Clonskeagh’s Closed Doors: What the Irish Media Should be Asking About Islamist Infiltration

Warning of extremists filling the vacuum left amid the ongoing power struggle at Clonskeagh Mosque aired in the Sunday Times is the latest twist in the slow-burning drama consuming the Ummah in Ireland.

At the eye of the storm sits Ireland’s largest mosque, whose stewardship will be decided by the High Court in October. The controversy pits local practitioners against the mosques Dubai-based owners with accusations of Muslim Brotherhood entryism, money launderism and a wider geopolitical struggle in the Gulf.

The sudden closure of Clonskeagh Mosque is no mere hiccup. Reports of a boardroom clash, and financial irregularities expose just how dependent the institution is on the Dubai-based Al Maktoum Foundation through which it garners patronage. For decades, Clonskeagh was presented as the respectable face of Islam in Ireland, a showcase of integration. Its very public shuttering reveals how fragile that model becomes when anchored to foreign patrons and opaque governance.

The risk now is that the vacuum will be filled by smaller, less accountable actors. Even figures close to the mosque, such as activist Abdul Haseeb, have warned that young people may drift towards gangs or extremist currents in the absence of a stable hub.

“The mosque had a very active role in preventing extremism. Now the mosque is closed, there is a gap and a vacuum. The excuse of extremism and the Muslim Brotherhood and all this stuff is being put up but the fact is there is a gap. It can be filled by gangs, it could be drugs, other extremists,”

Above the fray a likely Gulf rivalry frames the backstory to the closure. The UAE has long used its soft-power arms to counter Muslim Brotherhood-aligned organisations often associated with Qatar, and the ICCI in Dublin became one stage for that contest without the Irish public ever being told so. Clonskeah is not just a bricks and mortar institution but the state’s primary interface with the Islamic world on Irish soil right down to the providing a forum for informal diplomacy, policing and migration policy

What looks like a local closure is in fact part of a larger struggle for ideological primacy between rival Gulf powers akin to many other European examples.

Amid the drama, hard questions demand answers. 

Who really governs Clonskeagh Mosque: the Dublin community, or the Al Maktoum Foundation board in Dubai?

What exactly was the “deeply troubling incident” that triggered closure, and why is the full story being withheld? 

Has Garda intelligence or the Department of Justice ever conducted a serious threat assessment of Clonskeagh, given its foreign entanglements? And most importantly how robust are Ireland’s systems for auditing the finances and governance of charities tied to overseas patrons with unsavoury political agendas?

Irish civil society has been quick to mobilise against far-right extremism but hesitant to confront Islamist entryism. One target is culturally safe to denounce; the other carries reputational risk. The imbalance is dangerous: a public conversation hyper-attentive to one threat, politely mute on another. 

For too long, Ireland has treated Islamism with willed innocence, convinced that the problems of France or Britain could never take root here. Clonskeagh is a wake-up call. Islamist entryism rarely begins with bombs but with governance, funny money from the Gulf and capture of key institutions. All symptoms present in spades at Clonskeagh.