Want to know what American interference in Irish politics looks like? How an American attack on Irish democracy operates?
Last year at St Patrick's day in Washington DC, President Trump invited Conor McGregor to the White House, where he was introduced to senior members of his cabinet such as Elon Musk, and met Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon. Musk maintains a fondness for Irish far right accounts on his social media platform, often boosting their posts to his millions of followers.
McGregor was even given time at the White House press podium, something no Irish Taoiseach has ever been afforded, where he outlined his vision for Ireland. The official meeting with Ireland's actual, democratically elected leader was brief and far less sensational.
Many viewed the McGregor invitation as a calculated insult. It was a blatant indication of the direction the Trump administration would prefer to see Irish politics go in. It was also thought at the time that the Trump administration was preparing to support McGregor as a candidate for the Irish presidency. The invitation to the White House and facilitation of high level introductions was a powerful endorsement of McGregor and his views.
By the end of the year, Steve Bannon was openly declaring that Ireland was going to have an Irish Trump, and that an Irish MAGA movement was being created.
These markers are the fins of the shark surfacing as it hunts.
The American influence on and connections with the Irish far right has been evident for years, mainly having come in via religious support on anti-abortion.
Since Trump first came to office in 2016, that influence has intensified, being visible in the language and tactics used by anti-vaxxers during Covid, anti-immigration rhetoric, protests, and increased racism and racist attacks.
The predatory, profiteering nature of social media data capitalism has enabled the spread of toxic propaganda, turning local Facebook and WhatsApps group into vectors of disinformation.
One of the first official acts the new Trump appointed, MAGA supporting US Ambassador did upon arriving in Dublin in January was attend a far right conference featuring the likes of Malachy Steenson, Una McGurk, Jana Lunden, and Eddie Hobbs, who has been a guest on Steve Bannon's internet show. Ambassador Walsh showed up to this conference a couple weeks after Bannon's 'Irish Trump' comments.
Who arranged his attendance?
In March of this year, the US State Department issued a directive to all US Embassies and consulates to "recruit local influencers, academics and community leaders abroad to carry counter-propaganda messaging, an approach designed to make American-funded narratives feel locally organic rather than centrally directed".
In other words, to launch MAGA internationally, as Bannon had signposted previously.
It would be foolish to look at the April fuel blockade and not question what part the malign influence of the US government is playing in the protests.
The rhetoric and accompanying propaganda is heavily Americanised, even down to ridiculous attempts to compare the Gardai and Irish Army to ICE. The tactics employed are the same was what was done in the 2022 Canadian "Freedom Convoy", which was referred to then as "Maple MAGA" and heavily funded from American donations.
It is obvious by even a causal check on social media sites that massive amounts of bots are posting support of the blockade - click on the profiles and they reveal themselves with follower lists in the double digits and multiple name changes. Who is paying for this online campaign?
Most telling, in terms of analysing the amount of American influence in this protest, is where the protesters are focusing their ire, and where they are deliberately not. They are not protesting the war which has caused the rise in fuel prices. They are not blocking the US Embassy or Shannon airport, or US companies that are connected to the war, and they are nowhere near Trump's golf course in Doonbeg.
Instead they are driving handmade gallows on trailers up and down O'Connell Street calling for the deaths of the Taoiseach and Tanaiste. For as many things that you can complain about the Irish government for, starting a war in Iran that halted global supply of oil is not in their gift.
They openly declare they want to bring the Irish government down - to be replaced with what? To what end?
The Americans would benefit from a weakened Ireland and an Irish government in chaos.
Ireland is geographically strategically important. It is economically important with its tech and pharma multinationals. It punches above its weight diplomatically, acting as an important bridge. It is a trusted and respected partner in the EU.
Ireland is also one of the most vocal and visible supporters of Palestinians. This support has long drawn the attention of Israel, who used to send Nazi hunters to Ireland in the 1970s. Ireland's presence in Lebanon as UN peacekeepers has also been a longstanding annoyance to Israel.
Ireland is also a strong supporter of Ukraine. This has continually irritated the Russians, who currently probe the seabeds around Ireland looking for data cables and sail their shadow fleet tankers near Irish waters.
Both Russia and Israel play key parts in the American MAGA movement, and in the global far right network the Irish far right is part of. Russia and Israel also share antipathy towards the EU.
Ireland has powerful, fascist enemies. The United States, Israel, and Russia need a weakened Ireland to achieve their goals.
A strong Ireland helps the international resistance to fascism. It pushes the EU to stand up against Israel in its genocidal activity in Gaza and its push into Lebanon. It helps keep the EU united against Russia's aggression and imperialist desires. It has the ability to regulate and enforce legislation against American technologies. It can and will advocate against supporting the US's war on Iran.
That is the Ireland the blockade protesters want to topple. That is the Irish government the manufactured protest is targeting.
It wasn't the Irish government that caused the rising fuel cost. It was Israel, and the United States, with their war on Iran. As pressure on fuel resources increases, Russia also stands to benefit, which will help its war expansion.
These protests are vampires sucking up the very real fear, anxiety, anger, and concerns Irish people have about rising costs, economic pressure, housing, healthcare - all the same issues working people are suffering from around the world because of the excesses of capitalism.
The protests are diverting the energy of the Irish people away from focusing on actions that would bring tangible changes and deflecting the blame from the warmongers causing the problems.
Don't fall for it. Blockade Doonbeg. Boycott and protest the Irish Open. Expose the grifters who are profiting from attacking the country. These people will walk Ireland into a fascist state if you let them.
If you feel like this blockade protest is an attack on the nation, you're not wrong.
⏩Carrie Twomey hates Illinois Nazis (just like the Blues Brothers)
Well said Carrie, a perceptive critique.
ReplyDeleteI know your roots are in the US but I wish a curse on nearly all the houses over there. It mystifies me how collectively the people of the US can tolerate all that is done, and has been done in their name.
Good piece Carrie. These protests have very little about them opposing the planets modern Hitler, Trump. You are right to suggest protesting at Doonbeg, his billionaire playground golf course, and the US Embassy. These protests are predominantly petit-bourgeois orchestrated which historically is a hotbed of fascism if not checked. It is the job of the left to check these simple sounding ideas, which once had me convinced, the tractors were a bit of a giveaway, explaining they are wrong and reasons why. Dropping tax on diesel sounds a not unreasonable demand but there are far more sinister factors at work here and bet your last euro the White House will be monitoring events closely.
ReplyDeleteA Trumpian view .......... " Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
ReplyDeleteIn the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer—some, 'tis whisper'd—down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel." .... Tennyson
https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/04/13/the-glorious-irish-revolt-against-globalist-insanity/
ReplyDelete"This protest – like the gilet jaunes uprising in France and the farmers’ revolts across Europe – confirms the death of the organised left. As the 21st-century left, forged more from bourgeois campus lunacy than the fires of working-class revolt, obsesses over such thin ‘virtuous’ fare as trans rights and maniacal hatred for Israel, it is left to working people to organise themselves in the face of their remote, forbidding rulers. There is a gaping moral chasm between the keffiyeh left and the angry working class. Indeed, the former blocks oil infrastructure to express its haughty, weary exhaustion with modernity itself, while the latter blocks fuel sites because they want fuel to flow but cheaply. As the left swaps class politics for race and gender, and sacrifices its old goal of abundance at the altar of eco-hysteria, workers are compelled to go it alone."
The organised left have been in decline for yonks. The observation about bourgeois campus lunacy is not devoid of substance but when I read 'maniacal hatred for Israel' rather than reasoned objection to genocide, the critique loses validity.
Delete