Far-right British nationalism is infecting Ireland – as teenagers carrying out racist attacks shows

The majority of racist attacks in Ireland are being carried out by teenagers, the country’s special rapporteur on racism claims.

‘This is not a new fight in Ireland’

Dr Ebun Joseph said that the economy was a critical factor. Joseph, who is also chief executive of the Institute of Antiracism and Black Studies, said racism had always been present in Ireland.

“It’s been there. The black community, the Roma community, the new Traveller community have experienced racism in Ireland for years,” Joseph said at a protest against racist violence in Dublin.

She added:

This is not a new fight but in the last few months it has intensified. What is scary is that right now we have teenagers actually perpetrating these acts.

Speaking at same same vigil, Shashank Chakerwarti from Desi Community Against Racism said that current racist rhetoric echoed British far-right talking point:

There’s been a lot of content directly taken from the British narrative, of migrants coming to Ireland via boats, but that is not the case. The far right are using that narrative and are applying it here which is completely incorrect.

He said that the issue was most pronounced in “in deprived communities and areas where you don’t see a lot of investment and local services”.

Fascist cross-over

The British far-right, inside and outside parliament, has focused on refugee boats in order to stir hatred against newcomers. Yet there is a distinct lack of pushback from mainstream politicians and media. Keir Starmer’s ‘centrist’ Labour Party government has routinely pitched to the hard-right on refugees and immigration .

In a major speech in May 2025, Starmer said:

Let me put it this way: Nations depend on rules – fair rules. Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not, but either way, they give shape to our values. They guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to one another. Now, in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.

The PM was rightly condemned for the general tone of the speech, but also the specific use of the term “island of strangers.” It was obvious he was invoking British fascist politician Enoch Powell’s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech. Not long after, Starmer was again displaying full-on racism as he suspended Diane Abbott from the parliamentary party over her lived-experience comments on racism.

A clash of nationalisms

The appearance of something which looks suspiciously like far-right British nationalism in the Republic of Ireland jars with existing nationalist traditions in the country. The Irish anti-refugee movement appears much closer to Loyalism in the north of the country. In fact, they are linked directly with it.

Understandably given the experience of colonialism, Irish nationalism is a generally left-leaning, anti-colonialist and vocally pro-Palestinian.

For example, the Republican website Friends of Sinn Fein took particular issue with the standard far-right claim that Ireland is “full”:

The idea of a country being full is nonsense. The population of Ireland has not yet recovered from the famine, we have plenty of land and wealth.

They argued immigration was essential to the economy:

What we have in Ireland, particularly in the South is a housing crisis. Ending immigration tomorrow will not end the housing crisis. But it will create a crisis in our health and care system, in tech, hospitality, and foreign investment industries.

And they placed blame on the main parties:

The housing crisis has been created and sustained by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments. Their housing policies are working for developers, institutional investors, and landlords not the people, renters or the homeless. None of this is the fault of immigrants. It is Irish-made and sustained crisis.

The spike in racist attacks carried out seems to be linked to poverty, alienation, the housing crisis and the active coordination of loyalist and far-right groups across the border. Community led anti-racist initiatives are valuable, but the roots of the issue go far deeper. It is in the economy that a resolution can be found.

Featured image via the Canary