SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE Ides of March, 44BC and the present day, soothsayers, omens and portents went out of style…

… but when you see a pale, blood-soaked military horse galloping freely through the city of London with five of his pals, one does begin to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we’ve stumbled into the end times. A few more horses than Revelation warned us about of course, but really all we’re missing is the horsemen to sit astride them.

Or are we?

As whimsical as we would all like this column to be, it would be no less than a dereliction of duty to ignore the events in Newtownmountkennedy this week. Mirroring recent showdowns in Coolock, and not least last November’s riot in the capital, scenes in the Wicklow suburb this week deteriorated into fire and brimstone once again. Gardaí came under attack, a fire was attempted at a site earmarked for asylum seekers, smoke and pepper spray filled the air in the Garden of Ireland. 

Are we surprised anymore? If we are, then it speaks to the naivety that’s landed us here in the first place.

There is a palpable sense of danger in Ireland at this moment. Immigrants to Ireland will tell you this. Emigrants who have recently returned to their home shores will tell you this. Anyone who is sickened by the site of vehicles set alight, entire neighbourhoods harassed, and most chilling of all, attacks on foreign nationals, will tell you that this is a very different Ireland than the one that existed even a matter of years ago. 

The shadow of fire and the spectre of violence hangs heavy at the end of each of week. The horses are loose, and as the European elections approach, the anti-immigration sentiment fuelling these events is not lacking for high-profile tinder.

This week, radio DJ Niall Boylan hitched his cart to the Independent Ireland wagon. You’ll remember them from a few weeks ago. They’re the chemical castration, aim-for-the-legs political party established by TD Michael Collins, who himself as a private citizen wrote a lengthy character reference for a convicted sexual offender in an appeal for clemency 11 years ago (Collins has since expressed regret over the decision, while Boylan parried the concern by saying “everybody makes mistakes”).

While Collins’ own objectives may have seemed a bit all over the shop, Boylan knows what aisle he’s in. The top line of his announcement declared a need to “stop handing over our sovereignty and ability to control our own borders” and his campaign slogan is “Time To Stand Up To The EU”. It’s a position about which he has been consistent for some time, declaring as early as 2013 that: “We should take the leap from the European Union. It’s a failed attempt at a semi super power.” 

For many years, anti-EU sentiment was virtually unthinkable in Ireland, as famously we would lead Europe-wide polls in terms of our satisfaction with the block. This has been dented severely in recent years, with the latest Eurobarometer poll reporting that the proportion of Irish respondents saying that they tend to trust the EU has decreased by more than ten percentage points compared to 2021.

those pictures of the horses running through london are incredible pic.twitter.com/MQ0omqxV81

— richard (@auspices) April 24, 2024

Once upon a time, the thought of a radio shock jock running for public office might have been cause for whimsy. We could have made our little jokes about a constituency of taxi drivers and late-night texters. But can anything be whimsical against a backdrop of fire and smoke, to the soundtrack vicious and exclusionary chanting? One fears not.

And it is, without a doubt, this cohort that Boylan is explicitly courting. On Twitter he has acknowledged “a small number of agitators” but attributed much of the furore to – as ever – “concerned, frustrated and voiceless” men and women. Whether he, of two radio shows per day, counts himself among those voiceless is not clear. 

At the end of this week there is, at least, one body that’s as prepared as ever to step up to the plate and give us all a laugh: the Football Association of Ireland, god bless ‘em. Boy howdy, have they delivered again! Anyone who thought that the nonsense would end with denouement of Mr John Delaney has been proven (do I have to say it again) profoundly naive. 

Since Stephen Kenny was sacked, over six months ago, not only have the FAI failed to replace him, but now – following the resignation of CEO Jonathan Hill earlier this month – they need to replace the guy whose job it was to find the replacement. John O’Shea, one of Ireland’s most talented and most adorable footballers in recent memory, has been handed a second stint as the interim coach of the men’s team for the next spate of friendlies later in the year.

At the risk of ending this column the way columns always seem to end, this absence of direction does feel microcosmic of Ireland right now. A liminal, interim space between several competing visions of a country, one hellbent on chaos, another comprised of John O’Sheas, doing our best with what we have while we have it. Saddle up.