Far right exploits Ashling Murphy's death to ramp up anti-immigrant rhetoric 

Floral tributes and candles surround a photograph  left at the Grand Canal in Tullamore, Co Offaly, where primary school teacher Ashling Murphy was found dead after going for a run. Picture: David Young/PA

The killing of 23-year-old schoolteacher Ashling Murphy on January 12 in Tullamore sparked an unprecedented reaction from the public.

Many were simply left numb. The vast majority felt the resonance, a relatability to the victim. They were shocked and saddened. Women were sickened. Many men were stung, and wanted to help.

A number of competing narratives began to emerge in the hours and days after the killing as the Garda investigation unfolded, from the utterly understandable to the nefarious.

For those campaigning for the safety of women from male violence for years and decades, Ashling Murphy's death had to mean a turning point. Things could not be the same from here on. That point has broken through into the popular consciousness, and the Government hasn’t missed it, with the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee’s vaunted new gender-based violence strategy receiving intense scrutiny in the past week.

There is always resistance when we raise issues of violence against women

The other, less savoury reactionary narrative was that of the far right in Ireland. Some of it was directed at the women who had stood in the spotlight in the days following the brutal killing, calling for change and focused anger.

“There is always resistance when we raise issues of violence against women,” Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, said. “There is always a reaction.”

“We got so many positive things from men, but in the past number of days we’ve heard that the NWCI has been accused of certain things on far right accounts. And in the past two days we’ve been getting a lot more abusive phone calls accusing us of being anti-men, and that would make me wonder, is it to do with what’s going on on social media.” 

She said it is really important that people see the connections in terms of what the far right is saying.

“All the men getting in touch with us to help, and then to twist this that it’s anti-man, it’s horrendous.” 

The mobilisation of Ireland’s far right activists in the wake of the killing was far from unpredictable, not least due to the nationality of the initial suspect becoming common knowledge within hours.

"We got so many positive things from men, but in the past number of days we’ve heard that the NWCI has been accused of certain things on far right accounts. And in the past two days we’ve been getting a lot more abusive phone calls accusing us of being anti-men, and that would make me wonder, is it to do with what’s going on on social media," says Orla O'Connor.

The fact the (since completely exonerated) arrested man was Romanian led to a spike in far right activity, notably among the followers and members of the National Party and in the darker corners of encrypted messaging app Telegram, as those involved mobilised to claim the narrative for themselves.

“It wasn’t a surprise, but the way some of them did it was pure bile, especially the attempts to whip up general anti-migrant hate on Telegram,” a spokesperson for the civil society grouping the Far Right Observatory told the Irish Examiner.

One of the most noteworthy initial examples of that drive was a ‘petition’ set up on the website of Donegal man Niall McConnell, Siol na hEireann, calling for the deportation of Ashling Murphy’s “Romanian murderer”.

The site claimed to have amassed 37,000 signatures, although closer inspection revealed this figure to be closer to 100. Once details were filed on the site, the visitor was instead linked to a sales page for a book promoting resistance to the Great Reset immigration conspiracy theory.

“The playbook is known at this stage, and misogyny is rooted right through what the far right is about,” the spokesperson says, citing the assault carried out on activist Izzy Kamikaze at a Covid protest in Dublin in 2020 by a member of the National Party (who was subsequently jailed for two years) as an example of the contradictions inherent in representatives of the far right arguing that they are operating in defence of women.

After Ashling Murphy's death, "the Irish Freedom Party said that the Women’s Council had blood on its hands," they said.

"It doesn’t make sense, but it does make sense in that it’s a provocation, a really violent kind of trolling, and it’s all part of a vile attack against women’s advocates,” they added.

The sheer scale of anti-immigrant rhetoric emanating from the far right over the past two weeks was not dampened in any way by the fact the initial suspect was released without charge, with the gardaí stressing to media outlets upon his release that in no shape or form did he remain under suspicion.

It doesn’t make sense, but it does make sense in that it’s a provocation, a really violent kind of trolling, and it’s all part of a vile attack against women’s advocates

Rather, the focus moved to the next target, a man who at the time was in hospital in Dublin. A whatsapp voice message was soon spreading around the country suggesting the new suspect was Syrian, living in a hostel, had been arrested, and had been brought to Dublin by gardaí, none of which was factual. That voicenote again sparked a far from common Garda response: in a release the force called for people to “STOP sharing these messages”. 

“Not only are they misinformed, inaccurate and dangerous, they are unhelpful to the criminal investigation,” it stated.

It is far from beyond the realms of possibility that the fact the suspect, who has now been charged with murder, is also eastern European could be seized upon by the far right to further its own narrative. The irony of decrying the State and media for peddling false narratives while at the same time spreading misinformation at a rate of knots would appear to be lost on the movement’s supporters.

“When something like this incident happens, you’d be watching the press reports, and when you see nationality you know it’s a red flag,” says Ciaran O’Connor of the UK-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which specialises in analysing misinformation. Mr O’Connor says that the exact same playbook was used in the case of George Nkencho, a 27-year-old killed by a member of the Armed Response Unit in December 2020, with rumours of a criminal past leading to the gardaí at the time publicly stating that the man had no convictions prior to his shooting.

“These groups push an ethno-nationalist white Irish perspective, where it’s the native Irish versus the foreigner,” Mr O’Connor says.

“There’s definitely legitimate criticism to be made of how all this was handled. The media has to present the facts. What the public can do is not share unconfirmed reports,” he says.

He argues that, for the public, the way to handle the far right is “not to engage in any way”.

What about Telegram, consistently seen as something akin to the Wild West in terms of the extremist content it hosts?

“That’s a good question,” Mr O’Connor says. “They’ve taken down Isis content in the past, and child pornography, so we know they can. But it needs political pressure, and thankfully some of that is starting to ramp up. Because it’s the platform to which this kind of extremism gravitates. And it’s so, so potentially dangerous.”

*Correction: In an earlier version of this article, we mistakenly said a member of the Irish Freedom Party was jailed for an assault on activist Izzy Kamikaze at a Covid protest in Dublin in 2020. Michael Quinn was named in anInstitute for Strategic Dialogue paperas a member of the National Party at the time, not the Irish Freedom Party. We are happy to correct the record.