It might be an ad for arnica
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Lucy Letby - innocent?
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Not a headline in a traditional media publication.
The New Yorker article’s headline is: “A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?”
Doesn’t apply to opinion pieces afaik
There’s such a rise in this type of straight up, no holds barred racism. And not all just from anonymous trolls either
https://twitter.com/BenGilroyIRL/status/1790494565817827587?t=arktxPo5bxtVnBalAnhcEg&s=19
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‘This is what the media aren’t telling you’
‘This is what the government don’t want you to know’
‘Wake up people!’
Usually around immigration.
A lot of people posting such things on Facebook. Frightening.
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Sheeple
If i see someone mention “mainstream media” i just stop reading
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Legacy media is more appropriate. 
This cunt needs a few digs in the head, absolute scumbag
Shadow of the Gaelic Grounds
Of course. Irelh is a leftie paradise. Anyone who isn’t a far-left loon is considered ‘far right’
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Where’s Irelh?
Far-right conspiracy theorists are having a hugely destructive effect on the Irish political system
Election candidates are facing a small group of enraged voters, hostile and aggressive to all but a few extreme candidates who share their beliefs in a collection of strange conspiracy theories about who runs the world, immigration, and vaccines
THU, 16 MAY, 2024 - 17:30
THERESA REIDY
Campaigning in the local and European Parliament elections is well under way.
Politicians and their teams have started knocking on doors and the process of bedecking the country with election posters started on May 8. It is more than four years since there has been a major electoral event and early reports suggest some small but serious changes have been taking place in the political undergrowth.
Post-election interviews with candidates tell us a majority of voters politely answer their doors, pass a few words with the canvassers, take the election literature and make non-committal murmurings about thinking of them on polling day.
A small number of voters have a list of items ready to discuss with any political candidate that comes by. And there is always a group of party supporters in every community that wish the candidate well and gives some insider advice on who is worth canvassing up the road.
The election context matters a lot. In 2011, there were many angry voters, people whose lives had been ravaged by the economic collapse and others who were distressed by the political chaos. But their anger was targeted, focused on specific real events, and people, and for very obvious reasons.
This year is different. A very small group of voters is enraged now, hostile and aggressive to all but a few extreme candidates who share their animosity for the political system and beliefs in a collection of strange conspiracy theories about who runs the world, immigration and vaccines.
Violent attacks
Violent attacks on candidates have received significant media attention and a quick perusal of some social media channels will confirm these are not isolated incidents. Many accounts of extreme-right activists and sympathisers display long videos of them hurling abuse at candidates from all the main parties, harassing speakers at public events and intimidating election volunteers.
Some of the candidates from the extreme-right parties, and the independents in this space, demand definitions of ‘far-right’ or ‘extreme-right’ and explanations for why they are being labelled in this way. They do so because the history of the extreme right is horrifying, it is the epitaph of a repulsive European past.
There are two important features that define far-right parties.
The first is that these parties are authoritarian and anti-democratic. They are hostile to the political system, reject free elections and intimidate and attack political opponents. The second part of the definition lies in their opposition to liberal democratic values such as tolerance of alternative political views, respect for human rights and human dignity.
Within this definition, there is a spectrum that has been very well developed by Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde. He discusses two specific sub-categories: those that want to overthrow the liberal democratic system completely and those that want to devastate it from the inside. We don’t know enough about the Irish far-right parties to fit them into these specific categories yet.
So far in Ireland, far-right parties are tiny, we call them micro-parties and the space is very fragmented, as many of these activists also deeply disagree among themselves. However, they are having a destructive effect, without winning many votes at all. Their tactics are changing campaigning.
Political parties are giving safety advice to their candidates and canvassing teams. And there are serious fears that all of this may deter people from becoming involved in politics in the future.
Protests outside politicians’ homes and their political offices have become a regular feature in the news. A survey this month found 94% of politicians and 72% of political staff had experienced threats, harassment or violence. Who would willingly draw this horror upon themselves?
A quick look at public opinion provides troubling signs. A large majority of the voting public has negative views of the political system.
Declining trust in politicians
Research after the March referendums confirmed again that almost 60% of voters believe most politicians only care about the interests of the rich and powerful and only 27% believed most politicians are trustworthy. Declining trust in politics and politicians has been evident for a long time and many of these voters are critical of important failings in the political system.
But what is new in the research is that about a quarter of voters combine anti-establishment opinions with beliefs in strange conspiracy theories that have been especially amplified on social media.
Some 34% of voters believe a small, secret group of people is responsible for making all major decisions in world politics; 28% believe groups of scientists manipulate, fabricate, or suppress evidence in order to deceive the public; and 24% believe experiments involving new drugs or technologies are routinely carried out on the public without their knowledge or consent.
There is absolutely no substantive and verifiable evidence for any of these conspiracies and that so many people believe them is deeply troubling. It raises serious questions about where Irish people are getting their information and how reliable it is.
There was a lot of celebration within the political system since 2015 about Ireland’s liberal advances in relation to marriage and abortion. Long-standing research that has shown deeply hostile views towards members of the Travelling community and negative views of immigrants wasn’t so much ignored, rather it was consigned to the ‘deal with it later’ box.
The global surge in migration has been the catalyst for pushing these issues back up the political agenda and activating the voters who have always had hostile opinions towards minority groups.
The Government performed well in its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees were accommodated, but the international protection system was creaking under the pressure in parallel and the result is that immigration has accelerated up the agenda for a lot of voters.
This has allowed far-right parties to exploit fears about the unknown. The surprise in this scenario is that Ireland has been so far behind our European neighbours in having to face an organised far-right.
- •Dr Theresa Reidy is a political scientist at University College Cork
Would the hostility have anything to do with the health service, awful public transport or open borders?
Weird, this Government has spent more on public transport than any before and its in the process of being transformed
Traffic isn’t moving anywhere around Dublin. M50 north is a a carpark. The Green loons don’t like roads.
Waited two hours on a Friday evening to get a bus to the Red Cow. No idea where they’re spending the money but public transport is fucking pants.
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Galway City traffic is the worst it has ever been. Lack of affordable student accommodation is really fuelling an excess of cars on the roads.
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