The National Party's gold bars signal a disturbing reality about far-right groups in Ireland
National Party leader Justin Barrett (centre) surrounded by masked men as activists protested on the Ballymun Road against the housing of refugees in Dublin in January 2023. File photo: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie
The beginning of the National Party was inauspicious, to say the least, but few saw its future as being embroiled in a row over €400,000 worth of gold bars.
The party had registered in August 2016 and, in November of that year, planned a launch event in the swanky Merrion Hotel in Dublin's city centre. The invite said that the hitherto mysterious party was to be led by Justin Barrett, the former chair of the No To Nice campaign and James Reynolds, a Longford farmer.
Mr Barrett had run for Europe in 2004, polling 2.4% of the vote in the East constituency. He had previously defended speaking at an event in Germany held by the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party. At the time, he told RTÉ that he was only attending the meetings in his capacity as a member of the pro-life movement.
However, the Irish Alliance for Europe said that not alone was Mr Barrett a guest of honour at an NPD rally in Bavaria in May 2000 but that in 1999 he had attended the conference of the party's youth group—Young National Democrats. In 2001, he had been reported to have attended events of the Italian neo-Fascist group Forza Nuova.
The 2016 re-emergence of Mr Barrett came at a time when right-wing and far-right politics were in bloom across the world. Donald Trump and Brexit had shown how a nationalistic, identity-led campaign could be translated into votes, but Ireland had yet to see any such breakthrough.
The press release at the time said that “Ireland’s elites” continue to “‘value signal their masters in the increasingly dictatorial Federal European Union by an unrestricted policy of immigration to the point of population displacement”.
"That one party, loyal to the Republic and a sovereign people, dedicated to unity by consent, that one party committed to real and sustainable economic growth, that one party which will speak for the great silent majority who have seen the beginnings of “multi-culturalism” with growing dismay, that one party who will represent that so basic of equalities, the equal right to be alive, that party is the National Party."
The Merrion cancelled the event amid a backlash online, but Mr Barrett was interviewed on Today FM and said that he would like to see immigrants leave the country.
Party officials admitted that they were trying to capitalise on the back of the election of Donald Trump and when asked about his opinions on immigrants in Ireland, Mr Barrett said: “They have done in their numbers exactly what I said they were going to do.”
He said that immigrants had “skewed” the economy, pinning much of the blame for the financial crash on foreign labour. He said Ireland’s mainstream parties did not represent people opposed to mass immigration.
“Their supporters are deeply dismayed but you can’t bring it up at a political party meeting,” he said. “We’ve been holding meetings to see the level of support that is out or could be out there for the nationalist agenda.”
In 2017, Mr Reynolds lost a legal application to continue an injunction preventing the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association (ICSA) from removing him from senior positions he had held with the organisation.
The ICSA said it had decided to remove Mr Reynolds as a member of the county executive for Longford for its national executive and as the ICSA's National Treasurer because of his involvement with the National Party which it described as being "in the mode of right-wing European Movements."
At the time, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan said he was satisfied not to put an injunction in place until the dispute had been determined. The judge noted the ICSA held a special meeting in November 2016 to discuss Mr Reynold's involvement in the National Party.
Noting the breakdown in the relationship between the two parties, the judge said: "The views of the National Party are in direct conflict and are at odds to those of the ICSA."
Members particularly cited having to distance themselves from the party and what they felt was a damaging of media relations. Mr Reynolds had gone on the Claire Byrne Live TV programme, where he spoke on behalf of the National Party, and criticised the efforts of the Irish Naval Service in rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean. Mr Reynolds had also said that RTÉ and Newstalk published fake news stories.
With the 2016 election having passed, the party looked to the 2018 referendum on abortion.
Mr Barrett had first come to prominence as a member of the anti-abortion Youth Defence group, but had left them in 2002 because—according to an archived version of the National Party's website—he "felt their methods of campaigning and interacting with the public were becoming increasingly more extreme and counterproductive".
So in 2018, he established Abortion Never; "an Irish nationalist anti-abortion campaign". During the campaign, Abortion Never told a group of pensioners that they were "next" if abortion was legalised.
In 2019, the party opted not to run any candidates in the European or local elections but Mr Barrett did make headlines when he was filmed at a protest outside Google's Dublin offices saying that then-Lord Mayor of Dublin and Green Party councillor Hazel Chu was an Irish citizen and "that is the law until we get the law in our own hands". Ms Chu was born in Dublin.
The 2020 election saw the National Party put forward 10 candidates, though Mr Barrett was not among them. The party, which has no elected TDs or senators, declared around €17,000 in spending in the 2020 election.
Mr Barrett was the party’s candidate in the 2021 Dublin Bay South by-election, where he received 187 votes, 0.7% of the overall vote. His Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) returns declare no expenses on his campaign.
Prominent party member Philip Dwyer was removed from the party after a vigil was held at the grave of murdered schoolteacher Aisling Murphy, though Mr Dwyer would claim that this was a pretense used to oust him after he raised issues about inaction within the party.
That "inaction" was felt by many on the far-right in Ireland, who felt that the National Party had become peripheral to the "movement" and was left behind by the likes of the Irish Freedom Party when anti-migrant protests sprung up at the beginning of this year.
Indeed, the advent of alternative social media platforms like Telegram saw the party largely sidelined as a new wave of far-right personalities came to the fore.
But while the party may have been less active than some in its ranks wanted, it was quietly sitting on a fortune. Mr Barrett posted a statement on Twitter late on Sunday night saying that bars of gold—understood to be worth over €400,000—had been taken from the party's vault safe without his knowledge by senior members.
Gardaí have said that enquiries are ongoing, but sources said that the gold has been located and gardaí are working to establish ownership and will be updated if it is to be moved.
Mr Barrett's statement says that the gold was held to “form the main part of the party’s reserves in case of a mishap in general or more particularly a collapse in the value of fiat currency”.
But according to published reports, the far-right party has not furnished the Sipo with accounts for each of the last three years and its spending has been minimal. So how did it land on so much money?
Mr Barrett's statement said that the money was "dearly gathered by the sacrifice of party members and supporters", but under the Electoral Act any annual political donations received either by the party or a subsidiary organisation of that party in excess of €1,500 from an individual or corporate donor must be declared and the limit per donor is €2,500. Foreign donations are banned.
The country's ethics watchdog Sipo has already said that it has no real powers to sanction non-compliance, but gardaí are seeking to establish how the gold was paid for. If the garda investigation determines the source of the money comes from a legitimate source, then their investigation ends, but other agencies could be contacted, such as Revenue.
For some who monitor far-right activity in Ireland, the gold crystallises a troubling reality—the National Party vehicle may have failed to gain traction electorally, but there is a mass of resources there ready to spread their message and many of those who are finding the most success don't have to adhere to political party rules.
