How Ireland became the epicentre of woke

As the world stumbles towards the end of yet another tumultuous year, few countries endured quite as much self-inflicted turmoil as Ireland.

The political year ended with an election that was notable for two apparently contradictory reasons – it revealed both a furious anger at the political class as well as a strange, belligerent apathy. Irish voters were indeed angry, but weren’t sufficiently inspired by any of the alternatives placed in front of them to actually go to the polling booth, which led to the lowest voter turnout for 100 years.

In fact, the candidate who seemed to inspire the most attention was none other than infamous gangster Gerry Hutch, better known as ‘The Monk’. Having recently been the subject of international headlines as a result of his mob war with hated rivals, the Kinahan cartel, he ran on the unusual platform of calling for more law and order.

He stood in the deprived constituency of Dublin North-Central, heart of the city-centre riots back at the end of 2023. The sight of Dublin’s most infamous gangster moaning that ‘there’s never a Garda around when you need one’, while being filmed by Oscar-winning director Jim Sheridan, was undoubtedly the highlight of an otherwise flaccid election campaign. Hutch narrowly missed out on securing a seat and will presumably continue his fight against crime from his heavily fortified mansion somewhere in Spain.

That lack of a viable political alternative was laid out in stark clarity during an RTÉ leaders’ debate a few weeks before the election, as 10 party leaders huddled around a crowded studio and took turns ignoring each other. The only issue on which there was clear unanimity was that Israel needs to be immediately boycotted and internationally shunned. In a country with a housing crisis, a cost-of-living emergency and increasing social unrest over immigration, Israel might sound like a strange focus for an election debate. But if you’re surprised that the leaders of 10 different parties on a rock in the Atlantic should find such common fury about events in the Middle East, then you haven’t been paying much attention to Ireland.

Alongside Spain and Norway, Ireland fully recognised a Palestinian state in May, to the fury of the Israeli government and to the gratitude of Hamas. Given the timing, it was essentially rewarding Hamas for the 7 October 2023 pogrom. In December, Ireland wrote to the International Court of Justice demanding it ‘broaden’ its definition of genocide, so as to find Israel guilty of it.

An example of just how demented Irish politicians have become over Israel was perfectly illustrated in September, when Irish president Michael D Higgins blamed the Israeli embassy in Dublin for leaking a letter he had written to newly elected Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian. This immediately summoned images of Mossad agents employing their dark arts to embarrass the Republic of Ireland.

The truth was rather more mundane. The Iranians had simply posted the letter on their own government website, thanking Higgins for his kind words, and then various newspapers reported those words. Eventually, Ireland’s anti-Israel posturing became so intense that the Israeli government felt moved to shut down its embassy in Dublin.

If there was no sign of an apology from Higgins to the Israelis, there was equal silence on any letter of congratulations to newly elected US president Donald Trump who, much to the despair of the Irish media, romped home in November.

Trump’s election came as bad news to all the establishment shills who form the blob known as ‘Official Ireland’. Taoiseach Simon Harris had publicly supported his American namesake to the point of proudly showing off ‘Harris ‘24’ campaign merch, while he also took time to insult Trump, calling him an ‘awful gowl’, the slang Irish term for a moron.

Affairs reached peak idiocy when one pundit appeared on TV to predict that a Trump victory would mean that 2024 would be the ‘last election America would ever see’, because y’know, Hitler and stuff. That’s the kind of behaviour that would get you laughed off most WhatsApp groups. But in Ireland it gets you invited on to serious political discussion shows.

Such behaviour doesn’t bode well for 2025, as even his supporters will admit that Trump is a remarkably small and petty man who is prone to keeping receipts. This is unfortunate because next year Ireland will need the good graces of the American president more than ever. The entire Irish economy is propped up by the tax derived from the American Big Tech companies, who have made Ireland their European capital. Should they leave, and with Trump’s threats of tariffs that is a worrying possibility, then Ireland would face a precipice comparable to the financial crash in 2008, which led to a decade of recession.

Diplomatic relations with the US, already strained, are further complicated by the fact that vice-president-elect JD Vance has written to the Irish ambassador warning against the introduction of any hate-speech laws, comparing Ireland’s behaviour to that of China, Myanmar and Iran.

Ireland’s proposed Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill made headlines around the world for its draconianism. As well as criminalising ‘hateful’ speech, it would also make it illegal to have offensive material in your private possession. The bill was postponed in October, but it hasn’t been abandoned entirely. It was the brainchild of former justice minister Helen McEntee. The weirdly authoritarian McEntee is now leading the Fine Gael negotiating team in forming the next government. If she regains her justice portfolio, then the hate-speech bill will be the first thing she tries to get over the line.

If things look rather sketchy on the international front, it seems normal service will be maintained domestically. And by normal, I obviously mean ‘batshit crazy’.

Over the past year there have been numerous controversies over sex-education text books informing young children of the joys of fisting and mutual masturbation, and, of course, about the wonderful world of gender identity. Other school textbooks praise Islam as an entirely peaceful religion while stressing that Judaism excuses violence and that Jesus came from ‘Palestine’. Another book refers to Auschwitz as a ‘prisoner of war camp’.

As the rest of the world finally admits that DEI and critical race theory were always a nonsensical scam, Irish institutions continue to embrace them with typical gusto. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the new post of ‘special rapporteur for the National Action Plan Against Racism’, which was created by the outgoing Green Party, presumably as a final two fingers to the Irish electorate.

That new special rapporteur is Ebun Joseph, a notorious Nigerian-Irish race baiter and seller of CRT snake oil. Her constant accusations of racism where none exists have turned her into a national joke. Infamous incidents include when a Galway restaurant served her Ribena by mistake and when she lobbied for a statue of Nubian queens to be removed, after mistaking them for African slaves. Although, given the gig will pay her a €100,000 stipend, she’s the one with the main reason to laugh.

Arguably, the clearest indication that the Irish people aren’t on board with any of this stuff came in March, when the government’s attempts to change the definition of the family and the rights of domestic carers in the Irish constitution were heavily defeated. Although the government expected to win with ease, the ‘care’ referendum was rejected by an historic 74 per cent of voters, while the proposal to redraw the definition of the traditional family was beaten by 67 per cent. These were the worst referendum results ever suffered by an Irish government. Voters spied an attempt by the elites to meddle with the traditional family unit, and they said No in their droves, hastening the exit of Leo Varadkar.

Still, none of this has caused the political class to do even the tiniest bit of reflection. More of the same is planned for 2025. Which leads me to ask just one question – can we please make it stop?

Ian O’Doherty is a columnist for the Irish Independent.