On Tuesday. the street where the office of The Iona Institute is based had to be cordoned off by Gardai (see picture above), after a suspect package was sent to us. I opened the package, which turned out to contain a large amount of white powder. Some of it spilled out onto the floor, the desk, and my hands. The letter in the package said ‘Happy Anthrax. To David Quinn and Bit*h O’Brien’, which would have been a reference to Breda O’Brien, The Irish Times columnist and occasional spokesperson for The Iona Institute. Angelo Bottone, our researcher, was also in the office when the package was opened, and he was exposed to the powder as well.

After consulting a number of people, we decided to call the nearest Garda Station (Pearse Street), and they said we were correct to call even if the powder was extremely unlikely to be anthrax. (We don’t yet know what it was). They sent two guards to our office and they were advised by a more senior officer to evacuate the building. The situation had to be treated like a bomb scare. The vast majority of bomb scares turn out to be false, but you can’t take the risk and so suspect packages must be investigated. An anthrax scare falls into the same category as a bomb scare, it seems, which makes sense given how dangerous anthrax is.

Therefore, the army’s bomb disposal unit was called. They investigate suspect packages other than possible bombs, and they were in the area and the building for several hours on Tuesday afternoon. When they left, Gardai had to treat our office as a crime scene for a few more hours, because no matter what the powder turns out to be, threatening people in this way is a crime.

We believe the motive of the person who sent the package was anti-Catholic because Breda and I are best known for writing about Catholic issues.

Down the years, our office has received a lot of hail mail and we have sometimes received physical threats as well. This tends to happen the most when there is an eruption of public anger at the Church over the scandals, or when a major social issue referendum is on. The hate mail is almost always anti-Catholic. From time to time, I have been verbally attacked on the street and on one occasion in a city centre pub where I was drinking with friends.

The powder was almost certainly harmless, but the threat and intention behind it was as malicious as could be.

I don’t think we have ever before emailed our supporters about some of the threats and abuse we receive, but what happened on Tuesday was so serious we decided to let you know, particularly in view of the fact that many politicians are now drawing more attention to the threats and abuse they receive.

Thank you as always for your support and interest. We will obviously carry on our work as before.

Yours Sincerely,

David Quinn
The Iona Institute