The Imam of a Galway mosque says the building was vandalised last night during evening prayers.
Photos posted by Ibrahim Noonan on Twitter show that the windows of the Masjid Maryam Galway Mosque were smashed.
Masjid Maryam Galway Mosque attacked while we were praying smashed windows pic.twitter.com/mh3Q9Oi3od
— Imam Ibrahim Noonan (@ImamNoonan) June 5, 2017
Imam Noonan claims there's 'no doubt' it was a deliberate attack.
Speaking on the Pat Kenny Show, he explained: "It was prayer time, and our attention would have been towards the prayer. We heard an extremely loud bang. It sounded like a fuse had blown or something.
"Shortly after I finished the prayer, I noticed that some members of the congregation had left the prayer to see what caused the loud bang. We came to know at that moment, our windows [were] being smashed by a group of - from what we could see - Irish men."
Imam Noonan explained that the men had already run away by the time prayers had concluded, and Gardaí responded quickly to their calls.
In terms of damage, he said that it will likely cost hundreds of euro to replace the windows.
He suggested that it was a 'calculated, deliberate' attack, and said that the incident was captured on camera.
He argued: "You can see them clearly picking up the stones. These are adults, these aren't children. This was definitely an attack based on what's going on in London.
"When the news was breaking that the [suspect had been] in Ireland... there was quite a lot of discussion in the mosque about 'will there be a backlash?'"
