Around 1,600 anti-immigration and far-right agitators came together to hold a rally in Cork a week ago. Billed as “Ireland Says No”, the event was a follow-up to a similar rally in Dublin in April with many of the attendees of the Cork rally also coming from Dublin.
Rapist and former UFC fighter Conor McGregor allegedly volunteered one of his buses to transport protestors to Cork from Dublin.
Emblazoned with the name of one of his pubs on it, the bus was spotted in the city having dropped off its passengers who had also filmed themselves drinking alcohol during the roughly three-hour journey.
The anti-immigration agitators in Cork were met by a larger counter-protest of roughly 2,500 people consisting of anti-racists, pro-Palestine activists, and representatives of various unions.
A sizeable Garda (police) presence ensured that the neither side got close to each other. Regular Gardaí, the Public Order Unit, members of the Mounted Unit, and a Garda helicopter were present.
Although largely peaceful, Searchlight witnessed a number of the anti-immigration supporters acting aggressively towards the counter-protestors, including shouts of “Paedos” and “Terrorist scum off our streets”.
Well-known provocateur
At one point – amongst a sea of Tricolours and Make Ireland Great Again hats – well-known provocateur Paul Nolan was pictured with an Israeli flag and shouting at the counter-protestors.
Nolan is a regular feature on social media for wandering around Dublin while live-streaming and attempting to intimidate anyone he believes is a migrant.
At least two people were also videoed giving Nazi salutes in public.
Other prominent faces of the anti-immigration movement were also present.
Derek Blighe, the former leader of Ireland First and organiser of the rally, Dublin City Councillor Malachy Steenson, Kildare County Councillor Tom McDonnell, former general election candidate and conspiracy theorist Michelle Keane, Michael Leahy of the Irish Freedom Party, Mick Brazil, and representatives of the National Party were all to be seen there on the day.
Homeland Party
Activists monitoring the rally also noted the attendance of Rick Munn of the British Homeland Party. Despite some relatively minor ideological differences between the groups and individuals, the rally was promoted as an open rally for any one opposed to Ireland’s immigration policies.
While speaking to Rebel Media’s Ezra Levant (a close confident and adviser to ‘Tommy Robinson’) Blighe — after admitting that he had spent ten years living in Canada — opined that Ireland was now “woke” and had become inherently unsafe.
But, he told Levant, it was now up to him and the wider nationalist movement to change to change that. To roars of approval during his speech, Blighe attacked the government for its “failed immigration policy”.
Addressing the Irish diaspora around the world, he insisted that everything he and other nationalists are doing is to ensure they have “a homeland to return to”.
Claiming that the government “want to put the foreigner first”, alongside climate change and “wokeness”, the convicted criminal said he instead “wants to put the Irish first”.
Infamoue QAnon slogan
Curiously, whilst marching to city hall Blighe was pictured walking alongside a Tricolour with the infamous QAnon slogan, WWG1WGA (Where we go one we go all). Alongside the plethora of Make Ireland Great Again hats on display, the Irish far-right ironically continues to rely on imported ideas.
Both the Cork and Dublin rallies come as anti-immigration sentiment and sometimes violence continues to grow across the country.
Much of it is fuelled by disinformation freely available on social media such as X and Facebook with some of the main purveyors being the likes of Philip Dwyer, Michael O’Keefe, and Fergus Power.
O’Keefe in particular has become an important component in the Irish extremist ecosphere, with some of his posts on X drawing the attention of Elon Musk. The latter has on occasion even reposted O’Keefe’s falsities. The rally in Cork comes as this morass spreads.
Events in Ballymena in recent days have shown again how quickly things can get out of hand. There, a pogrom is underway, with various far-right and loyalist elements attacking and burning the homes of migrants, and even suspected migrants.
Meanwhile, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) seems to have taken a relatively hands-off approach.
Few arrests of extremists
This laissez-faire approach has also been the policy of the Gardaí, with few arrests of far-right extremists being made over the last few years, and even fewer convictions. Extremists may have to be bussed around the country to make up numbers, as was the case with the Cork rally, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat.
The normalisation and mainstreaming of the far-right and anti-immigration views continues unabated, with Gript contributors being regularly platformed by the national media.
Every weekend the broadsheets have column inches dedicated to popular targets of the far right, such as migrants or trans people, where long-standing columnists often regurgitate the same lies found in the bowels of Telegram.
The culture war is well under way in the Irish press. And Blighe and others plan to carry it onto the streets.
