Victory!

A triumphant victory for the Irish Nation over the Irish State

I have to keep this short because I am overcome with emotion. News has reached me that the Hate Speech Bill has been officially abandoned by the 33rd Dail in order to spare themselves a caning in the election. What this means is that the Irish people have defeated the Bill. As an activist who put his heart and soul into defeating the Bill I feel a massive sense of personal achievement but it must be said that this is a victory for the Irish Nation, won by its people over their own State. This is a Nationalist victory over globalist anti-speech laws and therefore a victory for Nationalism internationally. Other Nations will view this victory here and follow suit, I am sure of it.

I want to record here my absolute admiration, respect and gratitude to all who stood against this bill. There are so many individual and collective acts of bravery and defiance it is hard to list them. The Gallows, the Hashtag wars, the protests going back years, it has all accumulated. The readers of this Substack will be familiar with some of my many initiatives against the bill and will be aware of how invested I was in defeating it. A special mention must made here to Free Speech Ireland, a group of conservatives who went against the grain, sacrificing career and political prospects within the Fine Gael dominated conservative eco-system and formed a lightning rod for official Ireland to strike back at the bill, while also bringing international Free Speech heavyweights such as Elon Musk and Michael Shellenberger into the fight on our side. Many online activists posted daily, raising awareness about the bill, but few hit the the numbers and the frequency of Mick O’Keefe. O’Keefe’s hashtag campaigns were trending, on command and for months at a time. The infamous Gallows incident outside the Dail will go down as perhaps the most important public display of Free Speech in the States history. The organisers of those and similar protests can consider themselves heroes.

Free Speech Ireland covering our banner drop in Kilkenny

I want to give special thanks to those who worked with me on the We The People project which organised protests, wrote viral articles and interest pieces, and gathered petitions, successfully getting a petition of 10,000 signatures in front of the Oireachtas committee, but not before being delivered in writing to the gates of the Áras an Uachtaráin by my then eight year old daughter. I proudly informed her tonight that she beat the government. This was a fight for the freedom of future generations and tonight her beaming eyes of pride gave me the sense that the kids will be alright.

Another entity that deserves massive credit is Gript media. Without Gript, the mainstream news pool would have been a homogenous soup of propaganda. Gript successfully navigated the culture war and turned themselves from an underdog into a powerhouse, covering stories objectively and actually challenging the status quo. McGuirk, Scallan, Gunning and co are deserving of our gratitude. This is their victory as much as it is ours.

Also, to those who gave their time and energy to fight this in any capacity, those whose efforts may not be immediately measurable but can now be felt through the end result, Maith thú!

As my contrary friend Luke O’Connor would say, “Are you tired of winning yet!?”

There is one little caveat…

McEntee still wants to introduce a version of the bill that boosts prison sentences for existing crimes with elements of hate. This means that your speech will still be used to incarcerate you meaning that this fight is still not over. This is a Battle of Berlin situation. Do not look away or relax. Keep the pressure on. For now, I will be celebrating by listening to my dear friend and fellow Free Speech activist, Stephen Sutton’s, Thought Crime.