Former KKK members, the founder of the antisemitic Goyim Defense League, and a QAnon promoter are all advising Irish far-right communities, which are increasingly looking to the US for inspiration. The claims could have been taken word-for-word from any one of numerous US far-right websites in recent months. “Reports are surfacing suggesting that [lawmakers] may have been involved in transporting large numbers of refugees and immigration applicants to polling stations to secure votes for individual candidates,” the author of the article claimed. This wasn’t a conspiracist asserting that Honduran migrants are being imported into the US to replace swing-state Republican voters, though; the claim came from a website called The Irish Channel. A new report published on Tuesday by researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue outlines how the website has used generative AI to create articles that have been “heavily influenced by similar election denial efforts in the US.” (…) In July, the Irish Times reported that Frank Silva, a prominent member of the Los Angeles branch of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1980s as well as the violent neo-Nazi group The Order, had joined at least five online calls with members of Ireland’s far-right community. During the calls, Silva reportedly offered advice to those taking part in anti-immigrant protests, including tips on how to make their content go viral and how to handle interactions with police.
via wired: The Influence of the US Far Right on Ireland Is Growing