The day an ‘Anthrax’ package arrived at my office

Last week, a very unusual package, no, ‘unusual’ is not the word, a sinister and menacing package arrived by post at the office of the Iona Institute in Dublin city centre. It looked innocent enough, but upon opening it, some kind of white powder poured out on my desk, hands and floor. I guessed immediately what was going on. Someone was pretending to have sent us anthrax, the deadly poison, which comes in the form of a white substance.

Foolishly, in view of the fact that I could not be certain what it was, I pulled out the letter inside and opened it up. It contained more of the white powder and the note said: “Happy Anthrax. Mr David Quinn and Bit*h O’Brein (sic)”. No asterix was actually used, of course.

Clearly the letter-writer was targeting Breda O’Brien, a regular writer for this newspaper, for The Irish Times, and who is also an occasional spokesperson for The Iona Institute, which I head.

I suspect, therefore, that the writer has a grudge against the Catholic Church. Breda and I mainly overlap in our topics when we are writing about something related to the Church, and we are two of the only Church-sympathetic columnists writing for a mainstream newspaper. (I also write for The Sunday Independent).

I was a bit surprised to have the army coming to the Iona office, but when you think about it, an anthrax scare had to be treated the same as a bomb scare”

The Iona Institute is, of course, strongly associated with the Catholic Church.

In any case, at the advice of several people I spoke to, I contacted the nearest Garda station, and they said I was absolutely correct to alert them. Thirty minutes later, two young Gardaí came to the office to find out what had happened. They rang the station to ask a more senior Garda for advice. He said that the entire building had to be evacuated (we are a tenant there) as precaution.

The army bomb disposal unit was then called in. I was a bit surprised to have the army coming to the Iona office, but when you think about it, an anthrax scare had to be treated the same as a bomb scare. If there is even a tiny chance it is the real thing, then it is extremely serious indeed. In addition, even if the powder was not anthrax, it could still be something dangerous.

Cordoned

The whole street was cordoned off while the unit was present, and the incident made the news briefly.

The bomb disposal unit was in the building for about three hours, and at around 7 in the evening, I tried to get back into my office, but I wasn’t allowed, because no matter what the substance was, carrying out an act like this is a crime and therefore the office was being treated as a crime scene.

What are we to make of all this? The incident was not a totally isolated one”

We were able to go into the office the next morning as normal. On Friday evening (the package arrived on the Tuesday), I was phoned by a guard who told me the powder was a “pharmaceutical irritant”. He couldn’t be more specific. Hopefully we’ll be told in time exactly what it was. In the meantime, Gardaí are trying to find out who sent it, and Breda and I are receiving advice about our security.

What are we to make of all this? The incident was not a totally isolated one. Down the years, The Iona Institute has received lots of hate mail, a few very nasty phones calls, lots of online abuse, lot of nasty emails and the occasional physical threat. I think on one previous occasion, when they were coming in particularly thick and fast, we alerted the Gardaí.

A few times I have been verbally attacked on the street.

We tend to come under attack when there has been an eruption of public anger over clerical sex abuse, or when a major referendum is taking place. I know the same thing happens at the offices of the Episcopal Conference in Maynooth at similar times. Certain people who hate the Catholic Church like to target anyone who is a high-profile Catholic.

The lack of political reaction to the anthrax scare at our office is also worth nothing. If a similar package had arrived at say, the Fine Gael headquarters, or main office of the Irish Family Planning Association (which is strongly pro-choice), there would have been far more reaction, and politicians would be decrying the rise of hate in Ireland and would be trying to determine who had sent the package and why. They would link it to wider trends.

RTÉ did not report what happened at all. This might the first time you have read about this incident.

We shouldn’t minimise what took place. Even if the powder was fairly harmless, the intention behind it was totally malicious and clearly intended to frighten and intimidate those who take a public stance on behalf of Catholic and Christian beliefs in Ireland, something Breda and I have been doing since the 1990s. We will obviously keep doing so as long as we can, but last week’s incident is a reminder of the sort of atmosphere of hostility in which we sometimes have to operate. It can be very nasty indeed.