The number of those protesters visible in footage shot in Fermoy is very low, and it was also heartening to read that there were people in the Cork town willing to show solidarity with those in St Joseph’s — and to do so spontaneously. A further counterprotest is planned this weekend.

The incident in Fermoy thus functions in two ways: It specifically exposes opportunists who are seeking to exploit a situation for their own ends. 

In general, however, it brings into sharp relief the real size of this particular problem; for all the hand-wringing on social media about the rise of fascism, there are still relatively few people willing to expose their noxious doctrines in public and fewer still willing to support them.

That is not a passport to complacency. The old saw about eternal vigilance being the price of freedom still holds true, and the fact that there are enough of these people available to create even a very small crowd is concerning.

Are they reflective of Irish society as a whole, however? The answer must be no.

The beliefs of this rump are akin to the ‘Know-Nothings’ of 19th-century America, a virulently racist group which opposed newcomers to the country — and Irish Catholics in particular. An outdated belief system riddled with contradictions sounds about right.