From Bonfires to Bedfellows: Lasair Dhearg Lifts Lid on Antifa’s Loyalist Romance

Lasair Dhearg held an event on 26th February, 2025, in Derry to discuss the rise of anti-immigration sentiment in Ireland. On the 2nd March, a video of the event was posted to Lasair Dhearg’s YouTube channel. It flew largely under the radar until recently, when a few comments from the video drew attention.

The main purpose was an attempted debunking of common Irish anti-immigration talking points. The classic line, ‘How can Ireland be full when the population hasn’t recovered from 1848?’ made an appearance. Many of the attempted debunkings were contradictory and half-thought-out. The best part was surely the claim that migrants are not taking anyone’s job, followed shortly thereafter with the claim that migrants have higher rates of employment than natives. It is worth noting that they categorically denied that there were any legitimate concerns about immigration to be had.

After the main discussion concluded, a question-and-answer segment was held.  One question from the audience concerned online misinformation and how Lasair Dhearg and its fellow travellers can combat it. Amy Margaret, Lasair Dhearg, and Community Action Tenant Union activist, responded as follows:

‘There’s a group in Belfast who are quite literally paid: their job is to try and find a way to navigate social media, where they can get voices over the far-right. Doesn’t work; hasn’t worked for them so far.’

This revelation must surely come as a surprise to most. It raises several obvious questions. Who are the members of this group? Who pays them to try to overcome the ‘far-right’? Why are they so bad at it? Who are they targeting: the ‘far-right’ in general or the anti-immigration protest movement in Ireland in particular? Are they targeting people in the North? The group in question, whoever they may be, appears to be professional researchers, likely associated with academia or an NGO. Margaret continues:

‘Other research they did found that most people—and this isn’t being condescending—but the majority of people in society are yes people, so one person can tell them one thing and they’ll go ‘Oh, right okay,’ another person will tell them something completely contradictory and they’ll go ‘Oh, right okay,’ because they want to get on with their lives, essentially, and be comfortable, which is what everyone wants for their family.’

It would be of great value if the identity and purpose of these researchers could be uncovered, as right now there is a situation where what appears to be public funding is being spent to manipulate online political debate—and it is likely that the same bodies which bemoan endlessly about election interference are actually funding a project with similar intent.

The second part of the discussion, which drew people’s attention, was the final suggestion of the event in a discussion on how the left should proceed. It was, bizarrely, about cooperating with Unionists in order to ‘combat racism’. Being well aware of the volume of abuse that has been meted out to the anti-immigration movement for even slight associations with anything British, this suggestion of cooperation with Unionists to combat Nationalists elicited not a whit of condemnation.

The rationale behind such a proposed alliance is that Unionist areas are much more diverse than Nationalist areas, like West Belfast, and anecdotal claims that some Unionist marching bands have black members or that migrants are willing to participate in the Twelfth bonfire night. These claims surely vindicate the Nationalist position that most migrants in the North are ambivalent about Irishness at best or, as is often the case, avowedly pro-British. These revealing comments were spread around with the caption: ‘“Socialist Republicans” back Unionist alliance against rising nationalism’.

So there exists undeniably a proposal to form some kind of tripartite alliance between Reds, Unionists, and migrants, all on the basis of their shared opposition to Nationalism. It is very much necessary to point out that Unionist areas across the North, beginning with Ballymena but spreading out to Larne, Portadown, and Coleraine have been rioting for days as a result of sexual assaults by migrants against teenage girls. Riot and disorder aside, many other sites across the North saw peaceful protesting in solidarity with the people of Ballymena. 

And so the proposed tripartite alliance against Nationalism would seem to have gotten off on a bad foot as the Unionist community they might have engaged with on an anti-racist basis are now conducting actual pogroms against migrants and people are marking their houses with symbols of the United Kingdom and the Orange Order to avoid having their home burnt out. It must also be noted that this was an initiative agreed upon by multiple speakers at the table, not off-the-cuff ramblings of a lone madman.

A lot of insight can be gleaned from the event in terms of what Lasair Dhearg views to be their side’s strengths and weaknesses, and what they view as the anti-immigration movement’s strengths and weaknesses, and it is worth commenting upon in order that we better understand ourselves and their intentions.

In terms of weaknesses they, quite ironically, view any form of British association to be crippling to our credibility. Niall McConnell was given as an example; he is familiar to Derry people due to his proximity in Donegal, but also his connections with Jim Dowson. They worry that all possible British connections, which do unfortunately exist in a small capacity, will be severed. 

Similar to associating with the British, they are also glad to see shows of support for billionaires like Trump or Elon Musk, and they especially like to see any sort of connection with Fascism or Nazism. The reasons are obvious, these foreign or extreme connections are obviously noxious to the ordinary people of Ireland who might otherwise be sympathetic and hold the movement back from gaining their support.

They also enjoy seeing people with criminal convictions, unstable personalities, or an otherwise low character be associated with the movement, and fear that a more professional cohort might attach themselves to the movement because they believe it will achieve results.

They are concerned that there is a great deal of funding that they need to overcome, and they do not believe it is possible to outraise us in terms of capital. They seem to believe there is a great deal more money involved than there actually is, which is good and bad. It means two things: a lot is being done on a shoestring budget, and a lot more could be done but for lack of good fundraising.

They are greatly concerned about their ability to mobilise sufficient numbers to counter-protest and are demoralised whenever they are outnumbered at their counter-protests. They are always concerned that when they do engage in counter-protest that they could be drawn into a trap.

One amusing aspect is that they really hate to see people quote Connolly or other Republicans in service of a Nationalist agenda online. They complained at length about this.

The rationale behind Lasair Dhearg’s strategy for confronting the issue of rising anti-immigration sentiment before them, and this may be applicable to other red groups as well, is laid out by Margaret here:

‘They found that this idea of constantly trying to myth-bust, all it does is just conflate issues with immigration. So if you hold a talk on immigration to discuss housing, you’re just further re-affirming their point that ‘Yes, immigration is linked to housing.’

Having conceded that they cannot defeat anti-immigration voices on the Internet, and also acknowledging that admitting the effects immigration has on society also works against them, they plan to simply ignore the issue, but that does not mean that they intend to admit defeat—far from it.

They intend on embedding themselves in communities as community leaders and activists, going door-to-door, and otherwise trying to insert themselves into the political space. The purpose of doing so is not, as it so happens, a charitable desire to help people, but rather in order to blockade the right from gaining ground there.

They claim that by adopting an issue and making it theirs, take, for instance, housing, that they can become the de facto go-to people on the issue. If someone is known for getting things done and solving problems, then people in that community will flock to that person for solutions, regardless of the ideology. This action would deny the right the ability to make gains by sucking the oxygen out of the proverbial room.

They are seriously concerned that if people on the right were to do this that it would essentially hamstring them, and are glad that, by and large, it hasn’t happened yet. Margaret lays out her thinking as to how to proceed in light of the fact that people are tying the issue of immigration to housing.

‘It’s more effective to hold a discussion with your community on housing, or a discussion with your community on a relevant issue in that community, rather than going “We’re going to have a discussion on immigration and why all this actually isn’t true,” it’s far better to just try and address those actual concerns.