Like most fascisms, the Irish variety is bizarre, syncretic, and somewhat comic. This is part of the reason that so many have struggled to take it seriously, despite the manifest harm done to people in its firing line. Contemporary far-right groups are historically rooted in the anti-abortion networks that have existed in the country since at least the 1980s. The most prominent of these groups is Youth Defence, a vicious outfit with links to not one but several European neo-Nazi parties, and the former employer of current National Party leader Justin Barrett. Having been roundly defeated in their quest to keep abortion illegal—Ireland’s Eighth Amendment was overturned in 2018—these dubious institutions and their coterie of well-funded militants have turned to organizing full-time against immigration and queer people instead.
Dreck of the Irish: The far right is gaining ground - The Baffler
