Early into the tally of votes in the Ballymun-Finglas local electoral area (LEA) of Dublin City Council on the morning of June 8th at the RDS, the number crunchers noticed that voting patterns had changed.
In some parts of the mainly working-class suburb in the northwest of the city the changes were dramatic.
There were four anti-immigration right-wing candidates in the field and they were drawing a significant vote. Between them they took just over 20 per cent of the vote in the LEA. In some parts of west and south Finglas they were receiving a combined 32 per cent or just under a third of all votes.
One of those candidates, Gavin Pepper, received 1,126 votes (or 7.39 per cent) and was elected on the 11th count, taking strong transfers from the other three. All the established parties lost votes to them, Sinn Féin in particular.
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The extent of that vote took other candidates by surprise.
“I did not expect any of them to be elected to be brutally honest,” said poll-topper Keith Connolly of Fianna Fáil. “I expected them to put in a big push alright. But as it happened these were the people who cleaned up on the protest vote this time.”
Pepper had stood as an Independent, as had Leon Bradley, who took part in anti-migrant rallies in Finglas and won 819 votes. Stephen Redmond of the far-right Nationalist Party ended up with 930 first preferences. The fourth, Jeff Gallagher, received 256 votes.
Connolly has pointed out that there are other extenuating factors at play that can’t be discounted. These were local elections, not a general election, he said, and all four candidates were local and were well-known in their own areas, a benefit at this electoral level.
Over in neighbouring Artane-Whitehall LEA another Independent right-wing anti-migrant candidate Kevin Coyle received 1,091 votes in the first count or 7.5 per cent of first-preference votes. All told the cumulative vote for anti-immigrant candidates in that LEA was 10 per cent. Coyle lost the race for the last seat in the 12th count; he was only 80 votes behind the last person elected.
While right-wing candidates won fewer votes in Cabra-Glasnevin LEA (4 per cent), the results in these three LEAs show that in the three-seat Dáil constituency of Dublin North West, a right-wing candidate could be very well in the mix come the general election.
“If there was a strong and focused campaign I do not disagree with that,” said Connolly. “They are all split in some ways at present.”
A feature of the local and European elections this year was the substantial increase in the number of candidates and parties on the right who adopted anti-migration stances of varying hues.
Nationally they registered more than a blip for the first time but still stayed in low single digits. Collectively the four right-wing parties – the National Party, Irish Freedom Party (IFP), Ireland First, The Irish People – won less than 2 per cent of the national vote. However, the cumulative figure for the four parties rose to 5 per cent in the European elections.
In all six people who principally campaigned on anti-migration or/and right-wing tickets were elected to councils, five in Co Dublin, one in north Kildare.
“That six out of 949. Big deal,” said a senior Government politician during the election counts. The bigger parties claimed that a right-wing breakthrough had failed to materialise.
The bigger picture may be more complex The right-wing vote was split into a host of micro-parties and individual candidates, with little professionalism or experience in terms of a political campaign. Parties closer to the centre such as Independent Ireland and Aontú, which elected 31 councillors between them, made migration part of their campaigns, and adopted a stance that was more hardline than that of the Government but without the overt anti-migration rhetoric of some right-wing candidates.
Second, while the national percentages were low there were pockets of Dublin working-class areas where right-wing parties and Independents won substantial votes. In Donaghemede LEA two candidates took 10 per cent of the vote, as they did in the North Inner City, where Malachy Steenson, an Independent candidate who was prominent in the first protests against migrant accommodation in the East Wall area, was elected.
In Ballyfermot-Drimnagh LEA three candidates who specifically campaigned on anti-migration platforms won 17.6 per cent of first preferences, with former Olympic boxer Phil Sutcliffe getting elected.
Labour Senator Rebecca Moynihan who is based in this constituency, Dublin South Central, said she had seen this change coming for some time. “Nobody has talked about it. If they were co-ordinated and were politically astute they could have made a significant impact. There is a vote there and there could be a breakthrough in a future election if they are not counteracted.”
Moynihan says these individuals and parties have won a more or less permanent bloc of anti-establishment votes that had previously gone to Sinn Féin and People Before Profit after the water charge protests of 2014 and 2015. “Even before the election I had a view there is a possibility that they could break through,” she said.
She points to other constituencies where local election results suggest that right-wing parties and candidates will be a presence. They include Dublin Mid West, Dublin South West, and possibly Dublin Bay North.
Take Dublin Mid West. In the Palmerstown-Fonthill LEA Glen Moore of the IFP won 10 per cent of first preferences and was elected to South Dublin County Council. Anti-immigration candidates won between 3 per cent and 10 per cent in other LEAs in south Dublin.
In Fingal, Patrick Quinlan of the National Party took a seat in the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart LEA. There were two other right-wing candidates in that LEA in Dublin 15. Between them they won 16.2 per cent of the vote.
There were some pockets outside Dublin where candidates of the right performed strongly.
Independent councillor Tommy McDonnell, who drew controversy by saying after the June 7th local elections that “indigenous” Irish women needed to “breed” more, took the last seat in the Newbridge LEA in Co Kildare.
In the European Parliament election the right-wing founder of Ireland First, Derek Blighe, won 25,000 first preferences in Ireland South.
But, following strong first counts, support petered out in later counts. Right-wing candidates were wholly dependent on transfers from similarly minded candidates, of whom there were few.
How will those trends translate into support in the general election?
The vast majority of candidates and parties of the right refused to comment for this article, did not respond to queries or were uncontactable. It is clear from their social media posts that all of the newly-established parties – and some Independents – are planning a tilt at the Dáil.
Hermann Kelly, the president of the IFP, did respond to queries from The Irish Times. Asked about the prospects of Glen Moore, the party’s first ever councillor, and whether he would target working class areas, Kelly replied: “The woke thought-police of Sinn Féin and Labour have abandoned the working class, who now vote in increasing numbers for the IFP and other nationalists.”
He claimed that the votes were coming from people in poorer areas who experienced “the immediate impact of the consequences of uncontrolled immigration”. He argued it caused more crime, less housing and lower wages.
“The IFP will be concentrating our efforts on four or five predominantly working class constituencies in Dublin to give people who strive for a better chance of a job and a house for their children a patriotic alternative,” he said.
Dr Kevin Cunningham, lecturer in politics at Technology University Dublin and the founder of polling company Ireland Thinks, says that it is hard to predict how these candidates and parties will fare in the general election. He says that they are disparate and disorganised at present, but that, when their vote is aggregated, it is undeniable that they have an electoral presence.
“Predicting the composition of these guys is actually quite difficult because it’s hard to tell to what extent they will consolidate or fail to consolidate. You can’t really predict that sort of thing,” he said.
“There is definitely a vote out there for them. It was slightly underestimated because of the way people perceived the local elections and the European elections in some respects. When you add them all together they don’t do so badly. They are at a vote where I can imagine they’re going to be in the running for the last seat in maybe a couple of places.”
“But then,” he adds, “maybe transfers won’t be their friend.”
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