Paul Hosford: This is not 'hoax' or protest, but base intimidation

The call was deemed to be a hoax, a term the Taoiseach took issue with in Brussels the morning after the incident.

“Even the word ‘hoax’, I’m not sure, is a fair word as I’ve no doubt these things are done to intimidate and upset,” he said.

I have young children, I have a wife, and it’s a really unacceptable situation.

The Taoiseach is right. The fact that there was no explosive at his home does not make what happened on Wednesday acceptable, and brushing it off only serves to hand a win to those who support, condone, and quietly celebrate these methods.

In the wake of the recent local and European elections, much was made of the lack of a large-scale electoral breakthrough for Ireland’s far right. These people, it was surmised, had not received the kind of backing that they had expected, their Twitter/X echo chambers found to be just that. Places where nastiness and bigotry reigned, but not a true pulse of the Irish people.

However, to view things only in electoral wins and losses is to lose sight of what is actually happening here. The Irish far right, as it has become known, is a small group. It accounts for a very small proportion of the population. But it is loud, aggressive, and increasingly dangerous.

The point has never been and will never be just electoral success, because the Irish far right has learned a more simple way to dominate public discourse: That is to shut down things it doesn’t like through sheer intimidation.

In Wicklow this week, organisers were forced to cancel a Pride disco for 13- to 16-year-olds because of harassment and intimidation, wherein volunteers looking to create an event for LGBT+ teens were accused through baseless, anonymous letters, of molesting children.

“We have faced threats of protests from some residents of Newtownmountkennedy, whilst enduring malicious accusations of being ‘paedophiles’ and ‘groomers’,” they said in a statement.

“These baseless attacks are deeply troubling. [On Tuesday], one of our committee members experienced a horrifying invasion of privacy when someone placed a vile note through their letterbox, branding them with that same disgusting accusation. These actions underscore the very reason we need Pride.

“We stand against hate, bigotry, and ignorance.”

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, local Social Democrats councillor Danny Alvey said most people in the town “are very accepting, inclusive people”. Because of course they are. The Ireland that most of us live in is unrecognisable to one you read about in certain online quarters. One that is under siege and being ‘destroyed’ by migrants, gay people, or women.

The event is cancelled though. It will not go ahead because somebody somewhere understood that you don’t need to have the will of the people any more. You just need to be willing to threaten, harass, and intimidate. You don’t even have to put your name on your work.

Far-right agitators

Earlier this year, this newspaper reported that library staff — people who oversee the lending of books — had been given advice on how to deal with far-right agitators, with a suggestion of panic rooms. In an advisory, the Local Government Management Agency also suggested the use of panic buttons and lone-worker devices especially for small libraries where only one person might be working.

They were also told to put up signage that explicitly prohibited the use of audio or video recording within the building, including with mobile phones.

This all stemmed from an incident where Cork City Library was forced to close last summer after a group of protesters mounted a banner across the entrance without permission. All summer, small numbers of protesters forced the closure of libraries across the country as they aimed to remove books such as teen sex education title This Book Is Gay.

In Kerry, a family reading event at Tralee Library was interrupted by just five anti-LGBT+ agitators in an incident that left staff “shaken and upset”.

Small numbers, big impact.

The small number of elected officials from the far right poses its own issue about how councils act from here on. Can a local authority host events honouring a migrant community if it has to invite elected reps whose social media feeds either hint at or openly state anti-migrant sentiment?

In that case will the default be not to invite elected councillors or, to be easier, not hold the events at all? The issue is not and never has been control of the apparatus of the State; it’s control of the narrative. Of course, none of this matters if not for the fact that one option for the narrative is a deep well of poison. On Wednesday, after the Dáil voted to opt into the EU Migration Pact, all 79 TDs who assented were called “traitors”, “scum”, “vermin”, and other names not suitable for print.

Traitors. They were promised vengeance under the Treason Act of 1939, which defines those guilty of treason as those found to have engaged “in levying war against the State, on assisting any State or person or inciting or conspiring with any person to levy war against the State, or attempting by force of arms or other violent means to overthrow the organs of government”.

One far-right personality opined that any action taken from here is “moral”.

The pact, we are told, is hated by the Irish public, yet the parties proposing it took over half of council and European seats in a free and fair election just three weeks ago.

Mr Harris was right when he said he does not believe the word ‘hoax’ does justice to what was visited upon his family, and he is right when he says the media should not call the continued visits of masked men outside his home ‘protest’. They are base intimidation of an elected representative. Should they continue, it is likely that the Taoiseach of the day will have no choice but to live in an official residence, a sea-change in how the public interacts with their leaders.

However, those who celebrate a bomb threat against a woman and her children — and who so often tell us their objection to immigration is about protecting women and children — do not care about that. They do not care about civility, or decency, or democracy.

Because they know that without them is the only avenue through which they can get their own way.