin city centre after children were attacked outside a city centre creche.

Last month, balaclava-wearing protesters threw projectiles at Irish police at the proposed site of an asylum facility in Coolock in Dublin. That came after masked protestors, in June, gathered outside Taoiseach Simon Harris’s family home to protest against his government’s immigration policies. Mr Harris has refused to move to move to an official state residence, where he could be better protected, citing concerns about uprooting his family.

Irish far-Right groups travelled to Belfast in Northern Ireland before riots broke out there on Saturday. Some of those travelling to the rally outside Belfast City Hall, which was organised online, were part of the “Coolock Says No” protest. Four people were arrested and three police officers injured in the clashes at the rally held after the Southport stabbings.

The Belfast Telegraph reported the loyalist UDA in south Belfast and Carrickfergus had encouraged members to “mask up” and attend.

Far-Right protesters from the Republic of Ireland, some wrapped in the Irish tricolour, stood alongside the hardline unionists, who waved the British flag. They were later seen drinking in a loyalist bar in the working class, inner-city area of Sandy Row. Sources told the Belfast Telegraph the Irish far-Right received a “heroes’ welcome” in the pub.

‘This is repugnant to everything the Irish flag represents’

On Sunday, the Taoiseach expressed disgust at those “flying the Irish Tricolour whilst attacking police and spouting racism”.

“This is repugnant to everything the Irish flag represents,” he said after holding talks with Michelle O’Neill, the First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Irish police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are working together on an investigation into the riots in Belfast, which saw businesses attacked and one set on fire.

Police Federation for Northern Ireland chair Liam Kelly said, “Our teams showed professionalism throughout in the face of such hate-filled racism and far-Right thuggery.

“This is not who we are. This is not the Belfast that has made great progress. Hate has no place on our streets and it has to stop before is causes further damage or results in innocent people being hurt by the baying mob.”