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The violence observed at last week’s anti-lockdown protest in Dublin has focused not only on the latent tensions around the movements, but also those who organize and use the demonstrations for political gain.
The riot saw 23 people arrested and 13 people charged that night with public order offenses.
A man, Jake Merriman, of Meadowlands Avenue, Monkstown, Dublin, has been charged with possession of an eight-shot firework cannon and firing bottles at gardaí on Grafton St last Saturday.
He has been charged with five crimes in total.
While the vast majority of attendees at last week’s event in Dublin were peaceful, it was by no means an organic event and was organized through right-wing messaging groups on social media apps like Facebook (which has removed various groups ), Gab, and Telegram.
This weekend’s event in Cork is organized more centrally than the one in Dublin, with a follow-up planned for St. Patrick’s Day in the capital.
At last week’s event, flyers were handed out claiming to represent right-wing parties such as Renua, the Irish Freedom Party and Direct Democracy Ireland, which made a number of claims about Covid-19. Renua has said that there was no match penalty in relation to the flyers.
The far-right National Party also distributed flyers and had a visible presence.
These parties have tried to position themselves as the main opponents of public health measures during the pandemic. Members of the Irish Freedom Party had previously been involved in organizing protests under the umbrella group Health Freedom Ireland.
After last week’s violence, much of the discussion centered on the politics of those involved, particularly after Garda Commissioner Drew Harris’s comments that “far-left” groups were being watched. Sources clarified that it was a reference to known Republicans, although a Garda source said that the definition of “extreme left” force as those involved in violence for political purposes was “out of date.”
Indeed, this week’s anti-extremism group Moonshot’s investigation showed that the Irish far-right audience is actively searching for highly specialized extremist material.
Frenett said that while Ireland has a much lower per capita interest in the far right than the United States, those who follow it do so “with intensity.”
Garda sources said people associated with certain dissident Republican groups were seen at last Saturday’s protest. But they said it was unclear if they were active in the turmoil over the violence at the event.
“There were some people associated, either in the past or still are, with Republican Sinn Féin, there,” said a source. He said that it appeared that they were there as individuals, as opposed to a group, and did not appear to be acting as a “cohesive unit.”
This information is believed to have influenced Mr. Harris when he referred to the “far left” involved in the anti-lockdown protest.
A second source with close knowledge of the dissident Republicans said he was not aware that any of the various Republican groups were involved, and said he would be surprised if they were.
He noted that RSF had issued a statement condemning what they described as the “right wing” protest.
This source said it was “very likely” that some Republicans were there as individuals, as there were some who shared the politics of the anti-lockdown groups.
He said some former members of RSF and the 32-County Sovereignty Movement entered the “QAnaon, anti-vaxx, pro-Trump orbit” in recent years. He said there was a former prominent official at RSF who spoke on various internet forums “expressing conspiracy theories like 5G and Covid.”
The source said that people who are associated with the murdered head of the Royal IRA in Dublin, Alan Ryan, could be appearing in these circles and at protests, but the source did not believe they were currently members of any Republican groups. He said there were some people with ties to RSF who were behind some protests against the shutdown, but, again, he said he did not believe they were members of any Republican group as such.
One source said that many of those who have been seen “were not in the politics of the Republican movements, as such,” adding that many were involved in dissident movements as a means of engaging in crime.
Disinformation analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue Ciarán O’Connor says far-right groups are taking advantage of people “at a very vulnerable time.”
“But it’s a very slippery slope once you get into these groups online. You are exposed to a lot of content from the internet. You can see these things spilling out.
“And these far-right groups are using that to sow division and hostility to further their own political goals.”
He added that the combination of the terms “far right” and “far left” showed the need for many Irish institutions to be more educated in the use of language around these events, and said that labeling is important in these situations.
“It’s not just middle-aged skinheads anymore, the radicalization that is taking place is completely indiscriminate.”
Hours after images surfaced on social media of skirmishes between the Gardaí and some of the attendees on Grafton St, supporters of the anti-blockade movement were quick to blame elsewhere.
In a carbon copy of what happened in the wake of the Capitol riots in Washington DC, protesters against the blockade began sending messages to each other that the people involved were doing what everyone except their group was saying.
The link between the far right in the United States cannot be removed from the anti-blockade groups in Ireland. Many of the social media agitators who are stoking fear, promoting violence and spreading misinformation either openly reside in the US or create fake accounts pretending to be Irish. They are disappointed in their American vernacular, posting about “politicians in diapers” or praise for “the troops,” for example.
A prevailing rumor was that some of those involved in the riots were members of the Gardaí, or “plants” ordered to stir up chaos in what they called “a peaceful march.”
A photo of a uniformed Garda officer holding a firework circulated in the aftermath of the chaos on Grafton St, which anti-blockade protesters used to try to validate the theory that the Gardaí had organized the incident. However, Gardaí has confirmed to the that the officer in the photo had set off the fireworks from the street amid the disorder.
In right-wing messaging groups, a rumor spread that certain people were wearing a “Garda stab vest” or “had their Garda hair cut.” While many in the larger groups saw this as false, the narrative continues online.
Users said the riots were a “false flag,” a term used to describe an act committed with the intention of disguising the actual source of responsibility. Many far-right groups in the United States have used the term “false flag” on tragedies such as the Sandy Hook massacre, where 20 children and six adults were shot to death. They claim that these incidents are set up to take away “their fundamental freedoms”, just as Irish protesters against the blockade claim that Covid-19 restrictions take away “their constitutional rights.”
The social media posters wrote: “We were there. It was not our protesters, it was Antifa” … “They are funded to do this, but it is a shame to discredit others.”
“AN UNCONSCIOUS PAID HIRING … that … managed to scare the gardai … in a deliberate tactic to mislead politicians, the media and the public, and it worked.”
Others suggested that Sinn Féin paid agitators to be there.
In the hours after the protest, this narrative intensified when the Garda Commissioner issued a statement in which he blamed both the “far left” and the “far right.” That galvanized those who wanted to spread the blame.
An hour after Drew Harris’s comments, some of the toughest sections of the groups argued that the problem had been caused by “antifa scum,” while others argued that “the same thing had happened in the US.” A reference to a lie that was spread by the far right in the United States, that it was actually left-wing activists who had stormed the Capitol in January.
This lie was further spread when Ben Gilroy of the Irish Freedom Party falsely stated on social media that an individual on Saturday had ties to People Before Profit’s TD Paul Murphy, incorrectly claiming that Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, had stated this on RTÉ.
Murphy said the Commissioner’s initial comments about far-left involvement had fueled such libelous rumors.
Galvanized for their “victory” last week, the groups have now set their sights on St. Patrick’s Day. Many have posted on social media that last year’s event was “taken away” and plan to celebrate this year, in violation of health restrictions.
Many warned about gardaí and barricades, and how to overcome obstacles such as: “People need to form groups and create [sic] plans to be in dublin. If you can, come in a few days before. ”
Some are offered lifts in their cars, other anti-lockdown protesters have stated that they plan to travel from England for the day.
Others have asked that attendees be aware of local cemeteries as a cover story if people are detained by gardaí.
The date is marked as the “Grand Reopening” date, when companies are urged to open their doors in contravention of public health measures. This plan had been raised earlier in the year to take place on January 30, but it did not materialize, and a subsequent attempt to urge companies to open on Valentine’s Day failed to gain momentum either.
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