Fionn Reid-Kelly Analyses the growth of Far-Right Parties in Ireland ahead of the 2024 General Election
The local and EU elections that took place in June saw a significant increase in the presence of far-right political parties in Ireland. While far-right movements had previously been on the fringe in Irish politics, they have recently seen a worrying increase in their support amongst Irish voters. These parties have been establishing themselves largely over the last 5 years and first officially contested Irish elections in their current form at the 2020 general elections. There are currently 4 registered political parties in Ireland that can be categorized as being right wing. Here’s a background on the 4 parties and how they performed in the elections that they have contested.
The Irish Freedom Party were the first of the four parties to try to register and to put forward candidates for elected office, they have their roots in Euroscepticism and their current president Hermann Kelly used to be a press officer for Nigel Farage. They tried to put forward two candidates in the 2019 European elections, but they mishandled their party registration, so all of their candidates ended up running as independent candidates instead.
The two candidates that ran in those elections were Hermann Kelly, who ran in Dublin and had 2441 first preference votes (FPVs), and Dolores Cahill, the former leader of the party who ran in the South and had 10,582 first preference votes.
Cahill was asked to resign the leadership of the party in 2021 due to a number of false claims she made about Covid-19, as well as other related conspiracy theories.
They ran 10 candidates in the 2020 General Election. The Irish Freedom Party had 4,724 first preference votes in the 2020 General Elections between their ten candidates, and averaged roughly 0.791% of the FPVs in those constituencies.
The Irish Freedom Party ran 27 candidates in 28 constituencies in the 2024 local elections. They secured 9,500 FPVs at an average of roughly 3.38% of the FPV in those constituencies. One of their candidates, Glen Moore, won a seat on the South Dublin council in the Palmerstown-Fonthill constituency with 964 FPVs, which was 9.9% of the FPVs in the constituency.
The National Party was founded in 2016 by Justin Barrett and James Reynolds. The party has a hardline anti-immigration background, as well as having been heavily involved in the anti-abortion campaign in Ireland in 2018. The National Party ran 10 candidates in the 2020 General Elections. They received 4,773 first preference votes in the 2020 General Elections between their ten candidates, and averaged roughly 0.928% of the FPVs in those constituencies.
The National Party ran 9 candidates in 15 constituencies in the 2024 local elections. They secured 4,983 FPVs at an average of roughly 2.99% of FPVs in the constituencies in which they ran candidates. While they didn’t see a significant increase in the number of votes that they achieved, the National Party were most importantly able to have their deputy leader Patrick Quinlan elected to Fingal County Council. Overall the percentage of the vote that they attained was higher than had previously been the case.
The National Party had a split in 2023 due to a leadership dispute between Barrett and Reynolds. Reynolds gathered wide support for taking the leadership role from Barrett, but Barrett refused to accept the legitimacy of the results and has been disputing the leadership ever since. As of yet, the party still does not have an officially recognised answer as to who the leader of the party is from the electoral commission.
Ireland First was established in 2023 by Derek Blighe, a far-right influencer from Cork. The party ran 8 candidates in 8 constituencies with 3,165 FPVs, and an average of 3.2% of the FPV in those constituencies. None of their candidates won elected office. Ireland First also had candidates running in all 3 EU election constituencies, with their leader Derek Blighe gaining 3.6% of First Preference votes, 25,000 in total in the South.
The Irish People was established in 2023. The party ran 53 candidates in 56 constituencies with 13,134 FPVs, at an average of 2.16% of the FPV in those constituencies. None of their candidates won elected office and their best performing candidate Lester Gordon has announced that he will be running as an independent candidate in the upcoming general election.
During the local elections in June of this year, 5 far right candidates won elected office as local councillors. Three of the new councillors are independents, while the National Party and the Irish Freedom Party each gained one seat each. Patrick Quinlan (National Party) won a seat in the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart LEA for Fingal County Council, whilst Glen Moore won a seat for the Irish Freedom Party in the Palmerstown-Fonthill LEA for South Dublin County Council. The three independent candidates were Malachy Steenson (Dublin County Council in the North Inner City LEA), Gavin Pepper (Ballymun-Finglas and also Dublin City Council), and Tom McDonnell (Newbridge and Kildare County Council).
The results of this year’s local and EU elections clearly show an increase in support for Far-Right parties in Ireland compared to their performance in the 2020 general election.
In 2020 far right parties were only able to achieve just under 10,000 first preference votes between the 20 candidates put forward by the National Party and the Irish Freedom Party. However, in the 2024 local elections there were roughly 100 candidates running on the behalf of far-right parties in over 100 constituencies, collectively gaining over 30,000 first preference votes.
Far-right parties also did much better than they previously had in the EU elections with 13 candidates attaining over 85,000 first preference votes between all far right party candidates, this was roughly 5% of all of the votes in the EU elections in Ireland. Compared to the 2 candidates that ran in the 2019 EU elections this is another significant increase in their overall support.
After the 2024 local and European elections, three of the far-right parties established an electoral alliance in advance of the upcoming general elections. The National Alliance is made up of Ireland First, the National Party, the Irish People, and a number of far right independent candidates. It is notable that the Irish Freedom Party chose not to be a part of this grouping despite being invited to join. It should be noted that the name National Alliance will not appear on any ballot papers as it is not a registered political party.
It currently looks like the ‘National Alliance’ will be running over 30 candidates in the upcoming general election which will be taking place on the 29th of November and currently the Irish Freedom Party is running 14 candidates.