The thing that almost all of the globally ascendant movements of the “new right” – or what the Irish media would call “the far right” have in common is a renewed commitment to nationalism.
Whether you look to the foremost proponent of that movement – Donald Trump in the United States – or to less well known populists like Robert Fico in Slovakia (who differs from Trump on economics but sounds almost identical in tone when it comes to national greatness) the unifying thread that binds them together is that all of these movements to one extent or another emphasise protecting the nation state and the national idea from the malign influence of foreigners and globalists.
They are protectionist in terms of trade, largely hostile to immigration, and almost universally opposed to intervention in foreign wars. Take the AFD in Germany, Marine LePen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Nigel Farage in the UK, and you’ll find the same broad trends everywhere. It’s all some version of “America First”, “Germany First”, or “The Netherlands First”.
This is exactly why, I would argue, that movements based on these ideas have had such a miserable time of it trying to break through in Ireland, specifically.
Everywhere else in the world, the idea that nationalists (I’m using that term as shorthand) oppose is a progressivism and globalism that puts global objectives ahead of national interests. Thus, you have arguments like “why are we sending money to Ukraine when we have bridges to be built at home” or “We should put our own people first and send migrants home”.
Why have those arguments not worked in Ireland?
The answer, I am going to argue in this article, is that Ireland is a political outlier in that our progressivism is deeply rooted in nationalism already, and that the Irish voter behaves as he does not because he is opposed to nationalism, but because he is a steadfast believer in it.
I present to you a paragraph that jumped out at me from one of the various (four column’s worth in total) arguments against Elon Musk published in yesterday’s Sunday Independent. Here’s Brendan O’Connor:
You’d hope that Ireland might be able to keep the head down and stay out of this Revenge of the Assholes. Our idea of a culture war is a nice comfortable argument about whether we were alarmist about the cold weather or whether it should actually have been a red warning.
But, of course, it turns out our EU commissioner is in charge of Musk affairs, we rely on Zuckerberg for loads of jobs, and we are somehow in charge of regulating tech in Europe, too.
Make no mistake. We’re next. The assholes are coming for us.
All that’s missing is an invocation from our greatest nationalist, De Valera, about comely maidens and crossroads. We just have a better class of argument here. More simple. Less harmful. A simple people, arguing about the weather, rather than divisive rubbish about free speech and expression on the internet. We might be buffeted by the impact of what is happening internationally, but in O’Connor’s version – which is a direct descendant of the comely maidens theory – we will remain pure and aloof from it, because we are a purer people. That is what is being sold to the reader there, as always.
Irish nationalism has always had an exceptionalist quality to it which has sustained, and sustains, the ruling classes to the present day. During the hegemony of Catholicism in the middle of the century, we were simply a more moral country than the rest of the world, in the version of Ireland presented to us by those in charge. There was no immorality or filth here, unlike what was happening beyond our borders. We rid ourselves of immoral books (some 5,000 were banned at the height of censorship) and films. Then we flipped the lid on that and became more moral than the rest of the world by ridding ourselves of the very ideology which had once made us better and purer: Suddenly we were progressive, voting to legalise gay marriage before anyone else, “leading by example” on Climate Change, and taking an enormously outlying position in the western world on the war in the Middle East. The essential message has never changed: Our rulers have always presented Ireland as an example that the rest of the world would do well to follow, and they have always presented Ireland as being in danger of being corrupted by the bad influence of foreigners they disagree with.
It’s one reason why something that’s peculiar to nationalists in the rest of the west – hostility to NATO and foreign wars – is actually shared by the establishment here. Take the most foaming at the mouth Irish nationalist blathering about the badness of NATO and the importance of ourselves alone in military affairs, and you’ll find his views echoed by the average Fianna Fáil TD. There’s no market for that stuff because the market has already been cornered. We don’t need a military because Ireland is too moral for war and nobody would invade us anyway – another view shared by the establishment, and the most anti-establishment right winger online.
This shared belief between establishment and nationalist about national greatness is what sets us apart from the progressivism in the other western nations.
Go to America, and listen to a Democrat, and you’ll hear lots about what an awful country America is: Slavery, Racism, Gun Crime, and inequality. Go to the UK, and you’ll hear the left bleating about imperialism and tearing down statues. Go to Germany, and you’ll hear very little national pride from the main parties, though perhaps this is more understandable in Germany than elsewhere. Go to Australia, and you’ll hear the left talking about the poor aborigines.
Ireland is just about the only country in the west where progressivism and the left are tied inherently to nationalism, not anti-nationalism.
There is no coincidence – none at all – that Ireland’s most nationalist major political party is also the party most dogmatically committed to the international revolutionary left. You just don’t get that elsewhere: The UK has parties committed to the international revolutionary left but they are minor factors because being on the international revolutionary left is to be inherently anti-British. You want to tear down the Monarchy, dismantle the capitalist system largely built on British ideas, and ferment anti-imperialism worldwide. The same is true in the United States, and in most other western countries. Being on the revolutionary left is to be inherently anti-western, unless you are Irish where it is just a continuation of Arthur Griffith’s views about freemasons and international jewry.
Thus “what it means to be Irish” is sort of our central political question, and always has been. To be Irish, in the telling of our ruling class, has always been to be a little bit more moral and at the same time a little bit more simple than the rest of the world. We like our taytos, aren’t we gas. Our maidens are purer and more innocent than yours. We are more advanced on the rights of gay people. Our climate policies are more moral than yours. Our moral compass is better. We have better gun laws. We are nicer to migrants. When we were poorer than the rest of the world, our poverty and simplicity was made into a national virtue. Then when we were richer, our economy was made into a national virtue. When we were sexually repressed, our conservatism was a national virtue (no Playboy here, thank you very much), and when we became more liberal, the rainbow flag replaced the shamrock as our unofficial national symbol.
Throughout our century of independence, it hasn’t mattered what state the country has been in. The chief message of the powers that be has always been that Ireland is greater and more moral than its neighbours. And so when Irish nationalists ask questions like the “why are we sending money to Ukraine” one I mentioned above the ready made answer is a nationalist one, turfed right back in their faces: Because Ireland is just such a good country and this is evidence of our greatness.
And thus the problem for Irish nationalists is this: Nationalism worldwide, as currently espoused, is based on the idea of restoring national greatness. How exactly do you sell that idea to an electorate that already thinks it lives in the greatest, most moral, most pure, and most noble little country that was ever conceived of by mankind?