If, as now seems highly likely, Donald Trump wins back the American presidency in November, the consequences will be felt well beyond the United States. One of them will be a boost for the far right in Europe. Ireland will not be immune to this contagion.
One of the unfolding dramas of Irish politics is a Beckett-like production called Waiting for the Duce. An audience has gathered and a stage is set for the entrance of some local version of Trump, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen or Viktor Orban. Behind the scenes, the actors can’t agree on who gets to play the strongman saviour of Ireland. They don’t have a coherent script. But let’s not kid ourselves – psychologically speaking, around a fifth of Irish voters have already booked tickets for the show.
Very few of those on the far right in Ireland want to acknowledge that they are indeed on the far right. So instead of getting caught up in semantics, it is better to identify a set of characteristic attitudes that, in rough combination, make up the reactionary nativist mindset. We can then recognise that most of these attitudes are now well rooted in Ireland. If there ever was reason to imagine that we are different, that what has happened in most other democracies couldn’t happen here, it has evaporated.
This cluster of attitudes encompasses most or all of these beliefs: the country is being taken away from its “real” inhabitants; indigenous white people are the true victims of discrimination; Islam in particular poses a threat to “our way of life”; global free trade is bad for my community; things used to be better in the past; the world is run by a secret cabal that controls all events; and for all these reasons, having a “strong leader” is more important than multiparty democracy.
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How many Irish people hold these beliefs and how do these numbers compare with countries that already have successful far-right movements? In March, the data and polling company FocalData tested these propositions in eight countries: the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland.
Seven of these countries have powerful far-right movements. Those movements are currently in government in Italy and the Netherlands and in alliance with the government in Sweden. Trump and Le Pen are realistic candidates for power in the US and France. Farage got over four million votes in the recent Westminster election. The far-right AfD is well established in German regional and federal parliaments.
The exception is Ireland. But what this study shows us is that what’s exceptional about Ireland is not the level of support for the underlying far-right beliefs. It is merely that no one has yet been able to funnel those beliefs into a serious political force.
One proposition tested in the study is “Some political parties believe that immigration, movements like environmentalism and LGBTQ+ rights, and international institutions like the EU are overrunning the country and that only native-born people are the true representatives of [our] culture.” Participants were asked whether they would consider supporting such a party.
The stark finding is that 31 per cent of people in Ireland said they would. This is the same level as in the US, the UK and Italy and actually higher than in France and Germany.
Asked to react to the claim that “It is likely that many white people are unable to find a job because employers are hiring minorities instead”, 11 per cent of Irish respondents strongly agreed. This is similar to the UK and higher than in any of the other countries bar the US. With the claim that “A small group of people secretly control events and rule the world together”, 16 per cent of Irish respondents strongly agreed – a higher percentage than in any of the other countries except the US.
And when the conclusion that “Having a strong leader who can get things done is more important than a liberal multiparty democracy” was put to people, 21 per cent of Irish respondents strongly agreed. The comparable figures were 25 per cent in the US, 20 per cent in the UK, 14 per cent in France, 10 per cent in Germany, 12 per cent in Italy and 11 per cent in both the Netherlands and Sweden.
There are a few local variants. Irish people are less likely to believe that Islam is a threat to their way of life or that global trade is bad for their local economy. They are less likely, too, to react strongly against the proposition that “It is generally good for my country that people come to live here from other countries”. And there is less nostalgia for an imagined past here – given the suggestion that “Life in my country was better 30 years ago”, 24 per cent of Irish people strongly agreed, compared with an average for the eight countries of 29 per cent.
But these qualifications don’t detract from the overall evidence that protofascist ideas are at least as prevalent in Ireland as in other western democracies. And these are beliefs that, once established, don’t go away quickly. It’s impossible to argue someone out of their certainty that everything bad that is happening to them is the result of the manipulation of events by a secret cabal (usually, in one lightly disguised form or another, the Jews). Obviously, anyone who denies this must be in on the conspiracy.
The ingredients are on the table – what’s missing is a competent chef. The coming general election is probably too soon for one to emerge from the jostling pack of would-be national saviours. But the presidential election of October 2025, probably conducted in the shadow of an ever more deranged, vengeful and poisonous President Trump, may well be the opportunity for an Irish imitator to barge on to the national stage.
Those who value democracy and decency should be forewarned. And forearmed with a coherent alternative that articulates a very different but even more potent sense of Irish identity.