As I walked towards Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance, where a “National Rally” in opposition to the Irish Government’s immigration policy was being held, I was immediately struck by how sectioned off the city was.
The main thoroughfare was inaccessible with fencing erected as irate pedestrians and journalists alike pleaded to get through. Behind me I heard “refugees are welcome here” being blared through a loudhailer.
The counter-demonstration, organised by the group “United Against Racism”, included a mix of left-wing groups and organisations, including the political parties the Irish Social Democrats and Trotskyite People Before Profit.
Marching towards the main rally they carried a myriad of different flags and signs including the Palestinian flag, party banners and one or two Irish tricolours. 
Conspicuous in their absence was the main opposition party Sinn Féin, who have struggled to balance their more nativist wing with a progressive faction, but in recent months have performed an about-face on immigration by criticising the government for imposing migration centres on deprived communities and opposing the EU’s migration pact. Having expected a sizable turnout in the local and general elections last year, the left-wing populist party failed spectacularly in achieving just 12 per cent and 19 per cent of the vote respectively.
As I made my way to the Garden of Remembrance Irish tricolours were being handed out to attendees with Make Ireland Great Again (MIGA) hats worn by several hundred gathered.
“Get your tricolours here,” was repeated by organisers who have sought to project a sea of Irish flags at the rallies.
Passersby seemed mystified with tourists mistaking the mass convergence for football fans.
At the space between the two demonstrations, a phalanx of Gardaí separated them with jeers and hostile exchanges traded for the better part of 20 minutes.
With the counter demonstrators cheering “blame the landlords, not the migrants”, a cacophony of chants were emitted from the main protestors including “paedo scum” and “traitors.”
The left-wing counter-protestors were quick to point out an AI-generated picture of MMA fighter Conor McGregor with President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held by a protester. “You say protect women that’s a lie,” they chanted in reference to McGregor who was recently held civilly liable for raping a woman at a Dublin hotel.
But as the passion died down, the marchers proceeded along the Custom House in central Dublin where the Irish Housing Department is located.
Speaking to some attending they mentioned concerns they have as it relates to the housing of economic migrants and refugees in their locality. One man I spoke to mentioned that his local area is soon to accommodate several asylum seekers with little to no input with him or his neighbours: “I’m worried for my children,” he said. “If anything happens to them I don’t know what I’d do.” 
For years now, the Irish government has been designating several buildings in often poor and disregarded rural and urban communities to settle a mass influx of asylum seekers which numbered over 18,000 last year. Recently, the government purchased a massive hotel in Dublin for €148.2 million that could accommodate over 2,000 migrants. As it stands, the non-national population in Ireland is over 20 per cent with the country experiencing one of the largest increases in population in Europe at three per cent in the space of one year.
Opposition to these trends was central to the rally with the organisers attaching several loudspeakers to the railway bridge above the street with others assigned on lampposts. The speakers blared republican music throughout including the song Grace written by 1916 signatory Joseph Plunkett for his wife before he was executed.
As the Irish economy faces economic upheaval, the political instability could provide an opening for a populist party
Despite baseless accusations of British connections and attempts by small factions to liaise with loyalists in Northern Ireland on a shared platform of opposition to immigration, the organisers of the rally have sought to emphasise their republican credentials.
Nobody is more up to that task than Independent Councillor Malachy Steenson who was previously active in several republican groups including the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), Republican Sinn Féin and the Workers Party but was later removed for his pro-life stance.
Councillor Steenson used the platform to defend the use of the tricolour which has been a source of tension as both left-wing and right-wing factions jostle over ownership: “We saw the left two weeks ago trying to reclaim the tricolour. We have taken it back. We never lost it,” he said.
Recently, an Irish radio journalist said whenever he passes by a house with an Irish tricolour hanging outside he wonders whether it’s a racist house. “In what country in the world would you have a journalist … say that if you fly the tricolour you are a racist you are a fascist, those labels mean nothing to us,” Steenson proclaimed on stage.
At the end of his speech, he announced the launch of a new grouping for the upcoming general election, not expected until 2025, named “Grá na hÉireann” which means Love of Ireland in Irish. “I can think of no other title that reflects what we have,” he said.
The nascent Irish nationalist parties have struggled to run on a shared platform with differing factions plagued by infighting. Having coalesced on a shared platform under the banner of the National Alliance during the last general election in which the Total Nationalist Vote amounted to just over one per cent nationally but reached over five per cent in parts of Dublin, the hope is that this new group will prevent the different factions from vote splitting within electoral boundaries. 
Also on stage was Councillor Patrick Quinlan of the identitarian Irish National Party who invoked the historical continuity of the Irish nationalist struggle seeking to imbue a symbolic similarity to past travails and now: “Think of those who came before us. They toiled on the unrelenting sun and storms. They built homes … and they stood tall against every foil that sought to break them. 620,000 were massacred by Cromwell’s blades.
“More of our people were scattered to the four corners of the world. Our language, our culture, our very soul has been pushed to the brink time and time again and yet we are still here and we are still Irish!”
Councillor Quinlan, whose party is running on a platform of remigrating migrants back to home countries, criticised recent comments by the Irish Taoiseach who said the Irish were never homogenous: “Micheál Martin and the servants in Dáil Éireann are following in the footsteps of their English predecessors. They are telling us anyone can be Irish. But when everyone is Irish, no one is Irish,” he exclaimed.
Also present was another Independent Councillor Gavin Pepper, who told me that the purpose of the rally was to address illegal immigration and the Irish government’s inaction on securing the border and keeping the streets safe. “We’re not putting up with it anymore, people are struggling in this country, people are being evicted from their homes,” he said.
Councillor Pepper, who often mimics upper-class south Dubliners when comparing the lack of refugee centres in more salubrious sections of the country, mentioned that anti-immigration sentiment spans across all socioeconomic divides: “The middle class is awake now but I always say there is no middle class it’s just the really really rich people and the struggling poor people.” 
While this is the second “Monster Rally” in the space of two months it remains to be seen how these events can translate into electoral outcomes.
Indeed, with the two main governing parties Fianna Fail and Fine Gael getting comfortably back into power during the last general election, largely off the back of older home owning voters who have seen their house values double in recent years, it’s hard to see MIGA overcoming the middle-class stability offered by incumbents.
But as the Irish economy stares down the barrel of economic upheaval as its economic model of low corporate tax to lure American FDI dissipates amidst a trade war with the US, that stability could begin to unwind leaving an opening for any populist party to capitalise on.
As the rally closed and the rain started to pour heavily, those gathered sang the Irish song Oro Se do bheatha bhaile which translates to “Oh you are welcome home” in English. Originally a Jacobite song to encourage the young pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie to come back to Ireland, it was later changed by the Irish revolutionary Patrick Pearse to welcome Grace O’Malley, a legendary Irish queen to save the Irish.
While so far unsuccessful in finding their modern day Grace O’Malley, Irish rightwing populists have made up for in passion and energy.
