As part of a series with EDMO Ireland, Shane Murphy examines how the campaiging style of the National Party differs from other far-right, anti-immigrant parties.
Immigration becoming the primary concern for Irish voters is something that would ordinarily have been expected to benefit the National Party, who formed in 2016 on with an explicitly anti-immigration platform. In the Midlands Northwest constituency for the European Elections however, party leader James Reynolds received just 0.47% of first preference votes, behind Independents John Waters and Peter Casey, Irish Freedom Party leader Hermann Kelly, Independent Ireland’s Ciaran Mullooly, and Aontu’s Peadar Tóibín. The situation was a little more positive in Dublin. National Party deputy leader Patrick Quinlan received just 0.68% of first preference votes in his bid to become one of Dublin’s 4 MEPs, but was ultimately successful in winning a seat on the local council in the Blanchardstown/Mulhuddart constituency. The election of Quinlan, along with that of the Irish Freedom Party’s Glen Moore and Independents Malachy Steenson and Gavin Pepper, is being widely celebrated by nationalists.
Some of these figures are well-known in their constituencies and had been expected to perform well. Yet, there has been little discussion of Quinlan, or indeed the National Party more broadly, in the run-up to these elections, despite immigration becoming a central issue. Even while campaigning, the National Party appeared to be managing expectations, with local election candidate Daeln Murphy explaining “It won't be the coup de grace, but it will be the first swing of the axe to the rotten structure of the State”, a message that was reposted by the official National Party X account shortly after.
It was notable how different the National Party’s campaign was run, compared to the various newly formed anti-immigration parties who consistently outperformed them in the polls. As previously discussed, the messaging of these parties relied heavily on connecting immigration to peoples’ fears and anxieties relating to safety and housing. Candidates shared unverified stories of assaults committed by migrants, repeated unsourced rumours about buildings to be used for accommodating migrants, and the numbers of migrants expected. While this was present in some National Party output, it was not as central to their anti-immigration message. Instead, their message was more ideological, prioritising the importance of an Irish identity, which they argued came from a shared history and culture, and was threatened by those of different backgrounds.
The party began their campaign with a website redesign and two well-produced videos demonstrating the strength of the party and the centrality of immigration to their campaign. The first, Ireland belongs to the Irish, has been viewed over 20,000 times. It begins with a short extract from an article published in the Irish Times on 3rd February, stating "The National Party, meanwhile, appear to be in disarray". This observation is quickly refuted as the video cuts to footage of crowds of men, including Reynolds and Quinlan, accompanied by intense electronic music. They are depicted marching in Dublin, holding National Party signs and banners that read: “House the Irish, not the World”, “Ireland belongs to the Irish” and “Join the National Party”. A similar video titled "Up the Irish", which used a lot of the same footage, was uploaded shortly after and has received more than 37k views. Both videos end with a call to join the National Party and a link to the website. After becoming somewhat marginalised due to their infighting, these videos showed a party that had been able to adapt to the changing nature of anti-immigration politics, and had adjusted their branding and messaging in time for the local and European elections.
The release of these videos was followed by the Government’s defeat in its referendums on the family and care. This was a seismic event for the right in Ireland who declared “woke” to be "officially dead", and saw this as confirmation that their politics represented a "silent majority" of Irish people. With the exception of a single tweet acknowledging the victory, the National Party did not campaign on this success. Instead, at a time when other parties were flooding their followers with messaging claiming this signaled a change in Irish politics, the National Party released a video titled The Importance of Good Mental and Physical Health for Young Nationalists, which encouraged viewers to put away their phones, take a break from endlessly scrolling their social media feeds, and spend time enjoying the company of friends. That same day they released another video, in which they expressed solidarity with Afrikaners in South Africa. The polished videos speaking to issues which had launched their campaign were quickly replaced by content that reflected right-wing politics of a different era. Similarly, when Leo Varadkar stepped down as Taoiseach less than two weeks after the referendum results, there was no hesitancy from other anti-immigration parties to point to this as another example of their inevitable rise. Again, with the exception of single tweet, the National Party seemed reluctant to discuss this event.
Another way in which newly formed anti-immigration parties generated content and reached new voters, was by attending, filming and speaking at demonstrations organised outside properties that have been proposed as sites for migrant accommodation. Each demonstration offered an opportunity to engage with local protestors, speak to crowds, and film livestreams, in which they warned viewers from all over the country that their town could be next. The National Party’s first attempt at adopting this approach was an odd one. The video, titled "We Have Only Obligations to Our Own!" - James Reynolds Speaks at Latest Plantation Site in Coole, featured Reynolds standing beside a gate in the middle of the night, gesturing at an empty field, where ten modular homes were due to be built. As this is explained, the video cuts to drone footage of this same empty field during the day, although there is nothing to view, as these structures had yet to be erected.
Other National Party candidates were slightly more successful in producing this type of content, sharing footage of themselves taking part in demonstrations in Coolock, Newtownmountkennedy, and Tallaght. In these videos, National Party candidates still use the same angry populist rhetoric, explaining that the government are to blame, are motivated by profit, and don’t consult locals. However, something that distinguished these videos from those produced by other parties and candidates is the reasoning given as to how immigration hurts Irish people. Discourses about safety and references to “fake” refugees, or existential threats like demographic replacement were rare. Despite leaning heavily into the slogan “House the Irish, not the world” initially, even the idea that refugees and asylum seekers are occupying homes that would otherwise go to Irish citizens was conspicuously absent from much of their messaging.
The National Party’s opposition to immigration is more abstract. Rather than stoking fears about unvetted military aged men, or the government welcoming in hundreds of thousands of refugees during a housing crisis, their message ties back to the impact immigration has on “the nation”. A page on their website titled A Nation is a People, is perhaps where this stance is most clearly articulated. They explain: “The strongest forms of solidarity are those of kith and kin” and that “Both the scale of the influx and the “diversity” of cultures make assimilation impossible. The first casualty in this process is our very sense of who we are, our confidence and our willingness to define ourselves”. Similarly, in the previously referenced video about the importance of mental health for young nationalists, it is explained that immigration is bad because it “destroys the sense of ones belonging to one’s own land and community”. It is not surprising that these philosophical concerns did not resonate with the public, in the same ways anti-immigration messages about safety and housing did.
The ‘Nation is a People’ page goes on to explain that “As nationalists we must present a positive definition of nationalism”. In pursuit of this goal, much of the content that was been produced during the campaign was primarily concerned with promoting Irish history, heritage, culture, and identity, in ways that, although implicitly nativist, do not directly target migrants. Examples include a video posted on St. Patrick’s Day 2024, titled St Patrick, Partition, and Patriotism, in which National Party local election candidate Yan Mac Oireachtaigh, speaking in Irish, shared stories about Ireland’s patron saint, while standing on the Hill of Slane. In another video titled The Forgotten Rising, shared on the anniversary of the Easter Rising, National Party local election candidate Ross Culligan speaks for thirteen minutes about the lesser known rising which took place in Clarinbridge Co. Galway. They have also shared videos about lesser known figures and events, such as a video about The Ballymurphy Massacre shared on the 103rd anniversary of the event. This backwards looking emphasis on heritage and history was also a significant part of the party’s manifesto. Among the 11 policies articulated on their National Party Principles page, are an intention to restore the Irish language and a sovereign, debt-free national currency, as well as a desire to restore the death penalty, and the rights of the unborn child.
The limits of this “positive” articulation of nationalism were particularly evident in the campaigning of party leader James Reynolds. While candidates from The Irish Freedom Party, Independent Ireland, Ireland First, and the Irish People made attacking the mainstream media and politicians key parts of their messaging, brandishing them as traitors and warning that they would subvert the elections, Reynolds spent 30 seconds of a 2 minute video describing the positive interactions he’s had with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil politicians, and RTÉ journalists before saying “The level of positivity here is at a different level”, just three days out from the election. In another video uploaded during the week of the election, he spoke about the dereliction of Sligo’s town centre, pointing at grass in gutters, and weeds growing out of chimneys, before declaring “My number one priority is to restore the pride of Sligo as the Northwest capital”. Elsewhere, after taking about people who had been impacted by the Micah and Pyrite scandal and calling for a full redress, he promised that if elected, he would be "the best MEP the people have ever had". These were not the kinds of messages we saw from the members of Ireland First and the Irish Freedom Party. It is not the language of an insurgent campaign, running against a corrupt and out of touch establishment. Unsurprisingly, Reynolds has since stated that he has no intention of running as a National Party candidate in the future, and has described the parties brand as toxic.
Since the uploading of the initial two videos which explicitly addressed housing and immigration, it seems the National Party has tried to position itself as a more moderate face of anti-immigration politics in Ireland. In this respect, they appear to have been successful, as reflected in two videos shared by Yan Mac Oireachtaigh, just prior to election day. In these videos, where he discussed his experiences while canvassing, he explained “to be quite honest with you, it feels like I’m the moderate knocking on these doors” and “Things have changed so much it genuinely feels as if we’re the moderates […] They want more restrictions than even, for example, National Party candidates”. These observations were shared to highlight how normalised anti-immigration politics have become in Ireland, but they also reveal the position the National Party find themselves in today. When a significant portion of anti-immigrant sentiment is fuelled by misinformation designed to heighten people's fears and breed distrust in politicians and the media, building an electoral base becomes a challenge, especially when competing against candidates who are promising to dismantle the entire system.
An awareness of this can be seen in Patrick Quinlan’s speech during the National Rally Against Immigration, where he quickly rallies the crowd by shouting "Ireland belongs to the Irish people... and we're going fucking nowhere!", before acknowledging the work done by groups like ‘Coolock Says No’, ‘Finglas Says No’ and ‘Tallaght Says NO’. Despite being unlike the majority of the National Party’s output, the video received over 77k views within a month of being uploaded, more than double the views of ‘Up the Irish’, their next most viewed video. It is unsurprising that appeals to a shared cultural heritage largely failed to motivate anti-immigration voters. There seems to be little room for anti-immigration messaging that shies away from leveraging fear and anger.
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EDMO Ireland is one of fourteen hubs established as part of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO). Coordinated by Dr Eileen Culloty from Dublin City University (DCU), the EDMO Ireland consortium includes the DCU Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society (FuJo), TheJournal FactCheck, NewsWhip, and the University of Sheffield. It is part-financed by the European Union to monitor and analyse disinformation; conduct factchecks and investigations; develop media literacy resources; as...
