Culture wars have come for Dublin’s Winter Lights festival |
I’m here to report a case of mad “Xmas” disease. Elon Musk’s social media platform X, best known these days for promoting Russian disinformation and crypto scams, has been channelling rage in recent weeks about the “wokerati” who are apparently out to ban Christmas.
These include those Satan-worshippers in Dublin City Council who have been hosting a Winter Lights festival each December since 2018 – it includes a ticketed event at Merrion Square.
Among those triggered by the announcement of this year’s Winter Lights was Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, who complained that it should be called Christmas lights. He suggests a “strain of aggressive secularism in Ireland that seeks to remove elements of faith and culture from the public square” is at play. (This is just weeks after President Catherine Connolly had to take a religious oath “in the presence of Almighty God” when being sworn into office.)
News stories claiming Christmas is being displaced by Yuletide, Winterval and Xmas are hardy annuals for the likes of The Daily Telegraph, but they have been given a new impetus on Musk’s X.
Several of the comments on X go much further than........