Will Irish Republicanism Manage a ‘Vibeshift’ on Migration Question?

Irish Republicanism has gone down a bad road, and it needs to turn back quickly, for its own sake and for the nation’s sake. Republicans are now making themselves into enemies of ordinary Irish people.

This is unprecedented and serious.

The perennial challenge for republicans in the past was managing popular apathy. Sometimes the plain people, God bless them, had little interest in the national question, and sometimes they had a lot. Sometimes the support was passive, and sometimes it was more active.

The view of ordinary people could be anywhere in a range from “I will vote for you and openly help you” through “I quietly support what you do and will provide a safehouse” to “that’s nice, but I have mouths to feed”.

Now, though, there is a risk of the plain people being outright antipathetic to them. Republicans are turning themselves into a part of the problem.

What is truly amazing is that this is completely unnecessary. It is a totally unforced error.

Anti-racism and anti-fascism are not essential aspects of republicanism. And yet republicans now are invested heavily in them.

In fact, mass migration runs contrary to certain aspects of republicanism. An Irish Ireland was core to republican ideology in the 1916-1921 period. Patrick Pearse and Joseph Plunkett were directly influenced by D.P. Moran’s book about that very philosophy. Yes, it was culturally nationalistic rather than racially so. But it follows that if you have mass immigration at a very high rate, this poses obvious problems for the realisation of that vision. Increased anglicisation (more so than today) is the logical outcome of a multicultural state, as English is the lingua franca.

We saw an illustrative example of this during the recent Synge St CBS dispute, whereby staff of that school opposed its conversion into a Gaelcholáiste. There were a few reasons for this, but one is relevant here. A statement from the teachers said the following: “As an all-boys DEIS school,l we are dedicated to supporting a vibrant and diverse school community, encompassing a range of nationalities, cultures, and socio-economic backgrounds.” I don’t mention this to attack the teachers, I mention it to show how two ideologies – multiculturalism and Irish Ireland – are fundamentally at odds with each other.

Ancestry has been important to our national identity, and people who arrive here of a different ancestry are not going to be moved by memory of Cromwell, An Gorta Mór, Bloody Sunday, or whatnot in the same way as a native. Of course, foreigners can “go native” and have done so, but that is something that takes time unless in exceptional situations. We can’t assume that people who arrive here will automatically support a United Ireland, even in an aspirational sense.

Finally, mass migration also runs the risk of undermining the functioning of our polity and destabilising our state completely, which could create a context for eventual British annexation of the South. Britain stands to be the geopolitical winner in such a situation.

For Aristotle, if people enter a state at a rate faster than they can be assimilated, whereby the whole mass of people form a heterogeneous group as opposed to a homogeneous group, factional conflict will inevitably occur. (1303A13). Perhaps it is for exactly this reason that the late Peter Sutherland said in 2012, as the UN’s special representative for migration and non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International, that the EU should do its best to undermine the homogeneity of its member states. He linked the future prosperity of EU states to multiculturalism.

There is a republican critique of mass migration but in a jealous rage against the success of competitors, its leaders have completely ceded all the ground on the migration issue. “Far right” agitators got in early and bought the stock while it was cheap. They are now enjoying the capital gains.

But instead of calmly recognising that they lost the initiative in relation to an important issue and were beaten fairly and squarely, republicans have decided to take the ball home and lash out at everyone in that camp, agitator or agitatee, to coin a word.

And it’s pathetic.

The only trick seems to be to call everyone fascist, a Brit or both in the hope that that will shame ordinary people into coming back and grovelling for forgiveness. We saw this in a recent social media controversy where a self-styled republican Dublin 8 pub announced on Facebook that any “ballad and rebel singers pandering to the far right can f*ck off”. The British slur was thrown in for good measure, with the post denouncing the choice to “entertain the same people who travelled to East Belfast to march hand in hand with loyalists behind the Union Jack”. While the post didn’t mention any names, it was widely believed to be a reference to Mick McLoughlin, a Dublin ballad singer and busker, who had played for the Coolock protesters a few days previously or so.

Many republicans online rallied behind the pub, expressing “solidarity” after some backlash. With such antics, though, they are now just burning their bridges and increasing the resentment. If you don’t know McLoughlin, look him up. I think it would be fair to describe him as a man with no airs or graces. Do republicans really think they are going to win friends and influence people by going to war with people like him? They need to cool down, reflect and re-evaluate.

They have needlessly alienated themselves from the biggest popular movement since the water charge protests of the 2010s.

Back then, the Trots were first out of the traps in latching onto a grassroots movement. I would argue that Paul Murphy & Co are only still in the Dáil today because of legacy hard support from that era. It certainly isn’t because of anything the Trots have done since. People have long memories when it comes to material things. Sinn Fein had to play catch-up in the water protests, but at least they sided with the people.

Now they and most of the republican bloc are against them.

These are the actions that republican leaders need to take to stop the rot and prevent serious long-term damage to their brand:

1. Get off the moral pedestal and stop shaming ordinary people, whether by calling them fascists, Brits or both. Where there is a clear British connection, call it out but only then.

2. Don’t patronise people either, which is arguably even worse than shaming. Telling people they have “legitimate concerns” but are being led like sheep won’t cut it. People have agency. People are smart. People know what they see, and they know what they want.

2. Start shedding the ideological leftism that has infiltrated republicanism and constrains it. It needs to go back to basics as a broad-church movement. Throughout the 20th century, there were people of the left, right ,and centre in the movement. It’s time for the communists to go home to their own camps. Over-the-top performative internationalism and progressivism is simply not viable at present.

3. Start articulating a republican critique of mass immigration, one that ties in with the tradition of ending British rule, restoring sovereignty, the Gaelic revival etc.

4. Forget about McGregor, Pepper, Blighe,, National Party, etc. It’s too late in the day and counterproductive to attack them directly, as people now increasingly see it is as an attack on themselves. The only way you will beat them is by ignoring those personalities, playing a long game and winning people back. We often hear that “people’s legitimate concerns are being exploited”. Well, then, stop moaning and exploit them better! Talk about the legitimate concerns and only the legitimate concerns. Forget the rest, which is just noise.