02/10/2023
See, earlier (2016) Brave New Ireland — How the Island of Saints and Scholars Became a Multicultural Dystopia and (2006) Ireland: Though All The World (Specifically, The Irish PM) Betray Thee.
[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusively on VDARE.com]
The Cultural Revolution rolls on, crushing all before it under its mighty wheels: nationhood, meritocracy, Christianity, freedom of speech and association, equal justice under the law, … all the props of Western Civilization. We normies watch the juggernaut roll, hoping and praying for some sign of counterrevolution, for evidence that ordinary, not-very-political citizens will not go gentle into the good night of high-tech Anti-White authoritarianism.
And we have been getting some encouraging signs recently from Ireland.
The Cultural Revolution has been proceeding much faster and more ruthlessly in that country than elsewhere. In part that’s because Ireland had further to go. I myself have been writing for years about how the Ireland of fifty years ago, then perhaps the most culturally conservative white nation, transformed itself into the Heart of Wokeness after joining the EU in 1973.
It’s not very surprising under the circumstances that Ireland has bought into the Open-Borders aspect of globalism.
It’s even less surprising when you recall that for three hundred years there Ireland, with its poverty and high fertility, was a poster child for e-migration to Britain, the U.S.A., Australia, and New Zealand.
Well, things may be changing. The last few days have seen major demonstrations against Ireland’s Open Borders. Wednesday this week VDARE’s own correspondent Pádraic O’Bannon gave us a great montage of Twitter clips showing ordinary Irish people fighting back against their demographic replacement.
🇮🇪#Ireland
Shocking video shows rival migrants armed with baseball bats and machetes turn city into warzone as brawl breaks out
This is why #IrelandSaysNO. Their streets are becoming unrecognizable and the Irish have had enough. pic.twitter.com/FyOgHoCpPE
— Truthseeker (@Xx17965797N) February 8, 2023
For a deeper dive into the politics of the situation — and I speak here as one who has been doing political commentary about Ireland for more than twenty years — I recommend Peter Ryan’s recent column over at Unherd.com:
…[G]rassroots anti-migrant protests are sweeping across the country, rallying around the slogan "Ireland is Full." There were 307 anti-migrant protests in 2022, while 2023 has already seen 64. At the latest demonstration in Dublin, on Tuesday [February 6], more than 2,000 protestors took to the streets.
[The rise of Ireland’s anti-migrant protests, February 9, 2023]
As here and in Britain, the Irish Establishment is determined to do nothing at all about the inflow, and to slander, harass, and when necessary arrest those who demonstrate against it.
This has been easy for them as Ireland has been under Uniparty rule for a hundred years.
Two big political parties have held power across that long span. Fianna Fáil is very approximately the U.S. Democratic Party, with more working-class support; Fine Gael is more business-friendly, like our GOP.
That’s highly theoretical, though. In practice there’s been no daylight between the two parties for decades. They are now united in globalism, determined to keep the borders open, and full of angry denunciations of the "Far Right."
Sound familiar?
A great curiosity in this situation: the minority party, Sinn Féin. Twenty-three years ago I was describing Sinn Féin — correctly, of course — "the only plausible nationalist-patriotic party in Ireland.”
Sinn Féin was so nationalist-patriotic that they were at one point arguing for Ireland to leave the European Union. They were so nationalist-patriotic they served as the political front for the terrorists carrying out bombings and assassinations in British-ruled Northern Ireland.
Nationalist-patriotic? Oh yeah.
So Sinn Féin is leading the counter-revolution against Open Borders and the destruction of Irish nationhood, right?
Er, no.
Sinn Féin’s current leadership is totally at one with the Uniparty, supporting Open-Borders globalism. The current president of Sinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald, is a middle-class female Social Justice Warrior.
She represents a working-class constituency in Dublin, Ireland’s capital. None of the news stories and commentaries on this week’s demonstrations failed to notice that —
[Sinn Féin’s] failure to provide a nationalist stance on these issues means they are often the most hated by protestors; a placard picture of Mary Lou MacDonald bearing the word "traitor" was lustily booed at the original East Wall protest.
[A Total Loss of Narrative Control, by Conor Fitzgerald; Substack, February 8, 2023]
Could a genuinely nationalist party come up in Ireland, a nation that was once ardent in protection and preservation of its national identity? Well, one already has: the five-year-old Irish Freedom Party.
The IFP hasn’t made much of a mark yet and has suffered from all the weaknesses and personality issues that always afflict small new parties; and of course Ireland’s ruling class will do all it can to crush them.
They’re out there, though, and not throwing bombs or shooting cops Sinn Féin-style. Let’s see what develops.
Ireland, as I wrote all those years ago, is interesting, a place worth watching.
John Derbyshire writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.
For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge. His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.
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