On 9th October 2014, I was invited to attend the National University of Ireland, Galway to debate ‘Is Islam a Religion of Peace?’. The event was hosted by the National University of Ireland, Galway ‘Literary & Debate Society’. The official motion ‘This House believes that Islam is a religion of peace’ was passed by the vast majority of the audience who voted immediately after all the speakers had finished their presentations and final summations (the result was also posted upon on the Literary & Debate Society’s twitter account).

The event allowed members of the audience to contribute after the first presentations, then the speakers finished with their final summations. Funnily, one of the opposition speakers, Ian O’Docherty (Journalist for the Irish Independent Newspaper) got angry during his final summation speech and shouted at the audience, pointing his finger at them accusing them of ‘sleep walking into their own destruction’ (by tolerating Islam and not viewing it as a threat) because presumably he felt they had applauded loudly at the speeches for the proposing side. After the debate, he continued to insult the audience on his blog, saying ‘It should be noted that the audience was almost entirely hostile. It was composed mostly of Islamists and their left-wing fellow travellers’.  Reminded me of the similar way Islamophobe Stephen Gash acted in my last panel debate on the same subject held at Cambridge University (2011).