The Whitepills and Blackpills for Irish Nationalism After GE24

“Bíonn grásta Dé idir an dá throm….”

Regardless of whether you classify the results of last week’s general election as an electoral bridgehead to the mainstream or a fatalistic argument against electoral politics, sober analysis is the most advantageous strategy for an inchoate Irish Right.

As of the time of writing it appears that the centre has not merely held but fortified itself, notwithstanding a serious body blow for O’Gorman’s Greens and the noticeable wobbling within the Sinn Féin base.

After the successful referenda, on family and care and June’s European and local elections, last Friday was a freeze-frame for the nationalist and populist right in this country, outlining strengths and weaknesses both within and without the voting booth.

Years of online rhetoric collided with grassroots reality for many in our collective ecosystem with both positive and negative results.

Anyway, let’s start dishing out the much-needed whitepills.

Urban Bridgeheads, confirming the demonstrable reality that the nativist surge of the last 18 months is indeed an urban, proletarian, and Dublin-led phenomenon, results were most optimistic across the board in said constituencies. 

• Independent Gavin Pepper, the National Party’s Stephen Redmond and Ian Croft of the Centre Party won a combined tenth of the vote in Dublin North-West. In some boxes in Finglas, this rose to nearly 20% of first preferences.

• Gerry Hutch and Malachy Steenson were the story of the day in Dublin Central (which could have been even worse for the establishment), with Sinn Féin suffering heavy losses in the Seán McDermott Street/Sheriff Street section of Dublin’s north inner city.

• Nick Delehanty’s very respectable performance in Dublin Bay South, one of the most liberal constituencies in the country, defeating the high-profile ex-FG TD Kate O’Connell and winning nearly 4% of first-preferences total, rising to as high as 12% in Ringsend boxes.

• Yan Mac Oireachtaigh’s credible performance in Dublin South-West, tripling the NP’s result from 2020 under Philip Dwyer and winning 6-8% across large parts of Tallaght, holding his own overall against Paddy Holohan, the ex-Sinn Féin councillor vying for the same anti-immigration vote.

• Derek Blighe achieved a significant breakthrough in Cork North-Central in one of the most credible performances outside Baile Átha Cliath, winning nearly 2,500 first-preferences and 4.2% of the vote. He is likely to have done particularly well in the working-class Northside areas of Knocknaheeny, Mayfield and Hollyhill.

Rural Bridgeheads, several results outside Dublin are also cause for optimism that nationalist candidates can hold their own, compete and perhaps, in the future, win in rural Ireland.

• Stephen Kerr’s incredible performance in Mayo, winning nearly 3,300 first-preference votes and nearly 5% of first-preferences, following on from his result in Castlebar LEA for the local elections in which he narrowly missed out on a council seat in the final count.

• Elaine Mullally’s 6.4% of first-preferences in Laois. Mullally, who resigned from Independent Ireland earlier in the year, ran a strong campaign which yielded the single-best result of any candidate in the country.

Immigration, although significantly less prevalent in this campaign than it was earlier in the year, still ranked as one of the top five issues to voters in exit polling and 41% polled believed that immigration was generally a negative for Ireland, including 55% of Sinn Féin voters. The issue of migration is here to stay and it will be a long five years for those who may have wished that the question would have gone away with this election.

Nationalism Gained Relative to Locals

In 2016 right-wing Irish nationalism consisted of Peter O’Loughlin, some disparate fringe figures and a whole lot of parroted Anglo-American rhetoric.

By 2024, while still very much stuck in the doldrums just under 3% of the electorate opted for an explicit hard right choice for the Oireachtas with a broader wave for soft populists including Aontú and Independent Ireland.

From 2020 to 2024, the total share of the right-wing nationalist party bloc went from 15,750 to nearly 35,000. In total, including independents, 60,500 voted to break the cordon sanitaire. It is the greatest electoral showing of a nationalist Right in a general election in the history of the State.

Not much, huh? But in the study of contemporary European nationalist movements, this first foothold is arguably the hardest.

Despite being in its relative infancy nationalists have a discernible foothold across West Dublin and with the right messaging, personnel and basic cop-on can be able to secure parliamentary representation come the next general election.

The Last Stand of the Delusionals

Arguably the defining characteristic of right-wing politics in Ireland the last decade has been a failure at leadership for any reliable figure to shepherd Irish nationalism through its shepherd. 

From public flirtations with ugly World War 2 aesthetics to high-profile candidates running on the platform of US-imported conspiracy theories, the string of dud leaders of the past decade beggars belief.

The recent flux among the right-wing Irish parties cements the transitional stage the Irish Right has entered, dumping clueless and no-hope figures necessary before the movement itself can mature.

Be grateful that these figures might eventually to doomed to the dustbin but they are not gone yet. Do not forget the mistakes that were made tolerating them. The first test any fledgling movement faces left or right and how it will be judged will be the social mechanisms for removing toxic individuals.

Migration Ain’t Going Away

Tuesday’s morbid news of the stabbing of a young girl by a North African immigrant enshrines the reality that the politics of mass migration is here to stay on the national agenda. The Public Order Unit can be better equipped, Coimisiún na Meán can be furnished with more emergency powers to shut down free expression but there is no hiding the ugly and oftentimes bloody impact replacement migration is and will continue to have in Ireland.

Following Europe’s Coattails

What Irish nationalists are attempting to do is invent the wheel and simply let nature take its course, as hyper-liberalism and the project of mass migration collapses across Western Europe. National populists are not just knocking on the doors of power but in the Cabinet rooms across Europe.

The Melonis and Le Pens of today started on the doors in Milan and Lille in the 1990s and 2000s.

In the traditionally left-wing dominated Portugal the explicitly ethno-nationalist Chega party scored a miserly 1.29% in their first election in 2019, by 2024 that figure was 18.1% courtesy of the smart leadership of André Ventura.

The scale of mass immigration merely accelerated the urgency for a viable nationalist movement in Ireland with the growing pains of the last year indicative of conditions forcing a still juvenile nationalist circuit to grow beyond its means.

Similar to Trump 2.0 the mood music is changing across Europe due to the rise of populism, with some force to the right of Aontú destined to fill a space on our political map.

BLACKPILLS

Petty Chieftains

Even outside of niche right-wing circles, it is becoming blatantly obvious that PR-STV is struggling to deal with political fragmentation.

Outside of a credibly unifying figure of national prominence or a viable catch-all populist party Irish nationalism represents warring tribes of tribesmen battling out for overlapping fiefdoms.

Put simply this is the defining test for nationalism if it can negotiate this labyrinth of electoral alliances and understand the necessity of nation over candidacy, patriotism over party. 

From the Treaty split to schism-prone Earls the core downfall of the Irish nation has been a failure to coalesce at the right time. An ethnic trend that the Irish Right may very well stumble into.

Dog Whistle Politics

From SF’s lurch to migration control rhetoric, Fine Gael’s dabbling with centre right policies or Fianna Fáil’s Janus-faced approach to ongoing asylum disputes in Athlone the Irish elite are codifying their response to mass migration and how to neuter dissent.

From the use of Aontú as a potential safety valve expect the terms of engagement on the migration question to be altered to lull Paddy and Mary public into a false sense of security while their parishes alter before their very eyes.

Vote Splitting

In an article we published some weeks before the election, a writer warned of the pitfalls of vote splitting. Some of our worst fears came to fruition on Saturday: Gerry Hutch’s last-minute candidacy against Malachy Steenson cost both men a seat. In Dublin Bay North, six candidates won a combined 4,226 first-preference votes, or 6.45%, a tally which would have placed them seventh, ahead of Aontú and Independent Barry Heneghan, who ended up taking the fifth seat.

In some constituencies, the total vote had it been coalesced around a single candidate would not have been enough to be in contention. In Dublin West, 4.7% would not have been enough to overtake Aontú’s Ellen Troy. In Dublin North-West, 9.8% would not have been enough in a three-seater constituency for any one nationalist to get elected. Yet it can be fairly argued that vote splitting in those circumstances deflated the potential nationalist vote by dividing resources that could have been funneled towards a single candidate.

Vote splitting costs parties state funding, candidates the chance to reclaim expenses, to win back their deposit (if they are non-party), television coverage and most importantly representation in the Dáil. There were no political factions guiltless in this. Some candidates decided on a last-minute whim to stand without any warning. With better vote management and discipline, we could have potentially won our first TDs.

Vote splitting however is a natural consequence of the fact that no party in the Irish Right has the momentum behind them to consolidate the vote. If parties want to avoid vote-splitting, then they need to prove themselves to be head and shoulders above the rest otherwise there will always be candidates who believe that they can do better.

Infighting and Lack of Temperament

Diplomacy is a necessary skill to acquire if one wants to navigate any political movement. It has unfortunately been a skill sorely lacking. Efforts to reduce the aforementioned vote splitting were thwarted by unnecessary hostility and harassment, often spilling out into public forums. It is undoubtedly frustrating but not an excuse for a lack of temperament. You are going to have to rub shoulders with those whom you don’t like. Those you don’t entirely agree with. That is the nature of politics. It was true in Pearse’s time as it is in ours.

“I propose that we take service as our touchstone, and reject all other touchstones; and that, without bothering our heads about sorting out, segregating, and labelling Irishmen and Irishwomen according to their opinions, we agree to accept as fellow-Nationalists all who specifically or virtually recognise this Irish nation as an entity and, being part of it, owe it and give it their service.”

The Cranks and Arseholes

Rightists and those with anti-establishment political inclinations disproportionately appeal to people who have low levels of agreeableness, as well as people towards the fringes of society, who are to some extent social misfits. This has hampered our movement more than anything – diplomatic and organisational aptitude is sorely lacking.

It is a cold fact that socially high-status people who have lots of friends and social status are less likely to bother with politics. They are (generally) too busy being successful and don’t want to rock the boat. This creates an existential problem where the behavioural norms in our spaces are set by misfits, who often have something to prove to themselves. Socially well-adjusted people then become targets in our circles, or they simply become repulsed by the low level of human capital they see around them and drop out. This creates a vicious cycle wherein our movement becomes increasingly aggressive, low-status and weird.

The potential is there to attract those of a respectable, socially high-status and successful background into adopting at least some of our platform. Every successful right-wing populist movement in Europe has friends in high places. Until we can attract those people in large numbers, let us stop acting the fool when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael keep getting returned to power.

In Conclusion: A Lot Done…..

The Highland charge of right-wing politics over the last two years has produced mixed results.

Whereas nationalist politics in Europe was inherited from generations of aristocratic and martial networks propped up by ideological vanguards and counter-elites, the post-East Wall surge has been defined by a rapid movement of the Dublin working-class and a nationalist nexus unable to keep up.

We are still in the teething phase of this political process lacking any of the institutional or civil society mechanisms that buttress any movement. 

While the risk of bad optics Neo-Nazism swooping in to poison the well on this new political zeitgeist remains relatively small, there is no denying the inordinate amount of brain-dead conspiracy types weighing down political progress.

We have collectively hit a fork in the road requiring maturity well beyond the years of the Irish Right to attract and utilise functional members of Middle Ireland as well as high agency nationalists who, out of rational self-interest, prefer safer centre-right options.

The dialectic facing the Irish Right is not radicalism versus reformism, ethnonationalism versus civic nationalism, but simply onboarding normal people with idealistic politics and avoiding the traps of fringe politics, and upping our work output in general. 

Greater effort must be achieved across the board, everyone has it in them to contribute something. With notable exceptions, those who would consider themselves engaged nationalists have been generally lacking in effort. We have mountains to move. It is this political litmus test that will define the next chapter of our shared political journey.

Most importantly, we cannot despair. 

A wise sage said recently that “despair, like a house, is something that the older generation can afford but the younger cannot.” We must not forget the great strides that we have taken to get us even to this point. Our present situation is a cause for hope, not despair.