Ireland’s migration election History shapes the nation's populism

For years, Ireland was the great political outlier. Let other countries have Brexit or Le Pen: Éire remained aloof. And if the latest polls are to be believed, populism won’t sweep the Dáil on Friday either. Fine Gael, headed by the incumbent Taoiseach Simon Harris, is currently at 19%. Fianna Fáil, Harris’s coalition partners, are on 21%, just one point ahead of the Sinn Féin opposition. Given, moreover, that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have already announced they’ll stick to their coalition agreement, the political centre will likely hold for now.

But if the headline results on Friday are likely to indicate business as usual — Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil have been permanent fixtures of Irish government for 100 years — the status quo is hardly stable. That’s clear enough from media coverage in the run-up to the election, with many reports focused on the nation’s simmering discontent, healthy government finances and solid economic growth of 2% notwithstanding. You get the same sense listening to the Irish themselves: according to the European Social Survey, the average Irish voter rates their satisfaction with their country’s democracy at a mere 5.9 out of 10.

How can this unhappiness be explained? One obvious factor is immigration: of both economic migrants and refugees seeking asylum. Having been a net exporter of people for over 150 years, net migration into Ireland now stands at almost 75,000 per year, with a fifth of those now living in Ireland having been born elsewhere. In particular, there has been a notable rise in the number of people seeking asylum, with the rate jumping by 94% in the first six months of 2024 alone.

Worries over migration feed into broader concerns. The Irish economy is booming, after all, but the recent influx has put immense pressure on housing and other services. That’s clear enough somewhere like Dundrum: those 277 migrants are set to be introduced into a community of just 221. Quite aside from the sense that communities are changing, that’s leading to a chronic shortage of housing, with Ireland having the worst record in the EU for accommodation for young people. Dovetailed with shuttered village pubs and community and anger against the political class is tangible.

It’s clear, then, that all the ingredients for Irish populism are there and ready to brew. Yet as the polls so vividly suggest, a shock result remains unlikely: something that’s basically down to the unwillingness of mainstream politicians to move with the voters. For their part, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have generally been reluctant to accept the need for lower numbers. As recently as last December a government minister accused politicians of cloaking themselves in “victimhood” when they claimed that public debate around immigration was being suppressed.

Until recently, anyone looking to give the establishment a bloody nose might have looked to Sinn Féin, what with its heady mix of Irish nationalism and socialist economics. Yet while the party polled as high as 36% two years ago, it’s since fallen away dramatically. Immigration is once again the culprit here, with Sinn Féin’s progressive leaders increasingly out of step with the electorate. According to one poll from May, 63% of all Irish voters wanted a more restrictive immigration policy, a figure that rose to 70% among Sinn Féin supporters. The same poll found that younger, poorer and more urban voters were most worried about Irish migration levels. That’s exactly the demographics Sinn Féin most relies on — even as Sinn Féin leaders like Mary Lou McDonald have, until recently, been extremely reluctant to comment on immigration directly.

Discontent does have some outlets. With the big three parties unwilling to drastically change tack on immigration, some have turned to Aontú, which blends nationalism and conservatism in ways Sinn Féin can’t. Yet with Aontú polling at just 4%, it seems clear that resentful Irish voters are instead putting their hope in independents. Often disaffected members of the mainstream parties — like Mattie McGrath and Malachy Steenson — they’re altogether expected to scoop up some 20% of the vote: roughly the same as each of the three main parties. Included in this grouping is the so-called Independent Party. Like Aontú, it blends republican zeal with immigration scepticism, though has bent to Irish conditions by accepting EU membership.

If, moreover, they’re unlikely to make a breakthrough this time round, the independents do have the electoral system on their side. Because of its proportional nature, the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system used in Dáil elections makes it easier for non-affiliated candidates to cause an upset. There are signs, moreover, that sticking it to the mainstream can bear fruit: though it was founded just last year, by a pair of former parliamentarians, the Independent Party already has 24 councillors and a single MEP.

Beyond the electoral calculations, though, the easiest way to measure the potency of Irish populism is through places like Dundrum. What’s happening in County Tipperary, after all, is being shadowed right across the country, with men and women taking the initiative themselves. That’s clearly enough in places like the Finglas area of Dublin, or else Cootehill in County Cavan, both sites of anti-migration protests.

Dundrum is also representative from an ideological standpoint. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a people who long suffered racism from the British, many would-be Irish populists are eager to reject accusations of discrimination themselves. “Skin colour is not the point, and it’s deliberately disingenuous to claim otherwise,” explains one user on a popular political Facebook group, in a striking echo of the “No to Racism” sign at Dundrum. “Talking about ‘white supremacy’ in a country that has suffered as much as Ireland has from ‘white’ people is a particularly sly form of gaslighting.”

And if that hints vividly at how the tragedies of Irish history shape the country’s populism, there are other examples too. Like at Dundrum, for instance, protests and social media posts are replete with references to “plantation” — explicitly linking the resettlement of refugees to the colonisation of Ireland by English and Scottish settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries. The past echoes elsewhere too: that Richard Harris poster at Dundrum references a rant about the Great Famine. Offbeat humour, too, is something shared between the camp at Dundrum and its cousins elsewhere. At one recent anti-migration rally, one attendee dressed up as St. Patrick.

Beyond history or humour, though, the success of Trumpish populism in Ireland might ultimately depend on the man himself. Though a poll earlier this year found Irish voters preferred Biden to win, the success of Trump in confounding expectations yet again shows that apparent stasis can be overcome in unexpected ways.

Then there’s the question of the President-elect’s economic policies. Right now, more than one in every €8 the Irish government makes comes from corporation tax paid by American multinationals. Last year, meanwhile, Ireland exported €54 billion of goods to the US. That’s 2.5 times the value of exports to the UK, even as Ireland’s trade surplus with the US currently stands at a record €35 billion. Trump’s return poses a serious threat to all this: as well as levying tariffs, he plans to cut corporation tax, just as Dublin plans to raise it.

Given Trump’s erratic style, it’s unclear if he’ll actually follow through with his plans. But if he does, he’ll pose huge risks to the economic model underpinning Ireland’s recent prosperity. That, it goes without saying, could be a boon to the incipient populists — at Dundrum and beyond.

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David Swift is a historian and author. His next book, Scouse Republic, will be published in 2025.

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