The Johnstown Estate Hotel in Meath has declined to publicly explain its decision to cancel a scheduled conference titled Safeguarding Children’s Education, which was due to take place on Saturday, April 5th.
The ticketed event, Safeguarding Children’s Education, was organised by the Natural Women’s Council, headed by campaigner Jana Lunden, and was to feature a range of speakers, including UK author and campaigner, Stephanie Davies-Arai, and Countess activist and barrister, Laoise De Brun, who have both been prominent in campaigns opposing transgenderism in schools.
Organisers were informed by the hotel’s solicitor on Monday, March 31st, that the event would not go ahead. According to correspondence seen by Gript, the hotel cited “the safety and wellbeing of the Hotel’s staff members and guests” as a primary concern, referencing “more than 200 vociferous objections and complaints” and the prospect of on-site protests.
The solicitor’s letter noted that while organisers disputed the credibility of the complaints, the hotel was “not able to subjectively evaluate the genuineness of these communications,” and was “obliged… to take these threats seriously.”
A short statement from the hotel’s marketing department simply read: “No further comment will be made.”
Jana Lunden, head of the Natural Women’s Council, told Gript she had received no detailed explanation from the hotel as to what specific safety issues were being referred to, and was not aware the booking had been cancelled until after members of the public who had contacted the venue were notified. She said the group had signed a contract, paid in full, and completed three site visits prior to the cancellation.
Ms Lunden told Gript that she has previously had venues cancel five public events, deepening her concerns around active cancel culture.
Ms Lunden said “the conference, which is sold out, was scheduled to be held Saturday 5th April at Johnstown Estate, Enfield. It was aimed at helping educators and parents understand the origins of content in the modern classroom, exploring its sources and potential biases, whilst empowering participants with the knowledge and tools to protect children”.
She said that the cancellation had come about following a campaign by “left-wing extremists” who she said “shut people down and try to cancel people.”
Ms Lunden said that those who targeted the conference had a history of orchestrating campaigns to shut down public events, and that the conference, which is organised annually, was due to be attended by teachers, parents, barristers and a number of medical experts.
UK author Stephanie Davies-Arai, a former teacher trainer who founded the organisation ‘Transgender Trend’ in 2015, was due to fly from the UK to speak at the event.
In an email seen by Gript, Ms Davies-Arai told the Johnstown Hotel that she was sorry that it had experienced a “campaign to get Saturday’s event cancelled,” adding: “I understand from other venues how stressful this can be.”
“I hope that you can hold firm and honour the booking for the Natural Women’s Council who I know to be a professional and reasonable group of people,” she said in an email to the hotel.
“As a former teacher trainer and with a background in parenting and child safeguarding I founded my organisation in 2015 to raise concerns about the safeguarding risks in transitioning children,” she detailed in the letter, adding:
“My aim has always been to facilitate open debate about the very new approach to children that has been taken on the advice of transgender lobby groups. I believe that open discussion and respectful disagreement is essential in any new approach in order to safeguard children.
I am very happy for people to disagree and argue with me.”
“I have spoken frequently for the UK parliament in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and provided briefings for both the Conservative and Labour governments. I believe this subject is too important to accept without question only one point of view, and I am glad to say that more and more policy makers agree with me. There is a history throughout the UK of women’s groups being shut down and cancelled for talking about this issue, and this is done by activists threatening venues and spreading defamatory and unfounded allegations against speakers.”
The author and campaigner voiced concern to the hotel that: “Recently there has been more challenge to this stifling of debate, and more and more people campaigning for freedom of speech and academic freedom to debate different ideas.”
Meanwhile, Ms Lunden said that the cancellation of the conference was an example of both cancel culture in action and a public order issue.
“We want to highlight the pattern of cancellations caused by a small but organised radical movement,” she said, while stating that authorities had “failed to protect lawful events from interference.”
“What has happened exposes a wider crisis where activist pressure is now dictating which voices can and cannot be heard in public spaces,” Ms Lunden said, calling for the issue to be raised in the Dáil.
“When venues cancel lawful events it causes serious financial and reputational damage to organisers,” she said, describing it as “an erosion of free speech”.