“If we want to live in this country, and if we are not to be replaced absolutely by Jews... we ought to get down to work.”
These were the words of TD Denis Gorey, spoken in the Dáil in 1924. By that year there were about 3,500 Jews living in Ireland, but even with these small numbers, their presence as a visible minority was seen as a threat by many.
This type of nativism – the idea that non-native members of a population pose a threat – has long plagued migrant populations across the world. Irish emigrants were once the target. Today, there are protests against the increased numbers of asylum seekers seeking refuge in Ireland, a country that was largely ethnically homogeneous until the 2000s.
As the Government scrambles to find accommodation for them amid a housing emergency, individuals and groups on the far-right, driven by nativism, are determined to push back against the supposed threat these migrants pose. The protests are increasing in frequency and hostility, as those co-ordinating these efforts become more adept at swaying people towards their way of thinking.
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This kind of activity has been going on since at least 2018, with many of the same individuals and groups involved in organising protests both then and now. They have honed their skills, and the Government’s refusal to learn from past mistakes has doomed history to repeat itself.
In late 2018 and 2019, protests took place in rural towns across the country that were earmarked for direct provision centres. In many cases these areas were already struggling with inadequate services. Locals raised legitimate concerns about their ability to cope with an increased population as well as the highly publicised inhumane treatment of asylum seekers in these centres. A lack of consultation by the government left the communities with unanswered questions, creating an information vacuum ripe for filling with far-right voices.
Online, far-right campaigners infiltrated local Facebook groups and set up new ones to attract locals by tapping into their genuine concerns about the cruelty of direct provision. These groups were then littered with articles and videos putting forward conspiratorial reasons for asylum seekers coming to Ireland, and the supposed perils of multiculturalism. The same campaigners visited the towns in question and engaged with locals on the ground, while encouraging them to organise protests against the planned centres.
Today’s protests use similar tactics, but both the narratives and activities have become more extreme. Back in 2019 they tapped into people’s concerns about the treatment of asylum seekers; today, they use the housing emergency and a crumbling healthcare system to spread an “us vs them” narrative. In 2019 they were protesting against centres that were yet to be opened. Today, the protesters chant “Get them out!” and “Send them home!” outside centres housing families, including young children.
The tenor and frequency of online commentary about asylum seekers is becoming more hostile... Phrases like “military aged men” and “unvetted” are used to conjure up images of an invading force that plans to overwhelm an area and replace its locals
One reason for this shift is an increase in inflammatory rhetoric that has been used to describe asylum seekers arriving to Ireland. In our work at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a non-profit that researches disinformation, hate and extremism online, we analysed the use of the terms “invasion” and “plantation” in discussions on Facebook and Twitter during the entirety of 2019 regarding opposition to housing asylum seekers in Oughterard, Rooskey, Moville and Achill Island. We found fewer than 70 posts published throughout the whole year. By comparison, the same terms were used in discussions regarding East Wall, Killarney, Drimnagh and Fermoy in more than 950 posts in the three months leading up to January 10th.
The tenor and frequency of online commentary about asylum seekers is becoming more hostile. These are not meaningless terms. They, along with phrases like “military aged men” and “unvetted”, are used to conjure up images of an invading force that plans to overwhelm an area and replace its locals, a clear reference to the far-right “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
Invoking such rhetoric creates a pre-text for intimidation, hate or even violence against asylum seekers, while stripping away the realities of why they are fleeing their homelands in the first place.
Another reason for the increasing hostility lies in what we term “the Covid effect”. The online ecosystem that serves to spread conspiratorial narratives has drastically changed since the pandemic, and the audiences for these kinds of theories have increased substantially as a result.
Online movements that did not have much overlap before the pandemic have now coalesced, bound by their embrace of a conspiratorial worldview. Today, the groups and communities online that were formed during the pandemic to oppose lockdowns, masks and vaccines are a melting pot of wild alternative theories for everything from the invasion of Ukraine, to climate change, to immigration.
Government’s scramble to find accommodation means there is little engagement with local communities, fostering resentment and a vacuum of information. Into this void step figures who are offering extreme solutions coloured by hate and xenophobia
There is a clear playbook emerging for how these new protests are organised. Typically, someone records a video of a group of unidentified non-white men getting off a bus somewhere in Ireland. The video is funnelled through influential groups and channels online, reaching thousands of people and framed as evidence of the “invasion” or “plantation”.
Comments under the videos reflect the extreme beliefs of those who watch them. “Bring on civil war, regain our country,” says one. “The Government manufactured race war... all according to plan,” says another. Within hours, a protest has been organised and promoted through the same channels and accounts that sent the video viral. Locals taken in by the fear whipped up online are joined by the usual far-right faces on the ground. Unfortunately, this cycle is doomed to repeat itself unless something changes.
It’s clear there is a strain on resources. In 2022, a record number of 13,319 people sought asylum in Ireland, in addition to the almost 70,000 people who fled the war in Ukraine and were granted protection here. The Government’s scramble to find accommodation means there is little engagement with local communities, fostering resentment and a vacuum of information. Into this void step figures who are offering extreme solutions coloured by hate and xenophobia.
The only effective solution is greater engagement with locals, faster processing times for applications, community-led initiatives that direct their ire towards those really responsible for the crises facing the country and realistic, long-term solutions to them. Otherwise, extremists will continue to take advantage of this situation and we can expect to revisit these scenes again and again in the future.
Ciaran O’Connor and Aoife Gallagher are analysts at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue where they research online extremism, conspiracy theories and disinformation