Elections, Reflections: Part II
This is the second part of the two-part reflection on the 2024 General Elections in Ireland. In the previous part, I posited a specific electoral goal which we, as a Nationalist movement, should work towards in time for the next General Election.
For convenience, I shall restate that goal here:
“Our aim is, by the beginning of 2028, that we have a concentrated Nationalist political party which is sufficiently organised to select the single, highest quality candidate to run in each given constituency, properly resource their campaigns and coordinate both online media coverage and on-the-ground activism, in order to secure an electoral breakthrough and increase our power.”
I broke that goal down in detail in that article [read Part I here] and outlined the case for it.
I also pointed out that electoral aspirations are not sufficient; we must seek to produce a cultural shift in the Nationalist movement. This would subsequently generate a wider cultural shift in Irish politics and society. In this article, I will not attempt to articulate something as concrete as our electoral goal. A change in the electoral landscape is a measurable result, capable of having specific inputs linked to specific outputs – by and large.
Cultural change, however, is much more difficult. The question of what inputs are required and what outputs are desired is a complex one, because taste and personal preference are large determinants and cannot possibly be accounted for in full. Some are more objective – such as “professionalisation” – whereas others are wholly and completely subjective, such as generation of new music, film, literature and so on.
What cannot be in doubt, however, is the purpose of that goal. Its purpose is specifically to advance Irish interests. To be specific, the power and interests of our ethnic group and not those of other ethnic groups (or the interests of those who believe Nationality is what’s stated on a passport, or can be integrated into).
Similarly, timelines are considerably less defined; cultural change is not limited by an election cycle. Rather, it could be the work of a lifetime, and its impacts could – should – manifest in places which cannot be reached by mere party-political rhetoric and vote shares. Indeed, I hope to see works of cultural significance which reach into our very souls as Irishmen and Irishwomen, which move us on a fundamental and spiritual level.
All of that said, to aid in structuring our thoughts I will posit a general proposition I believe we can all agree we would like to realise politically:
The Nationalist movement should: cohere into a professional, generative and aspirational movement which can influence the wider populace and motivate them to join our struggle and; develop the capacity to produce and support people and bodies capable of creating works of significant cultural impact.
The first element of this proposition has been widely identified as a necessity by many commentators, but to my knowledge nobody has tried to explain exactly what is meant by it.
There are a couple of ways one can interpret the term “professionalisation”. One might think of suits and ties, articulation, the airs of the kind of politics seen on the continent – no doubt this is what most people think of. Others have getting paid in mind – a professional is someone who gets paid to ply their trade.
Personally, I think what most people are getting at is status.
Status is incredibly important. It’s what everyone in a society responds to; men desire status, and women desire a man who has status. This is largely the draw for rival political movements such as conservatism and liberalism: for instance, an otherwise unremarkable, vapid and classless person could simply parrot leftist talking points, gain employment with an NGO and work their way up to a position of influence.
Therefore, it follows that we as a movement should build our capacity to generate status. With the winds of Western politics blowing in our direction, it’s going to be an easier road now than before. If we can demonstrate that our team can generate status, we will attract high-quality young men who, in turn, will attract high-quality young women.
How can we do this? Personal appearance is certainly part of it; dress and deportment can immediately command respect. Articulation is also an important element; being able to communicate your views in a sophisticated yet invigorating and charismatic way inevitably increases the likelihood that you’ll be listened to, thus advancing our views. Production capability demonstrates an ability to create and maintain, as well as communicating vision. Financial backing displays a more raw element of power and reveals organisational ability and a capacity to attract investment.
All of these elements – care for one’s personal appearance, manner of conduct, the ability to assert and defend one’s ideas, and so on – command respect and immediately force our enemies to realise that they are dealing with a genuine threat to their power. To dress well, to argue well, to behave well should be considered minimum standards.
However, neither do we want to fall into the trap of acting in line merely with what our enemies consider respectable. No, what will truly display power is defining what is considered respectable. We must set trends, not simply follow them slavishly.
To this, status is key. A man with status can set the rules, even if they fly flagrantly in the face of convention. A man without status can be as right and correct in his views as he wants but can never set the rules, nor break them and get away with it. What is defined as respectable is as much about masterfully constructing a fait accompli as it is about achieving the basics. We need to think laterally as well as linearly in this regard.
As a final note on professionalisation and status, we must discuss the vulgar topic of money. A large part of accruing status is the ability to amass and spend (wisely) one’s resources. The various leftist organisations are adept at this – securing state funding, investor backing and so on. While those of us in the vanguard do not do what we do out of concern for money but what is right and true, most people are sadly motivated by what they can get out of their pursuits.
Michael O’Leary is a good example of this: in May 2024 he said that Ryanair has no issue with running flights deporting illegal immigrants. That is to say, if we come to power and pass a law implementing remigration, we have a ready-made low-cost deportation machine ready to help us with that (for a delicious, fatty, perfectly marbled contract for taxpayer money no doubt). If we’re an enterprising lot, perhaps we could offset the cost by offering this efficient service to other states as remigration continues to build steam in European politics. Elites like O’Leary only care that the money keeps flowing, not who controls the sluice gate.
If we want to build a machine to get there, though, it must be similarly well-oiled; that is to say that if we want to assume power, much like the left has, we will need our own network of researchers, administrators, workers and so on who are able to make a living out of helping us.
At the end of the day, people need to put food on their tables and in their children’s mouths. There is a large segment of the population out there who agree with our ideas but cannot accept the risk which is currently involved with our politics. It’s easier for this untapped talent to help us build power if they can be sure they won’t starve because of it. We may be the happy volunteers, but we can’t expect most people to want to do something for nothing.
Thus, as a movement we need to develop the ability to resource ourselves and those we want to be on our team, helping us to achieve our political goals. Power punishes its enemies and rewards its friends.
This leads me onto the second element of the proposition I have made, which is: developing our capacity to produce and support people who can create culturally impactful works. We all know how influential the Gaelic League was among the Nationalists of the early 20th Century, we all know our favourite rebel songs or Irish ballads and poems and so on. Our own party anthem, ‘Avenging and Bright’, was written by Thomas Moore, whose cultural works outlive much of his political works.
However, we as a movement have essentially created very little over the last number of years – just over eight years since our own founding – which has cultural staying power, or is aspirational and generative. There has been very little original music, poetry and literature (and less of that still which has been any good) to motivate or stir us.
We have produced a respectable body of political writings and speeches via our website and YouTube, as have others on their various Substacks or X pages, however – as with Thomas Moore – most of these are, by their nature, time and context limited. They appeal to those few of us in the movement who read and think.
What sways most people, however, what moves most people on a fundamental level, is not logic, nor reason nor argumentation. It’s that which gets underneath the mind which truly moves the masses.
I cannot explain exactly why I am inspired by the spirit of defiance when I hear ‘Avenging and Bright’, nor my fondness for Irish women when I listen to Seán Ó’Riada’s composition of Peadar Ó Doirnín’s poem ‘Mná na hÉireann’. I cannot explain to you why I am brought to the verge of tears every time I play Piaras Ó’Lorcáin’s haunting rendition of ‘the Wounded Hussar’.
What I can say with confidence, however, is that these reinforce my identity as an Irishman on a deeper level than any political writing could. Beautiful artistic works have the capability to break past all political defences and reach something deeper. Christy Moore is an unrepentant Marxist, but his and Donal Lunny’s recording of John Gibbs’ Irish Ways and Irish Laws is one of my favourite pieces. Rather humorously, it contradicts Moore’s own rhetoric today and communicates an unapologetically identitarian message which reminds the listener of the fact we, as a people, throughout history have always been violently abused by the foreigner. Its lyrics reinforce the message that our own commitment to our identity is what has carried us through those centuries of abuse:
“Eight hundred years we have been down
The secret of the water’s sound
Has kept the spirit of a man
Above the pain descending”
We were never Vikings, nor Normans, nor English, nor Brits, but Irish. Similarly, we are not African, we are not Arab, and they are not us. Christy Moore can change his views with the wind if he likes, but this song will always be a Nationalist, identitarian piece.
Similarly to music, political ideas can be communicated effectively through film as well. This is currently being attempted across the wider “Western right”, but sadly most of the works produced are lessons in exactly how not to proceed. That said, what they have demonstrated is that there is an audience for such films and television shows. Where are the movies about Pearse? Where are our adaptations of An Táin? The release of Small Things Like These drew criticism for being yet another piece of Irish “misery pornography” – but where are the people depicting the heroic, colourful and virile nature of the Irish people? You could probably count them on one hand.
By definition, our enemies cannot produce something which could instil ethnic pride – they despise the Irish people and look forward to our destruction or adulteration by foreign elements. They are a globalist, universalist group who believe there are no innate differences between anyone; they could not possibly produce the kind of particularist, ethnocentric work which stirs the very soul of the Irishman to action. They don’t even believe in the soul, or transcendence, or anything which motivates the greatest acts of heroism.
Thus, there is an open goal for even a half-well produced film or short on these stories for us, as a movement, to exploit. Other filmmakers have taken hearty advantage of this niche – Robert Eggers, for example, has made his career on telling odd and obscure stories, with almost all major works of his keeping the supernatural in focus. The Irish are a people replete with historical bravery and spirituality, both pagan and Catholic – at the very least we’re well-furnished with odd and obscure stories of our own.
Such things are intended to stir the deep currents of Irish identity rather than to express any fatigue with “wokeness”, or that which inspires one to do no more than to show up at a protest with an off-colour polyester Tricolour (which I call “Carroll’s Nationalism”). It should be evergreen content – things which Irish people can put on in a hundred years, two hundred years, five hundred years and still be moved. Many talking heads often accuse the right of being uncreative – but it’s only rightist ideals which can create something evergreen, something which rejects materialism and transcends a mere lifetime. It is extremely difficult to produce something like that, but only we have the capability to do so.
However we shouldn’t shy away from some element of change, either, painful as it is for a man such as myself to admit. Culture should communicate a sense of vitality and youth, without losing sight of its historic identity (acts such as Kneecap capture the former and completely fail in the latter). This is part and parcel of setting trends – exactly the kind of thing we should be doing, culturally. We should always remember ourselves, but neither should we be afraid of embracing new and generative modes and means of communicating our message. We must embrace the times in which we exist and find out ways to adapt historic ways of being in a form modern audiences can internalise – otherwise our signal will simply disappear into the noise.
Ideally, Nationalists should be doing their best to learn Irish and to produce content in Irish. In fact, there’s never been a better time to do so given the dwindling number of Irish speakers and appreciators of the culture. Our impact would be so much the larger because of this very fact – a minority of Nationalist Irish speakers would have a disproportionate effect and an even greater potential to dominate discourse than we can realise as Béarla.
The lack of a cultural aesthetic does us harm as well. Those of you in the movement who cannot bear the day-to-day knocking on doors and chatting with Johnny and Mary, but love the creative aspects should dedicate most of your time into helping us generate an aspirational aesthetic which attracts people and communicates deep ideas. We’re surrounded by political parties and groups with absolutely no aesthetic outside of the sterile graphic design popular among soulless, managerial types. There is a huge gap in the market for a group who conveys their worldview visually, particularly if they are bold and sharp.
Lastly on this element, there is a degree of coordination with politics and power which is required to fulfil this aspiration.
Distribution is as important as the creation itself. The argument has been cogently made that “culture is downstream from law”. While I do not believe that all good culture is top-down, I do agree that all popular culture is top-down. You don’t need to do deep dives into Bernays to understand this, it’s common knowledge that much (if not most) of the budget for modern mass cultural productions is marketing.
As such, we as a movement should identify those of us who are experienced and connected in terms of content distribution, creation and promotion. This is where the coordination comes in. In fact, this is largely how acts such as Kneecap (and the American acts which they are inspired by) gained and retain cultural sticking power: not necessarily because their cultural production is good, but because those who distribute their production tell you it’s good.
Any self-respecting Irishman would know to be immediately sceptical of any act which attracts the fancy of an organisation known as the British Academy (I hope the italics convey my disgusted frown). If something comes with the British recommendation, the Irishman – particularly one who calls himself a Republican, and doubly so for any such man living under the boot of John Bull in the 6 – should instinctively recoil.
This is all the more clear when such a language as Irish, into which God and Catholic morality is woven, is debased to glorify drug use and prostitution. We wouldn’t be long finding an answer to the question of what interest the British would have in promoting such a subversion, but to bring this (hopefully demonstrative) tangent to its close, popularity is less a question of quality and more of what is put in front of the most people. This doesn’t just work with culture, but information as well. How many people do not believe the truth, but merely what RTÉ puts in front of them?
As such, we should develop our ability not just to produce but to properly select, distribute and promote.
There are people in the movement who have experience with this – some of whom even had shows on RTÉ. These people know how the game works, they were part of it – and they agree with us. We should leverage that talent and experience to help ensure that the impactful things we can produce as a movement have the best chance of success with the wider population. This, in turn, would help to produce a wider cultural shift among the Irish populace which is in our interest: to ensure we properly define Irish identity and reinforce its primacy in the Irish people, as opposed to the primacy of Progressivism, economics, cosmopolitanism or any other such competing concepts.
To conclude, what we have ahead of us as a movement is a tall order, but not unachievable. We must learn to set, improve and enforce our standard. Politically, the Nationalist movement has demonstrated an ability to set the tempo of discourse. We have shifted the Overton window of what is acceptable to discuss in record time. What we should do is develop our capacity to do the same for our culture, both within our own movement and in Ireland generally. We should ensure that over the next however many years – some things should take less than others – we become a force which has depth and production power. We should use the skills we have generated in setting the tempo of the discourse and apply them to generating cultural tempo.
If we dictate the standard, we are on the offensive and our enemies become reactive, thus putting them on the backfoot – advantage to us. We advance our worldview, our message in a way which immediately communicates quality to anyone observing. More importantly if we can move people, stir them emotionally, provide them some nourishment spiritually, then we can raise all boats with the tide and help to drag each other out of the mire we find ourselves in as a people.
What we need to deliver for people is something more than just a political alternative but a positive vision of what Irish life could look like; a complete reorientation of our self-concept away from good little economic units who have the favour of Liberal overlords, back towards a particularist and ethnocentric conception of Ireland. The best way to do this is through developing our ability to deliver cultural products and our capability to distribute them using a top-down model.
We have only ever been a small people in number, but never in spirit or achievement. We have always punched above our weight. But, without the cultural means of reinforcing our pride in ourselves we are open to the subversive, anti-Irish message that we are a stupid and backward people whose only future lies in sacrificing ourselves to the GDP lines.
That’s not true; it never has been and never will be. Our future can only ever be found within ourselves.
This article was written by National Party representative for Carlow Daeln Murphy. To summit an article for consideration email us at [email protected].