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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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It's an interesting question, I have to get off my computer soon so these will be scattered points but I might write a long post on the situation in a few days and see if the other Irish posters here agree. The short answer is I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Woods and the rest of the Irish far-right have been making a hell of an effort to link their brand of nationalism to Irish republicanism - the only cause with a real populist spark - but it's an uphill battle and they've got the much more organised, motivated (and as they hate me pointing out, better armed) republicans up north to contend with. To be fair the attempt has gotten its own debunking article from the national broadcaster so it's definitely gotten people's attention. Woods has his own unique downsides too, as much as the Israeli government may dispute this actual anti-semitism is not a good look, there are very few Jews in Ireland in the first place and getting angry about them makes you sound like you'd be more at home in some other country that cares about this stuff. His and the Irish far-right's internet savviness is very helpful when it comes to embarrassing the government, but because the internet is global you risk associating yourself with based British nationalists. Tommy Robinson has shown up to a few protests in Dublin and this fact has been jumped on immediately to discredit the movement whenever it has happened, I've seen a few Irish Twitter right-wingers fiercely condemning each other over this otherwise natural alliance.

The National Party is making the effort to knock on doors and win some votes the traditional way but it has had basically zero success. I won't write them off completely though as the few members I know are extremely motivated and I expect that will hold for their next batch of recruits.

The peaceful protests against and arson attacks on migrant housing seem to be organic, the far-right do show up to these town hall meetings and do share inciting material online, and leftists take this as evidence that this is all the result of conspiracies, but they haven't been able to actually get themselves into a leadership position. There was a bit of a controversy over one of these guys showing up to a small town called Oughterard a few years back while the locals were objecting to migrant accomodation. Oughterard is no more far-right than it was a few years ago, the energy evaporated once the matter was settled.

All of this being said: (i) I have been repeatedly surprised by the willingness of random townspeople to protest, and (ii) Irish people are struggling economically and the country is changing rapidly so old expectations may not hold.