Ezra Levant and Ben Scallan examine Ireland’s 2023 unrest, from a December stabbing at a Dublin school—where an Algerian-origin suspect injured three young children and a worker—to media censorship of Ashling Murphy’s murder case, where her boyfriend’s statement on welfare-linked immigration was labeled "hate speech." Scallan critiques the proposed hate speech bill, opposed by 73% in public consultations but pushed by Justice Minister Helen McIntyre, and highlights EU overreach, with 70% of Irish laws originating in Brussels. Comparing modern submission to historical resistance, they contrast figures like Conor McGregor’s boldness with leaders like Leo Varadkar, suggesting Ireland’s sovereignty—and free speech—are under siege by foreign-imposed narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
Today, a great conversation with Ben Scallin, an independent journalist in Ireland, who's covering the riots in that country and the stabbings and the, I don't know, the social unrest.
And of course, Conor McGregor.
It's a very interesting place these days.
And Ben Scallin's the guy to talk to us about it.
But first, let me invite you to go to RebelNewsPlus.com.
It's a website where you can sign up for the video version of this podcast.
I want to show you some of the craziness on the streets of Ireland.
Better to show it to you than just to tell you about it.
You can get that at rebelnewsplus.com, eight bucks a month.
Not a lot of dough for the ordinary Joe, but it sure does add up for us, I'll tell you, because that's how we pay half our payroll here.
So do it for the great content, but do it to keep Rebel News healthy.
That's RebelNewsPlus.com.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, what's going on in Ireland?
We talked to a leading citizen journalist.
It's December 15th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Ireland is a country of just over 5 million people, but in so many ways, it's going through the same battles as countries around the West.
Here in Canada, in Western Europe, in the United States, issues like mass immigration that is not assimilated, issues like globalist control as opposed to national sovereignty, and of course, political correctness and wokeness demonizing anyone who dares to think contrary to the official narrative.
I love Ireland for so many reasons, even though I've never had the pleasure of spending any time there.
And my window into the world of Ireland comes from a new independent journalism outfit.
We've interviewed several of their reporters before, including our guest today.
What a delight to be joined again by Ben Scallon, a reporter for gripped.ie.
And gripped is spelt in an archaic way, G-R-I-P-T.
It's in he gripped it.
That's an old-fashioned way of saying I love it.
And they have been on fire.
I shouldn't say on fire because there were some riotous fires recently.
Joining us now is Ben Scanlon, one of their correspondents.
Ben, great to see you again.
Ireland has been in a storm of controversy for so many reasons.
And I am so grateful that we have you to tell us the other side of the story as opposed to what I call the regime media, which in fact, one of the things we'll talk about is how the regime media refuses to cover things that, quote, aren't helpful to the narrative.
Great to see you, Ben.
Yeah, great to see you too.
It's great to be back.
Well, let's just talk a little bit about some of the most shocking news that ignited the place, both metaphorically and actually physically.
Media Silence On Ashling Murphy Case00:15:29
There were fire set.
There was a stabbing in Ireland that was so horrific, it pricked the conscience of the entire country and actually led to riots in response.
Tell me a little bit about the stabbing.
Who did the stabbing?
How was that treated by the media?
Who was stabbed?
And I don't mean to be grotesque or macabre, but it is very relevant to the reaction and then the media's counterreaction.
Tell us what happened about a month ago now.
Yeah, so we can't say definitively, as a matter of fact, who committed this terrible crime because nobody has been convicted yet.
You know, of course, there's a legal process there, and I wouldn't want to prejudice any kind of ongoing case.
But for those who aren't in the know, about, I'd say, a month ago now or so, there was a stabbing in broad daylight at a school in the center of Dublin City, which is the capital city of Ireland, where three young children, all aged six years or younger, were stabbed, including and one woman, an adult kind of child care worker who was with them at the time.
She was also stabbed.
I believe she's just out of hospital as of a few days ago.
And two of the children were, I mean, they were all badly injured.
There's no such thing as a non-serious stabbing, but two of them, I suppose, fared a bit better than the third one, who, to our knowledge, is still in hospital.
And the updates on that child's status have not really been forthcoming from authorities.
We don't really know what's going on there.
The alleged perpetrator, the person who is the person of interest for the police, is a man of Algerian origin.
He is also in hospital himself, having sustained injuries at the site.
People, you know, bystanders and people who are walking by jumped in there.
And it is claimed that whoever was perpetrating the attack, who again, some allege that it was this individual, that they were basically hospitalized.
And so he's been there since.
But yeah, as you can imagine, this is a really shocking crime.
And it's not the kind of thing that we've had in Ireland really ever.
I mean, of course, it's never going to be normal in any country for children to be stabbed.
That's not something that people would consider to be just a day at the office.
But I do think that there are some countries like America where tragically, you know, there have been school shootings, there have been these sorts of tragedies.
It's not unheard of.
Whereas here, we've never had anything like that.
So this was a kind of a new sort of atrocity that really shocked the nation to its core.
And it's something that we sort of feel the atmosphere on the ground is like we've crossed a threshold here when things like this start to happen.
Yeah.
And I think people were so appalled by it.
And I don't mean to make a comparison because it's, I don't think there's a link, but if it was an Algerian migrant who stabbed children, which is so contrary to every civilizational norm, my mind is drawn to the possibility that it may be in some way linked to what's going on in Israel, because we did see children attacked on October 7th.
Is there any indication whatsoever?
Have authorities or police or anyone tried to understand the motive of an Algerian migrant?
And I say again, as you point out, he's a suspect.
He is not yet being convicted beyond a reasonable doubt in court.
He's still in hospital, in fact.
Is there any indication whatsoever of a motive?
I mean, I suppose the reaction would be to say madness, but there was a deliberation here.
There was a plan, it sounds like.
Do we know why he did it?
Was he heard shouting something like Allah Akbar?
And again, I'm not suggesting it.
I'm just asking.
No, I mean, the police say that having looked into this after in the wake of it as they were doing their investigations, that they don't believe there's any particular religious or political motive.
They think that the suspect suffers with psychiatric issues and that that was probably the primary contributing factor here, that it's not necessarily ideological.
But I mean, that in and of itself, you know, assuming that there is truth to this and that it is as it appears, that in and of itself would raise issues.
And I think part of what is frustrating people is that this is the latest in a long string of very shocking crimes.
So just last year, we saw the murder of a young girl.
She was 23 years old, Ashling Murphy, who was just out for a run in her local area in a nice rural area, and she was stabbed repeatedly to death by a man who has now been convicted, who was a Slovakian national.
And of course, I want to make it absolutely clear as well.
Of course, people of all nationalities and all groups commit crimes.
Irish people commit crimes every day of the week.
You know, there's no one ideology or religion or ethnicity that has a monopoly on these sorts of things.
But I do think there's a conversation that is worth at least considering when you think about the fact that people are coming to our country who we know very little about.
You know, there's always going to be a baseline level of criminality, of violence.
That's a terrible thing, but it is unfortunately a part of life and living in the reality that there's going to be evil people who do evil things.
But I think there's a difference when you bring a guy from a country like Slovakia, like in the case I just mentioned, and he is born there and now he's here stabbing someone to death.
That was a preventable crime.
You know, maybe it's conceivable that if we knew more about this individual, we would have realized that he's bad news and he wouldn't have come here in the first place.
So people don't want to have that conversation.
They want to immediately deflect and say, oh, no, you're tiring everybody with a broad brush.
Of course, it's not about tire.
You know, most people who come from abroad, including my own mother, who's an immigrant from Jamaica, are perfectly normal, reasonable people who just want to live their life like anybody else.
But it is naive and incorrect to act like everybody who comes to our country is going to be benevolent and well-meaning.
And we should be able to point that out and have a conversation about that without being accused of being this kind of iss or phobe or whatever else.
And especially as we move into the era of mass migration in Canada, for example, there are no longer desk interviews.
You no longer go and meet in person to apply to immigrate.
It's all done over the computer.
Like there's physically not, no one lays eyes on you.
No one has a personal conversation.
No one tests your reaction to things.
There's no human element.
It's just, you know, in Canada, we're now at 4,000 migrants a day every day of the week, 365 days a year.
There's no way to vet that many people.
And I agree with you that a lot of them are, you know, maybe just seeking a better economic opportunity.
But especially if you're bringing people from either a war-torn place where they might have PTSD for all we know, or a place where there are ideologies that are extreme, we don't know.
But what we do know is how the government authorities and how the regime media try to stifle conversations about these things.
You mentioned the case of the 23-year-old woman, Ashling Murphy.
And in Ireland, it sounds like you have something we have here in Canada also, which is at sentencing a victim impact statement where someone is allowed to say to the court, here's how this hurt me.
I would like you, judge, to take this into consideration in the sentencing.
At least that's how it works here in Canada.
I understand that the murdered woman's boyfriend made some remarks, but because he referenced the issue that you and I are talking about, the immigration and who this person was, his victim impact statement was silenced and covered up.
And I think we have a clip of some of Ireland's most official journalists saying, well, it's not helpful what this victim said.
So we would rather silence the voice of the grieving boyfriend whose girlfriend was murdered because what he said wasn't helpful.
Helpful to whom?
Are you in the news business?
Are you running some errands here?
Here, we'll play a clip of What I know you've tongue-in-cheek called Ireland's top journalists because they're sort of anti-journalists here.
They're un-reporting the case.
Let's take a look.
Kitty, I wonder: do you think the politicians and media ignore what others around the country said was the most significant part of Ryan Casey's victim impact statement?
Ryan Casey, of course, was the boyfriend of the murdered teacher, Ashling Murphy.
He prefaced his victim impact statement by saying his girlfriend's murderer had lived off the state without contributing to it for 10 years.
And then he said, I feel like this country is no longer the country that Ashling and I grew up in and has officially lost its innocence when a crime of this magnitude could be perpetrated in broad daylight.
We have to, once and for all, he said, start putting the safety of not only Irish people, but everybody in this country who works hard, pays taxes, raises families, and overall contributes to society first.
Those were very interesting comments, weren't they?
Yeah, I mean, I think elements of them were not good, frankly.
I think they were incitement to hatred, and I think that's why aspects of the media left out aspects of them.
This was an extremely heartbroken and devastated young man who has lost the partner of his life.
But the race and nationality of the man who perpetrated that awful violence on Ashling and murdered her is irrelevant.
And I can understand, you know, in the emotion and him feeling that, and he's entitled to his views.
But I think the media has a responsibility to not report views that are incitement to hatred.
And he is being held up as a hero of the far right now.
So interesting, you may call them, but I don't know.
Complex, I suppose, is another word that you could use for them.
I mean, I'm sure he would say they weren't meant to be incitement to hatred.
Was it the right thing for the media to overlook them in those circumstances?
I mean, was it an embarrassed overlooking of those comments, do you think?
I don't think so.
I think they were right to not include them.
They were said they were, I don't think that they were helpful.
And it's the kind of thing that, you know, the far right latches on to, that they latched on to the nationality of the man who attacked the children.
And, you know, I'd love them to go down to the courts and report on all the white Irish men who are perpetrating violence on Irish and immigrant women every day in the courts.
They're not doing that.
So the nationality, what the problem here is violence against women and children.
It's not the nationality of the people who are perpetrating it.
The problem is misogyny and hatred and entitlement to inflict silence on women and children.
It's another related issue and ill in society, but it has nothing to do with race.
I tell you, that's the most astonishing series of statements I ever heard.
Ben, I was just jotting down notes.
So she's telling the surviving victim, the, I don't know if you would call it a widower if they weren't yet married.
She's telling him how to properly grieve.
She's telling him what to feel and what to think.
He's doing it wrong, she says.
It's not good, what he says, and it's incitement to hatred.
So that sounds like she's criminalizing his statement of grief.
She repeatedly says he refers to race.
I didn't hear a word about race in there.
I don't think Slovakian or immigrant are racist.
She called his comments irrelevant.
Again, he should have consulted with her before having his feelings.
She repeatedly said, far right.
I guess if your girlfriend is murdered and you object to it, that's far right.
She said the journalists actually had a responsibility to not report.
Like I said, anti-journalism or unjournalism.
But she is against making race an issue, which the grieving widower didn't do.
But she'll come up with her hated group, misogyny.
So basically, this is just men, and the men are the ones we should probably be hating.
I have seldom seen so many woke ideas jammed into a three-minute statement as that, Ben.
But I can see if that's what your regime media is like.
why gripped.ie.
And by the way, I'm a subscriber.
I love it.
I can see if that's what the regime media is talking about, why gripped is just growing by leaps and bounds.
Thank you for letting me react to that.
Give me your thoughts on what we just saw.
Who was that lady, by the way?
That was on, it looked like it was on BBC Ireland.
And who was that lady who was making those comments?
Yes, the show was on BBC Northern Ireland, but the woman who was on, who they were interviewing, was Kitty Holland, who is the social affairs correspondent for the Irish Times, which is kind of Ireland's paper of record.
It's very prestigious.
It's a couple of hundred years old as a publication.
So it's kind of viewed as almost the gold standard of media here.
And what I found so remarkable about Miss Holland's comments there was that while many people found it shocking, that video went extremely viral.
It accrued millions of views when we posted the clip.
The fact of the matter is, she's only saying out loud what most journalists in Ireland privately think, but they might just have a little bit more sense to not say it in public.
You know, the fact that she would say, oh, no, I think actually journalists have a responsibility to suppress information like this.
That is in effect what the entire media ecosystem in Ireland did.
Almost nobody actually reported.
He gave a long statement, Ryan Casey, the boyfriend, and he touched on a lot of issues.
And he very briefly mentioned the immigration issue.
And as you say, he didn't mention anything about race.
He didn't say anything offensive or unreasonable.
He basically just asked the question, how is it that somebody can come to Ireland, not work, not contribute to society, be on welfare for their entire duration of staying here and end up allowed to stay, being given permission by the state, despite the fact that they contribute nothing of value and then ultimately go on to murder an innocent young girl who was just trying to live her life.
So he asked what is an incredibly reasonable question, which was a question that was on the minds of most people in this country in the aftermath of this appalling crime.
And yet Miss Holland has now admitted on behalf of her media colleagues who evidently agree with her, because you can see from the way they behaved, that the media views it as its job, essentially, to suppress this kind of information because it's hateful and far-right and unhelpful, essentially, which kind of tells you all you need to know about why certain things are the way they are and why media is in the state that it's in here in this country.
Media Suppression Debate00:15:05
Yeah, that unhelpful thing.
It's sort of a wink-wink that we're all here to help, to help whom?
I mean, to help people seek the truth about the world.
I mean, that's what media is.
You're between, you are the conduit from the world to people.
That's what journalism should be.
But to them, not being helpful is helpful to power, helpful to the regime, to the authorities, to the official narrative, to globalism.
We all know that mass migration is the right thing, and this is unhelpful to that campaign.
Just incredible.
Now, they use the word far-right again and again.
And I have no idea what that means, other than it is a term of hatred.
We were talking to Dr. James Lindsay the other day, who said Mao, Chairman Mao in China, used that same phraseology just basically to label swaths of people who were bad.
Like it was just, it was really just an insult.
It didn't have a particular meaning.
It was just a label.
The Irish Justice Minister talks about far right, far right all the time as well.
But we've got a clip and you guys, again, one of my favorite things about GRIPT is you're not just commenting on the news that other people get.
You go and get the news and you have access actually to the Irish cabinet.
You go to these press conferences, you ask the questions, and they actually answer you.
They don't either, I mean, that's one thing that sort of surprises me about Irish politicians is they sometimes actually answer questions.
I know they obfuscate a lot, but sometimes they give an answer.
And the most impressive thing is they let you in.
You know, they haven't yet reached into their inner bully and kicked you out.
So some of these clips are you putting questions directly to the cabinet ministers.
I know you've done some great work on censorship laws, but I just want to show a clip of the Justice Minister who's the main driving force behind the upcoming hate speech bill, which is really the most strenuous hate speech bill outside of North Korea.
It's shocking.
And here's the acknowledgement that just like Chairman Mao, far-right just sort of means people we don't like.
Let's take a look at this clip.
Could you give me a definition of what you consider is the far right in terms of a definition of the far right?
I mean, it's obviously a political ideology or it's a particular view that a person has.
I'm not sure there is a definition.
It's not.
So it's a little bit like hate.
Well, yeah, it's not.
So I think we need to define.
If you interrupt the minister, you're going to run out of time.
So does that arrange the question?
Thank you.
I think what we see from a lot of people who would claim to be far right, which is not a crime for somebody to have a particular ideology, it's where they act on maybe certain matters.
But we have seen people to be anti-government, anti-state, anti-immigration, anti-women's rights, amongst other things.
That would be my own particular view of those who would claim to be far right.
So that was in a committee.
That was not a question put to her by your journalist, but I know you've engaged with Helen Mackinsey before because she is, she really does seek to implement the world's most onerous censorship regime.
And she says being far-right is not a crime, but she seeks to essentially criminalize far-right content.
Now, I'd like you to describe, I've read the bill and I've done a show on it, but listen, I'm over here in Canada.
You're in the heart of Ireland yourself.
My understanding is that this would criminalize even what you have, say, on your phone.
If someone sends you a meme or an email or an image, even if you just have it in your possession, you haven't deployed it yet.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, because maybe I'm confusing it with other hate crime bills, like ones we've got coming in Canada.
Tell me the worst or tell me the truth, really, about Ireland's proposed hate speech bill.
Go ahead.
So you're right about that.
The fact that you don't even have to disseminate the alleged hate material if it's just simply found in your possession.
So say, as you say, something on your phone, something on your laptop, maybe the police, for some reason, they're in your house and they find out that you have an objectionable pamphlet or leaflet.
There doesn't have to be any evidence or proof that you have distributed this to another person.
If it's deemed to be hateful, you can be jailed merely for possessing it.
And in fact, it is the burden of responsibility or the burden of proof, should I say, is on you to prove your innocence.
It's been reversed where you need to try and somehow prove I did not intend to disseminate this so-called hate material.
And I mean, you know as well as I do that that's almost a logical impossibility.
You can't prove a negative.
How do you prove you didn't intend to do something?
You know, it's not really something that is going to be easy to explain in court.
But even more fundamentally than that, that's one element of the bill that's problematic.
It doesn't even define the word hate.
It's a hate speech bill.
But when you read the text of the legislation, it says that hatred means hatred on the basis of XYZ characteristics, which is a circular definition.
So hatred effectively means whatever somebody wants it to mean when they're trying to prosecute you.
And it even has moral logical absurdities like one of the protected characteristics is genders other than that of male or female.
That's what it says in the text.
But when I asked our Taoiseach, which is effectively our prime minister, I asked him how many genders are there according to the government based on this legislation.
Because actually our leader of the Shannon last year, she's like our Senate majority leader, I guess you would call it in North America.
She said that there were about nine genders.
So about nine.
Generations ago, there were two genders.
You know, there were two sexes.
There still are two sexes.
But today, I think we probably have about nine genders.
And that doesn't diminish any other gender within the gender identity set.
They discovered 53, I should tell you.
So they're discovering more every day in the lab.
You know, scientists are actively searching.
We have that quite, I didn't know that was you who put the question to Leo Varadkar.
Am I pronouncing that right?
He's, I'm not going to try the Irish name for it's basically prime minister.
How do you say that word in Irish?
Taoiseach.
Taoiseach.
Okay, that's there's there's wonderful, beautiful Irish terms that I just don't, I just never hear them spoken here.
I read them, but I don't know how to say them.
Taoiseach, that's great.
So here's Leo Varadkar, who's, if I'm not mistaken, he's a World Economic Forum young leader, just like Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern were and Mark Ruta.
And that was you who asked him how many genders there are.
I didn't know that.
Let's take a quick look at that.
That's just great.
Tao Shock.
The hate speech bill makes gender a protected characteristic, but Michael McDowell and others have noted that the Gender Recognition Act only recognizes two genders, while the hate speech bill explicitly refers to more genders than just male or female.
Your Shannon leader, Senator Regina Doherty, previously said that there are about nine genders.
Generations ago, there were two genders.
You know, there were two sexes.
There still are two sexes, but today I think we probably have about nine genders.
And that doesn't diminish any other gender within the gender identity set.
So how many genders are there?
And, you know, can we get the government's official position on that?
Oh, look, there isn't.
There isn't an official position on that, but I'm sure that will all be debated in the course of the debates in the Shanaton.
You know what?
I love the fact, Ben, that you're able to get within question asking range of these political leaders.
You've scrummed Helen McIntyre before.
She is trying to, she was trying to say that most Irish people like this censorship bill.
And I got to tell you, like I said, I've never been to Ireland, but I want to remedy that quickly.
I've just passed through the airport once.
When I think of Ireland, I think of scrappy, proud, stubborn people who tell it like it is, who aren't afraid to swear, whose poetry even is rebellious.
I think of prickly pears like Sinead O'Connor, even, you know, someone who's just such a handful.
When I think of Ireland, I do not think of docile, passive, obedient people.
I mean, maybe I'm just stereotyping here, but the idea that most Irish people would put up their hand and say, please, can you censor me?
I just don't see it.
I mean, there's a ton of Irish people in North America, obviously.
There's more Irish expats than there are Irish.
And there's a phrase, the fighting Irish.
And it's a compliment.
You know, the idea that the Irish people, you know, I even think of Morrissey's song, Irish Heart, English Blood, this I'm Made of, and there's No One Orth I'm Afraid of.
You know, the land of Carner McGregor, that they're signing up to be censored.
I don't buy it.
And you put it to your team at Gript.
You know, I'll let the video do the talking because they claimed the Irish wanted it, but you guys actually counted and it was a lie.
Take a look at this.
Yesterday, you indicated that the only people who oppose your government's hate speech laws are, quote, fringe commentators.
But of the thousands of replies to your own government's public consultations, 73% were negative.
And according to the last poll done on the subject, 65% of people oppose such laws.
So is it not, in fact, your government that's endorsing the fringe position here?
What I think is very clear, and this is coming from the significant amount of public consultation that we've had in the last four years, consultation that started back in 2018, is that there is a very clear group of minority people in this country who are simply targeted and who are being either victimized or harassed, assaulted, who are victims of hate speech and hate crime simply because of who they are.
So that is very clear.
That is based on fact and that is also based on reports that we have.
Minister with requests.
That's not what I asked.
But I'm sorry, that's not what I asked.
And also, I've gone through every single one of the consultation responses.
There were about 3,600 of them.
And that's really not what they said.
The vast majority of people said they don't want this.
So where are you getting the idea that there's public outcry for this other than government-paid NGOs?
So that's incorrect to say that the vast majority of people don't want this.
I think even if you were to listen to the debate last night in the Shannon and certainly the debate in the Dole, the vast majority of people do want this.
But those are politicians.
We're talking about the general public.
Where's the public at?
I can either answer the question or not.
But I mean, what I'm basing this on is very clear factual evidence.
If you speak to Angarda Shiokana, there has been a 29% increase in hate crimes across this country.
So while we don't have hate crime legislation.
Recorded hate crimes.
So they're trying to claim that the Irish want to be censored.
They do that in Canada too.
No human being wants to be censored.
The only people who are calling for this are the people who would be the censors or the people who are plotting on how to use this against too much free speech.
GRIPT would be a target under this.
Absolutely it would.
So I'm glad you were there to hold them to account.
One of the things about Ireland, maybe it's because it's a smallish place.
I mean, it's smaller in population than the Greater Toronto area.
But it's a beautiful countryside from what I can see.
And I think that it's the kind of place that could be ganged up on, you know?
And there's an interesting clip of an Irish government representative in the European Parliament, because Ireland's still part.
Ireland did not Brexit along with the UK.
And there was an admission that 70% of Irish legislation is essentially transposed from Brussels, from the European Union making rules, and then it's just downloaded into Ireland, essentially replacing the sovereign authority of the Irish people and their elected delegates with Brussels, where most of the politicians are foreigners.
Here, let's take a look at that interesting comment by a member of the European Parliament, Sean Kelly.
Take a look.
And I have a lot of experience now, doing a lot of good work.
Many people don't realize that 70% of legislation comes from Europe and that in the dollar there are no transposing public decides.
And I think I can probably contribute better to Kerry and to Ireland by continuing, hopefully, where I am.
He says the quiet part out loud.
70% of what we do is just, I think he used the word transpose.
He used the word transpose.
And I don't think that Irish people again signed up for this.
But I think between Leo Varadkar and the EU, Ireland is being turned into a laboratory for schemes that I know no Irish person would sign up for.
You know, I've already talked about the mass immigration and here comes the censorship.
And I think that I look at Leo Varadkar and he's even got the same vibe as Trudeau and Ardern and Holland's Mark Ruta.
And even Gavin Newsom has that sort of air of superiority.
I'm sorry I have to be in this grubby little place, Ireland.
I'm actually much bigger than that, just like Jacinda Ardern is much bigger than New Zealand or Mark Ruto is much bigger than Holland.
And they're just so lucky to have him.
And I'm here to, like Moses, to come down from Mount Sinai.
I'm going to tell you how it is.
And if you think that a few kids being stabbed on the street is, well, that's a price we're willing to pay to be with it with the cool kids.
I just think that they're doing creepy things to Ireland, like they did to Holland, like they did to New Zealand, like Trudeau's doing to Canada.
And I think that it's a loss of national sovereignty.
And they're trying to shut up anyone who's upset about it by calling them far right and censoring them.
That's how I feel about Ireland.
Maybe I'm just seeing my own reflection back to me.
These are the things I'm worried about in Canada, but that's what Ireland looks like to me.
Well, the 70% figure that that politician gave was really something that we've all suspected.
You know, it's a thing that people, particularly people on the more conservative or right-wing side of the spectrum here in Ireland, would have said for years, oh, we're losing our sovereignty to Brussels.
Ireland's Sovereignty Struggle00:03:53
And, you know, that's particularly egregious when you consider how long and how hard we fought for independence from a foreign superpower, namely Britain.
You know, we literally fought for about 800 years to achieve our independence.
Every single generation of Irish people had to rise up in rebellion and we were always crushed and always lost until one day we stopped losing and we finally won just in the last century.
And then within a few short decades, that win has now seemingly been subverted to the point where this new foreign government, namely the European Parliament, is basically dictating 70% of our legislation, according to this government politician.
And so, I mean, when you actually listen to that clip, what he's saying is his political party, which is in power, were asking him, would he run in the domestic elections or elections for the DAW, which is like our lower house?
And effectively, what he's saying is, well, why would I do that when all the important decisions are happening over there on the continent?
Sure, nothing happens here.
We're basically just county councils shuffling papers.
And I mean, even Britain, when we were controlled by Britain during our colonial days, they offered us a thing called home rule, which was effectively where they said, look, we'll give you a small amount of autonomy.
This was something that was discussed for many years and people were campaigning for it and it went back and forth.
But the idea was to give us a small bit of local autonomy where you can cover the kind of unimportant things that don't really matter, but that ultimately London would pull the strings and they would have the final say on things that are really important, like taxation and what have you not got, conscription for wars and yada yada.
Whereas, you know, that was considered to be an unacceptable situation for the majority of Irish people.
They said, no, we want full and true independence in the truest sense of the word.
We want to be free.
We want to be, as our early founding documents say, we want to take our place among the nations.
That was the phraseology used.
And now here we are in a situation where we're effectively back to home rule.
We have a county council government that makes the boring day-to-day logistical bureaucratic decisions while everything remotely important happens on the continent.
And one last thought I'll say before I kick it back over to you.
We used to have an expression, which was, we serve neither king nor Kaiser, but Ireland, which is, you know, self-explanatory.
We're not going to go with Britain.
We're not going to go with Germany or any other European power.
We're going to stand up for ourselves.
I think that could be amended today to be we serve neither king nor commissioner, you know, because that's effectively what we have traded our British vassal state position in for is just now a load of uh Germans and Frenchmen are running the show.
Yeah, I just, it's, it seems unnatural.
It seems contrary to the Irish spirit.
You just talked about 800 years of rebellion.
And that should apply to other things.
And free speech, most of all, like I think Ireland, because of the sorrow and the pain and the famine and tremendous, you know, that generates ideas, it generates poetry and art.
It generates music.
I think there's, I mentioned Sinead O'Connor, may she rest in peace.
But, you know, whether you two or the Cranberries, I mean, that's a lot of pain and emotion and poetry coming from a small place.
On the poetry side, James Joyce, one of my favorite poems, poets is W.B. Yates in his incredible poem, The Second Coming, a phrase I think of all the time.
Ben, I don't know if you think about this, but in that poem, The Second Coming, he says, the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
McGregor's Political Stance00:04:21
I think of that all the time.
And I think, where are the best people?
Where are the good guys?
They lack all conviction.
And oh my God, look at the streets full of those who are full of passionate intensity.
And so I think of this land that I have not yet visited, but I hope to remedy that.
And I think, where are the best?
And I think the world's most famous Irishman right now, I mentioned you too, the band, and I guess Joe Biden considers himself Irish, although he's American.
He's definitely American.
He's the president of America.
I think perhaps the world's best known Irishman is a fighter, a tattooed, swaggering fighter named Connor McGregor, who is famous in America, where there are more Irishmen than in Ireland.
But I think he's sort of a national hero.
This is how he looks to me from the outside, Ben.
You correct me if I'm wrong, because he embodies the Irish spirit, that fighting Irish phrase I mentioned.
He's got the stubbornness.
He's got the audacity.
He's over the top, which is so different from the Leo Varadkars of the world.
And the reason I mentioned Conor McGregor is because in the last month, I have seen more politics out of him than I think in his life combined.
And I think it started with the stabbing in the streets of the children.
And I see that he's retweeting tweets by Gript.
Little independent Gript is on the radar screen of Conor McGregor.
And Connor McGregor is talking about running for public office.
And we've set up a fun little website, draftconner.com, just because, I mean, just for sheer entertainment value, having that, you know, this master entertainer who knows how to rivet a crowd.
I mean, of course, the whole world would love that, but from an ideological point of view, I think he would cut through that world economic globalist, open borders, soft on crime, woke, don't report a victim statement if it's unhelpful.
He would cut through all of that and he would tower over these midgets that rule the country.
What do you think of Conor McGregor?
Is he serious?
Does he have the character to be the leader of Ireland?
And is it actually going to happen?
Is he going to be sort of the Trump of Ireland?
Well, I tell you what, it's interesting you compare him to Trump there because one of the impacts that Trump had, whether you love him or hate him, is the fact that he was almost like a wrecking ball.
You know, a lot of people have compared Trump to Marmite, where you either absolutely love him or absolutely hate him.
And he's extremely polarizing, but that he, when you live in a very politically correct, stifled society where certain topics are off the table for discussion, somebody like Trump just comes through and like a bull in a China shop just starts blowing open all of these conversations that were left un undiscussed and unmentioned for years.
And so that had a positive influence.
I could potentially see Conor McGregor with his very uncouth, unpolished style having a similar impact on certain conversations because he's got the megaphone, he's got the voice, and he doesn't give a rat's ass about anything or anyone.
So the idea that he would bite his tongue or hold back on an opinion he had about some kind of contentious issue is not exactly something that you would believe if you had seen how this guy operates.
So I think from that perspective, if he did decide to run for a political office, seriously, it could have a very interesting effect and an entertaining effect, certainly, on the way certain conversations go.
You know, I think maybe sometimes it takes a person like that to get the ball rolling.
Yeah.
Well, I tell you one thing, I don't think he would be bound by any hate speech law.
I just don't think anyone tells Conor McGregor what to say.
You know, I'll close.
I've been talking about so many artists.
I think Morrissey is half Irish, if I'm not mistaken.
And in that song, he says, and I will die with both of my hands untied.
To me, that's the Irish spirit.
And it sounds like too many Irish say, here are my hands, tie them.
Thanks To Our Viewers00:02:17
I love Gript.
I'm a subscriber.
I encourage my viewers who care about Ireland, who have a connection to Ireland, or who see Ireland as a microcosm of our own challenges to go to Gript, G-R-I-P-T dot IE.
I think you'll love them.
I think that they're a high-quality news source.
They've got that rebellious spirit, but they're also polite company.
They're allowed into the scrums with cabinet ministers.
I find that amazing and I'm sort of jealous, frankly.
And you can become, I mean, most of their stuff is free, but you can become a premium subscriber like I am.
And you can choose your level.
And I just think, even though I really don't have any connection to Ireland, I have an affection for their people and what they're going through.
And Ben, you're very generous to spend so much time with us.
Please pass on our highest regards to your colleagues.
And why don't I leave you with the final thought on being an independent journalist?
We've talked a lot about a lot of subjects.
What's the future for Gript?
How's 2024 looking for you?
Well, 2023 has been spectacular.
We've got a few interviews in the works that we've lined up, and it's really just a matter of getting them nailed down logistically.
some very high profile names which if we can uh get get that to pan out it'll be very exciting and uh we anticipate 2024 being exponentially bigger than the bonanza year we've already had so thank you so much for your kind words and hugely appreciate uh uh the the opportunity to speak to you we always have great conversations and uh absolutely it's it's great to hear how things are going on uh on your side of the pond as well Well, thank you, my friend.
And you've been generous with your time.
And I know the time zones is already late over there.
So thanks for fitting us in.
And hopefully we'll have a chance to meet in person in the Emerald Isle.
And until then, thanks.
And I tell you, you're proving citizen journalism crowdfunded from viewers.
You have a subscription model more than a crowdfunding one, but it's citizen funded.
That's why you can trust Gripped, because they are not part of the regime.
They answer to their own conscience and to their viewers.
Keep it up, my friend.
Take care.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much.
All right.
There you have it.
Ben Scallon, one of the talented team at gripped.ie.