A New Ireland
Ireland was already reeling from the mass stabbing that took place in Cork Christmas market on December 23rd, 2023. With eight people dead, amongst them a pregnant woman, it wasn't long before information leaked out of the Gardai office that the suspect was a foreign national. It mattered not, to the throngs of protestors and rioters, that he was a European national from Spain, but only that he "Wasn't Irish" as far as Conor McGregor was concerned. The assailant, 34 year old Alfred Perez, from Tarragona, was remanded in custody in hospital for untreated mental health issues. Perez had been living in Ireland since 2006, and had recently lost his job as an archivist in Cork Central Library a week previous, and was at risk of eviction. He had been known to social services and mental health services for some time, and had disengaged from his monthly medication check in, but the HSE had let him fall through the cracks.
Rioting erupted almost immediately in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Swords, Tallaght, Waterford and hate crimes against foreign nationals skyrocketed overnight, with hundreds being made homeless as a result of arson attacks against homes and businesses. They included, of course, Irish owned businesses but this small detail was overlooked as the airwaves and column inches were dominated with right-wing mouthpieces and thinkpieces ranging from advocating Ireland leave the EU, to more extreme opinions on how Ireland should bring back the death penalty, close its borders completely, and deport any foreign nationals not from the EU.
The rioting subsided in time for Christmas Day, however the tension and the smoke from the fires still hung thick in the air, like a tinderbox waiting to explode. Reports were coming in from all over the country of gangs of masked men setting up roadblocks in places as far flung as Donegal, Longford, and Mayo and asking non-white people for their passports. If they were unable to produce their documents they were summarily turned back, or assaulted and sent to the nearest hospital.
Despite a plea for calm from both the Taoiseach and the President, and a wave of both foreign nationals, and Irish residents making their way across the border to Northern Ireland, the violence continued to rumble on in small pockets across the country. When the ninth victim of Perez's attack, six year old Bailey McGinn, died in hospital on New Year's Eve, that was all it took for the powderkeg to erupt.
Whipped up by rhetoric from prominent commentators, personalities and with the Irish National Party injecting themselves into the debate with gusto, the trouble spilled onto the streets once again. Anyone who looked "foreign" was at risk of being openly assaulted on the streets of Dublin, Cork, Galway etc, businesses began to refuse patronage from foreign nationals out of fear of being targeted and labeled traitors, as had happened to a prominent restaurant in Dundalk.
Windows were smashed in temporary accommodation providers, gangs of masked men armed with baseball bats and golf clubs clashed with Gardai outside community centres, hospitals, and even Direct Provision centres. The New Year was welcomed in with the shattering of glass and the smell of burning cars in housing estates and even rural communities. A national curfew was announced for 8pm ach night, however it was largely ignored. Protestors carried photos of the nine victims of the Christmas market stabbing, despite the please from their families not to use them as political footballs.
The violence came to a head when the father of the Tanaiste, Leo Varadkar, was brutally assaulted whilst filling up his car in a petrol station outside of Athlone. Doctor Ashok Varadkar, himself an Indian immigrant to Ireland, was hospitalised with serious head injuries. The FF/FF coalition immediately drafted emergency legislation to allow the Government to quell the unrest by requesting the deployment of the Irish Defence Forces on the streets, a more stringent national curfew, and a ban on mass gatherings.
The Green Party opposed the measure, and threatened to withdraw from Government if the law was put before the Dail. Green Party leader Eamonn Ryan claimed that the proposed powers were too far reaching, and would grant the Government impunity in dealing with unrest, with no proposal for a deadline on the legislation being stood down. Micheal Martin seriously considered enacting Article 28.3.3 of the Irish constitution, enabling the Government to pass laws that would be unconstitutional in times of “war or armed rebellion”, however it was not supported by his cabinet and would likely be struck down by the Supreme Court as an overreach of executive powers.
With no support from the opposition for their emergency measures, Taoiseach Micheal Martin resigned and asked President Higgins to call an early election, hoping to force the measure to a referendum by way of the polls.
Immigration, and the unwavering unrest, dominated the short election cycle, with many parties fearing for their candidates as they canvassed. Labour activsts were attacked in Dún Laoghaire by INP canvassers, foreign nationals continued to make their way out of the country via Northern Ireland, or stayed at home out of fear of the roving gangs of "Patriots".
The Irish far right coalesced around their hero, Conor McGregor, and formed a coalition of the INP, the Irish Catholic Christian Democrats, Eire Nua, and fringe elements kf Reublican Sinn Fein, to contest the election as a block. Some independent TDs also threw in their lot with them, with outgoing TD Matthew McDermott, former Fine Gael TD and former Finance spokesperson who was expelled from the party after comparing Muslim migrants to cockroaches when speaking off the cuff at a fundraiser for the Iona Institute.
McDermott quickly became the rallying focal point of the Irish far right, promising to make "Ireland For The Irish" and propose constitutional amendments that would allow Ireland to opt out of EU human rights legislation, and the "oppression" of Brussels in Irish affairs. He made sweeping promises about housing, reforming the HSE, lowering taxes, and of course, deporting any foreign national found guilty of a crime. He also promised to end the system of Direct Provision and replace it with an off-Island assessment and detention system based on Achill Island, despite a complete lack of infrastructure there.
During a Rally For The Homeland gathering in Dublin, far-right demonstrators and far-left counter protestors clashed in violent scenes reminiscent of scenes from the Troubles in the 1970s. Gardai struggled to maintain order and the violence spilled out into looting, the destruction of public property, and the assault and murder of a young Polish woman, Agnieszka Kowalski, in Phoenix Park.
The identity of the attacker was never determined however it didn’t take long for the blame to be pinned on a male foreign national who was initially arrested by Gardai, and subsequently released due to lack of evidence. This was the final straw for the Irish electorate, it seemed, as come polling day the Irish Right, under the banner of the Coalition of The Homeland, took a plurality of seats in the Dail with 76 seats, and Matthew McDermott pipped to be the next Taoiseach.
All it took was the support of a handful of right leaning independents, and the detection of a number of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail TDs to secure a majority of 84 seats. The Labour Party, Greens, and People Before Profit were wiped out, with Sinn Fein taking 39 seats, Fine Gael on 22, Fianna Fail on 13, and 9 independents.
The first act of the new Government was to rush through the passage of the Emergency Powers Act, which was lifted word for word from the controversial legislation of the previous Government, with added amendments that allowed for the shuttering of print and broadcast media, censorship of news, the suspension of the Common Travel Area, and most controversially, a root and branch reform of the Supreme Court and a list of constitutional amendments to be put to a plebiscite. The legislation passed through with a simple majority, however President Higgins refused to sign, triggering a constitutional crisis.
Tanaiste Herman Kelly publicly challenged the President in the press, pointing out that the role of the Irish President was to rubber stamp legislation, and had no constitutional authority to block legislation. Higgins eventually acquiesced, but rather than give assent to the legislation, the President held a press conference in the CCD Convention centre and, shockingly, announced his resignation. Higgins declared, with great vigour and fire, that he would rather surrender the office of the President than give tacit approval to fascists in Government by rubber stamping heinous legislation. Higgins promised to be a thorn in the side of the Government from outside of the Aras, and vowed to challenge them on every front.
The resignation of President Higgins sent shockwaves through the political world in Ireland. The Government scrambled to formulate a response, with many in opposition calling for another general election immediately. However with the Presidency vacant, and the position of Vice President non existent in the Irish constitution, the decision rested with the Presidential Commission. The commssion, consisting of the Chief Justice, the Speaker of the Dail and the Chairperson of the Seanadd, were unable to sign the legislation into law as the Chief Justice refused on a matter of principle, and instead they were forced to announce a special Presidential election within the next 60 days, as was constitutionally mandated.
When pressed on why he would refuse to give assent to the legislation, Chief Justice O’Donnell took exception with the proposed reforms to the Supreme Court, which would allow the Government of the day to remove and appoint Supreme Justices on a whim, and the proposal to repeal the Electoral Amendment Act (1927) which would, in effect, allow the current Government to postpone the next general election indefinitely.
The Government promised to challenge the decision of the Presidential Commission in the courts, but they knew this would take months and in the meantime, the Government would be completely unable to pass any legislation. McDermott’s cabinet brought forward a series of reforms under the National Reconstruction Act, which would reorganise the Gardai, the Supreme Court, the allocation of funding for Irish political parties, and introduce a strict immigration and asylum process. McDermott was, like his predecessor, minded to invoke Article 28.3.3 of the Constitution to allow his measures to pass. The last emergency was declared in 1976 as a result of the PIRA campaign in Northern Ireland, at the height of The Troubles. McDermott was satisfied that the conditions for a state of emergency has been met, but hd faced significant opposition from the four Republican Sinn Fein TDs, and a handful of independents who feared that McDermott would install himself as Taoiseach for life. The constitution was being pushed to the limit, and had never before been tested in such a way. Lawyers and legal experts lined up to denounce McDermott’s attempts at enacting the emergency powers, calling it a power grab, and a far reaching indictment of Irish democracy. McDermott acquiesced and put his plans to enact Article 28.3.3 on the back burner, but had ambitions to trigger it once he was able to pass the National Restoration Act.
The legislation passed both the Dail and the Seanadd, but with no President or Commission to sign, the laws languished in limbo. The press had a field day, accusing the establishment of subverting democracy and the constitution, as well as the will of the people. International headlines were stocked full of footage of looting, rioting, pictures of business owners defending their premises. Long queues at airports and at the border with Northern Ireland of people trying to get out, creating an internal refugee crisis in Northern Ireland’s border counties with the cities of Armagh, Derry, and Belfast swarmed with families from across the country who had nowhere to go. Violent hate crimes against migrants, queer people, and opposition political activists continued unabated, with the Gardai woefully unequipped to deal with it. Trade Unions announced a general strike, consisting of public service workers, retail workers, public transport staff, teachers, medical staff etc as employers were unable to guarantee safety of their workers.
EU heads of Government were split on how to address the ongoing internal turmoil of one of their member states. The UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, fighting his own reelection campaign, was hesitant to interfere however the lack of a Northern Irish Executive, and the deepening migrant crisis from Ireland, forced his hand, and he officially wrote to the Taoiseach voicing his concern at the spiralling violence, and the scenes ar airports across the UK.
The violence on the streets had reached unparalleled proportions, and with the functions of Government ground to a halt, and the office of the President vacant, things came to a head when opposition TDs refused to take their seats in the Dail and deprive the Government of a quorum. McDermott's internal allies began to turn on him, with Eire Nua, and the Christian Democrats calling for a vote of no confidence in his leadership, and effectively resigning from Government. When no candidates were nominated for the Presidental election apart from former Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who himself declared that he would refuse to endorse any legislation passed by the current Dail that would erode civil liberties, it was clear that the writing was on the wall.
McDermott resigned, and the Presidential Commission approved his request for an early general election in April 2024. It was a tumultuous election cycle, but the heat had been taken out of the situation with the resignation of Matthew McDermott as Taoiseach, and the collapse of the right wing bloc as a movement. Dissent gave way to infighting and splits within the grouping, dissolving even further into disparate right wing fringe elements who devoured each other in the press and in the polls.
McDermott’s inability to harness the electorate’s anger at immigration, housing, health etc had gave way to his political dissolution in the press and on the airwaves. He was a lame duck Taoiseach, a busted flush, a damp squib who had looked the constitutional institutions in the eye and blinked. The checks and balances of the Irish constitution, and the signalling of the EU to deploy election observers, as well as the swelling refugee crisis on the internal Irish border, culminated in a landslide victory for Sinn Fein in the general election.
They had made concessions to the right on immigration, but only tacitly and had stood up to the EU on issues such as law and justice, prisons, sentencing reform and pushing forward with populist policies on housing, health, education and trade unions. It was a less than perfect victory, but the new Sinn Fein/Social Democrat coalition was faced with a weakened, yet determined Coalition of the Homeland in opposition, snapping at their heels for the next opportunity to push their right wing, anti-EU agenda. But it was over, for now.