A History

Britain’s first fascist group, the British Fascisti, established a Dublin unit in May 1923 and later had branches throughout Northern Ireland. This was just a few years after the Anglo-Irish War (1919–21); and one of the group’s key beliefs was that the movement for Irish independence was part of a global ‘Jewish Bolshevik’ conspiracy.

The group’s ideology was a blend of Italian fascism, British conservatism, and Ulster loyalism. The group promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, organised ‘Fascist Clubs’ to indoctrinate children, and harassed Irish Jews. At its height, the organisation had an estimated 4,000 supporters in Ireland. It held events in Dublin each year to mark Armistice Sunday, parading through the streets waving British flags. This brought the group to the attention of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who attacked it and burned down its Dublin offices. The group fared little better in Belfast where its meetings were broken up by trade unionists.

In 1934, the British Fascisti were superseded by Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts. Mosley was unique within the British far right in accepting that some form of Irish independence was inevitable. Consequently, he did not organise his British Union of Fascists in Northern Ireland. Instead, he created a new puppet organisation in Belfast called the Ulster Fascists. Mosley hoped this initiative would unite Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists in a new thirty-two-county Irish state, which would have devolved government under a new fascist order in Britain. Mosley’s Irish political experiment quickly fell apart due to debates about the ‘Irish Question’, however, and a proposed merger with the Irish Blueshirt movement.

The Army Comrades Association (whose members were the Blueshirts) was the first fascist movement with an Irish rather than a British political identity. In 1933, the group merged with others to form the Fine Gael Party. Blueshirt ideology was steeped in Catholicism, Irish ethno-nationalism, and anti-Semitism. At the peak of the movement, there were 47,000 Blueshirts and sixty members of Fine Gael in the Irish parliament.

The Blueshirts launched arson attacks on politicians’ homes, fought gun battles with the police, and brawled with the IRA in vicious street fights. The movement was led by Eoin O’Duffy, a chronic alcoholic who embarrassed Fine Gael politicians by giving drunken speeches threatening to invade Northern Ireland. The party, which was satisfied with the constitutional status quo, soon jettisoned O’Duffy’s fascism in favour of a more ‘respectable’ conservative Catholic nationalism. O’Duffy sent his few remaining followers to fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil War before drinking himself to death in political obscurity.

Southern Ireland remained neutral during the Second World War, though there were a few small pro-Nazi groups who longed for a British military defeat, hoping this would bring about a united Ireland. Though Irish republicanism had always been hostile to fascism, and many IRA veterans had fought against fascism in Spain, having a shared military foe in the British led a section of the IRA to collaborate with Nazi Germany. After the war, several racist fantasists and neo-Nazis attempted to revive the project to establish a fascist regime in Ireland. The only one of these groups to gain any popular support or political success was Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, which had a few county councillors elected. The group promoted Gaelic culture and the Irish language but blended these legitimate political aims with holocaust denial, Christian nationalism, and neo-fascism. Internal feuds tore the party apart in the 1950s, and by the early 1970s they had completely disappeared.

For the next half-century, there was no significant far-right presence in southern Ireland. Attempts by neo-Nazis to mobilise were quickly shut down by groups like Anti-Fascist Action Ireland. Neo-Nazis tried to organise online via the Stormfront Ireland website, but this led to bitter rows as racist skinheads from Irish nationalist and Ulster loyalist backgrounds continually argued about Northern Ireland. As recently as 2015, attempts by Tommy Robinson and Anne-Marie Waters to establish an Irish section of Pegida UK ended in farce when several thousand anti-fascists, including republicans, socialists, trade unionists, immigrants’ rights campaigners, and Irish language activists, mobilised to prevent the launch.

The situation north of the border was different. Since the 1970s, loyalist paramilitaries like the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA) had forged links with British neo-Nazi groups, including Combat 18. At various times the National Front, the BNP, the White Nationalist Party, and Britain First all had a presence in Northern Ireland, being active in street demonstrations and attending loyalist parades. It’s not unusual to see Confederate flags and even Nazi swastikas displayed in loyalist East Belfast during the annual ‘Marching Season’. It’s also common for 12  July bonfires to be decorated with anti-Catholic, anti-LGBT, and Islamophobic banners. Racist effigies of black people and images of Catholic politicians are also burned on these occasions. In Britain those responsible would probably be investigated for hate crimes. In Northern Ireland the police largely ignore the issue.

Contemporary Fascism

The current far-right movement infecting politics throughout Ireland emerged six years ago. The Mediterranean migrant crisis  — migrants fleeing climate change–induced famine in Africa and refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria  — saw a large increase in the number of people being housed in government-run ‘direct provision centres’. This led to a rise in anti-immigrant protests and arson attacks at these centres. Between 2018 and 2023, there were sixteen such attacks, for which An Garda Síochána (or the Gardaí, the Irish police force) have not yet secured a single criminal conviction.

The Covid-19 pandemic was also exploited by far-right groups while the Gardaí largely ignored the emerging far-right threat. The Irish anti-lockdown movement united anti-immigrant activists, neo-Nazis, Catholic fundamentalists, anti-vaxxers, and other conspiracy theorists just when the first modern Irish far-right parties began to organise. These included the Irish Freedom Party, which has links to both UKIP and the German Alternative für Deutschland, and Síol na hÉireann, which has strong ties to former BNP leader Nick Griffin, as well as Jayda Fransen and Jim Dowson, both formerly of Britain First.

The most extreme of these new parties is undoubtedly the National Party led by Justin Barrett. Barrett is a fundamentalist Catholic and anti-abortion activist who was a speaker at a neo-Nazi rally in Germany and who has posted quotes from Hitler’s Mein Kampf on social media. The National Party is currently split over the issue of Barrett’s leadership and the political embarrassment caused by his saying the quiet part out loud. The faction loyal to Barrett has rebranded as the National Party  — Clann Éireann and has recently formed a uniformed ‘protection unit’ dubbed An Sciath Náisiúnta (the National Shield) or the SN, as Barrett calls it. Barrett himself has a history of dressing in military-style clothing which bears a striking resemblance to Nazi SS uniforms.

Elements of the Irish far right have forged alliances with the British group Patriotic Alternative (pa) led by Mark Collett. Collett, the former youth leader of the BNP, who once declared that ‘Hitler will live on forever’, has appeared on an Irish podcast advising anti-immigration protesters here about tactics. Collett’s newfound concern for the Irish is surprising given he admires UDA leader Johnny Adair, who conducted a terrorist campaign against Irish Catholics.

Two of Collett’s followers in PA, Sam Melia and James Allchurch, both appeared on the same podcast before being imprisoned for inciting racial hatred in separate incidents. Another international figure advising the Irish far right is Frank Silva, a former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader and convicted terrorist. Silva held online meetings with Stephen Butler, an anti-immigration activist from Waterford, who has a manslaughter conviction for killing his own father. Like Collett, Silva’s interest in Ireland is surprising given the KKK’s history of persecuting Irish Catholics.

In November 2023, a frenzied knife attack on three Dublin schoolchildren and their carer was carried out by an Algerian man who was a naturalised Irish citizen. Thankfully, no one was killed. The attack was immediately exploited by far-right agitators who organised anti-immigrant protests which spiralled into violence. Protesters chanting anti-immigrant slogans attacked the Gardaí and hindered the investigation of the crime by breaking police lines and potentially contaminating the crime scene.

Rioting quickly spread across Dublin city centre. Several Gardaí vehicles were destroyed, and three buses and a tram were highjacked and burned down. Thirteen shops were looted and two refugee accommodation centres were also attacked. The rioting and destruction continued for several hours, during which those involved were repeatedly egged on by social media posts written by Irish far-right ‘patriots’ and their British counterparts  — all revelling in the chaos they had helped bring to the Irish capital.

In June 2024, Irish far-right candidates polled well in both the local and European elections, but their vote was diluted by the large number of far-right candidates on each ballot paper. Half a dozen local councillors from the far right were elected, giving them a political toehold that they will undoubtedly seek to exploit before the upcoming general election.

The following month, the far right was back in the headlines when the Gardaí dismantled the ‘Coolock Says No’ protest camp at a proposed refugee accommodation centre in Dublin. Protesters responded by attacking construction workers, setting machinery on fire, and attacking the Gardaí with glass bottles, stones, and fireworks in violent scenes that grew into a full day of rioting involving hundreds of people.

In the wake of the Southport attack, a ‘Christian protest’ was organised at Belfast City Hall in solidarity with the Islamophobic protests in England. This event was attended by a number of loyalist paramilitaries and neo-Nazis who gave fascist salutes. Among the crowd was a former member of the BNP who in 1992 was involved in the sectarian murder of Kieran Abram, a 35-year-old Catholic who was beaten to death with wooden planks studded with nails. The loyalist Islamophobic protesters were joined by activists from the Coolock Says No campaign.

These Dubliners proudly waved Irish flags while fraternising with men who a fortnight earlier had revelled in burning the tricolour on the 12  July bonfires. When the rally ended, the loyalists and their new Dublin allies marched together to picket an Islamic cultural centre in East Belfast. They were challenged en route by Irish republicans as they approached the Lower Ormeau Road and fragmented into smaller groups, some of which began attacking the homes of immigrants and businesses owned by Muslims. The rioters also attacked a centre being used for social housing for local residents in the mistaken belief that it was refugee accommodation. The fact that the racist violence was almost entirely restricted to loyalist areas of East Belfast was later explained by a poll in the Belfast Telegraph, which showed that 82  percent of loyalists in Northern Ireland believed that the rate of immigration was too high, compared to 13  percent of republicans.

Following their initial demonstration at City Hall, the activists from Dublin spent the night drinking in a loyalist bar, where they were hosted by one of the chief suspects in the 1992 massacre at Sean Graham Bookmakers during which five Irish Catholics were murdered by loyalist paramilitaries. The publication of photographs showing tricolour-waving far-right activists from Dublin embracing union flag–waving loyalists from Belfast caused a sensation. By joining together, the Coolock protesters and the loyalist-led Islamophobic rally in Belfast achieved the goal that had eluded Mosley: an alliance of Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists united by their shared hatreds and the embrace of fascist politics.

Anti-Fascist Answers

A new facet of the latest racist riots in Dublin and Belfast is that, although individuals from several far-right groups were involved, the initial outbreak was sparked by disinformation spread online by far-right influencers and YouTubers rather than agitation by neo-fascist parties. One of the first steps that the Irish government needs to take in tackling the rise of the far right, then, is to hold social media companies like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Google, YouTube, and TikTok to account. All these companies have established their European headquarters in Dublin and are making little effort to tackle disinformation, extremist content, and racist conspiracy theories on their platforms.

The Irish state also needs to tackle violent activity by far-right agitators and anti-immigration activists. To date, there has been an almost complete failure in policing criminal activity by these actors. It’s interesting that several former high-ranking Gardaí as well as some serving Gardaí have gone to the press expressing their concern at the ‘soft touch’ tactics used to police far-right violence. The Irish left and anti-fascists of course need to be careful in calling for increased policing powers, as the Gardaí have a long history of disproportionally harassing left-wing protesters, striking trade unionists, and anti-war activists. Nonetheless, it’s not unreasonable to call on the Gardaí to simply do their job, within their existing powers, by policing the far right to prevent assault and arson attacks by thugs.

On the political front, Irish people in long-neglected working-class areas of our cities and rural communities where refugee accommodation centres are established are rightly angry at the state of the health service, the lack of child facilities, the cost of living, and the housing crisis. We need to remind these people, though, that refugees from Ukraine and Palestine did not create these crises. The responsibility for such calamities rests with the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael politicians who for decades have mismanaged the Irish economy, squandered public finances, and betrayed their electorate.

The anger and frustration currently being directed at migrants and refugees need to be redirected at the political elites who created this mess. Far-right and fascist activity needs to be challenged wherever it manifests. Every time fascists organise a public demonstration, they need to be met with an even larger anti-fascist counter-demonstration. For this to happen, we need to build a broad anti-fascist movement across Ireland involving left-wing political parties, trade unions, and others.

Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe not to have succumbed to fascism in the twentieth century. Still, we must remember that we do not have an intrinsic immunity to racial hatred. The fact that an increasingly extreme far-right fringe continues to haunt Irish politics a century after fascism’s first manifestations in Dublin should be of concern to us all.