Masked, armed men filmed in front of an Irish tricolour and calling themselves the “New Republican Movement” have openly declared elected councillors and MLAs to be “legitimate targets,” a chilling escalation that speaks to how far public fury has been allowed to metastasize. This wasn’t some offhand rant on a fringe forum — the footage was shared widely and has prompted a formal criminal inquiry, because threats against democracy can’t be papered over as mere rhetoric. The raw danger is real, and it didn’t arise in a vacuum.
Police in the Newry, Mourne and Down area have warned councillors and stepped up patrols after the video, confirming officers are treating the footage seriously while urging elected representatives to take security advice. Local leaders across the political spectrum condemned the intimidation — which included claims the group “have your addresses” and “know your movements” — underscoring that this is not protest but targeted menace. Citizens deserve to know their representatives can work without fear of violent retribution for democratic decisions.
This threat rings painfully familiar to what exploded onto Ireland’s streets in October when thousands gathered outside the Citywest hotel after a horrifying alleged assault near the facility; disorder turned violent and Garda had to deploy public order units and heavy measures to restore safety. Ordinary people in Saggart and other communities watched as the state’s immigration choices and slow bureaucracy left dangerous questions unanswered while politicians offered platitudes. When public safety is perceived to be sacrificed for policy theater, anger turns corrosive — sometimes into the dangerous things we’re now seeing on video.
Back in June the situation boiled over in Ballymena after two Romanian teenagers were charged over an alleged attack, touching off days of rioting, arson and assaults on police that shocked a country that thought it had left mob politics behind. The subsequent legal developments — including prosecutors later dropping charges after “significant evidential developments” — do nothing to erase the raw fear and loss of trust that mob action creates, nor the fact that communities feel abandoned by those in charge. This sequence — accusation, unrest, rushed outrage, then prosecutorial reversal — is exactly the chaos that reckless migration policies and opaque policing invite.
Meanwhile, political elites keep stoking division in other ways: councillors in Belfast voted to raise the Palestinian flag over City Hall, a move that unionists and others called inflammatory at a time of acute community tension. Symbolic gestures like this, pushed through narrow majorities, are interpreted by many citizens as insults rather than outreach, deepening the sense that elite priorities are out of step with everyday people’s need for order and respect. When authorities flirt with provocation while failing to secure streets and borders, they hand the microphone to anger.
Let’s be brutally honest: this mess is the predictable outcome of a ruling class that preferred virtue-signaling to border control, silence to accountability, and political correctness to common-sense public safety. The mainstream media that covered up uncomfortable facts and the politicians who outsourced sovereignty to technocrats have created a vacuum that radicals and agitators now rush to fill. Conservatives have warned for years that open borders and cultural engineering lead to volatile backlash; Ireland is the cautionary example being ignored at America’s peril.
Americans watching this should take the lesson seriously — defend the rule of law, demand last-resort immigration enforcement, and stop treating patriotic citizens who raise concerns as extremists. Our leaders must restore order, secure our communities, and reinstate the social compact between the governed and those who govern, because when the state abdicates responsibility the consequences are barbaric and immediate. If we love our country and our children, we act now to prevent America from following Ireland down this dangerous path.
