A tale of two counties: Kilkenny and Carlow at opposite ends of new ‘far-right’ report

Kilkenny has come bottom of the table in a new report that tracked people searching for information on far-right extremist groups online.

However, just up the road, neighbouring Carlow recorded one of the highest searches for far-right material.

The report by the Moonshot group, titled ‘White Nationalist and Far-Right search traffic in Ireland’ tracked extremist online searches in Ireland between September 2020 and February 2021.

It found Kilkenny and Monaghan recorded the fewest searches of extreme or far-right sites during this period.

Dublin had the highest proportion of people performing far-right searches, followed by Carlow and Longford. Those looking for extremist political material tended to be male and aged between 25 and 44.

Moonshot works with people at risk of violent extremism on both sides of the extreme political spectrum and offers them an alternative approach.

A Moonshot spokesperson explains: “We tracked searches for propaganda, extremist music, attempts to join or contact extremist groups and common extremist conspiracy theories.

“Although smaller in number than their US or UK counterparts, this analysis reveals that the Irish far-right extremist audience is actively searching for highly niche extremist material, which may be the result of a small but dedicated far-right scene in Ireland.”

PHOTO: Far-right supporters clash with gardai at a recent protest in Dublin