www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/jan/13/thefarright.observerpolitics
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Ireland
^^ Two parties that have sought to fly the flag of racism, opposition to immigration, and a return to the cozy certainties of the past, with a little help from UKIP.
The comment that many Irish people who have lived in Britain developed similarly right wing views to those of many in the British working classes is spot on in my observation. These would be older voters, many of whom have lived in little Irish cultural bubbles, and who have not gone through the transformative experience of living in Ireland since the 60s or 70s. The Ireland they left has changed beyond recognition but it is very real for them. It may be that clinging to the memory of what they had is a psychological defence against an overwhelming sense of loss - the loss of their families, neighbourhoods, culture and secure sense of identity through emigration, separating their Irish self from the face they use for work and socialising, clinging to a small patch they have managed to stake out for themselves in Britain and cherishing a sense of Ireland as the forever green, Catholic, land of saints and scholars, in contrast to the dreary grey urban landscapes in which they lived their lives. If Ireland is changed into a place resembling Brighton or Essex or Slough, or Sweden or the Netherlands, that diminishes their identity as individuals.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hook Rape apologist and proud Blueshirt.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshirts
Blueshirts = Irish fascist party/organisation 1930s, one of the elements that coalesced into Fine Gael.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81ine_N%C3%AD_Chonaill
I would not dismiss outright the possibility of a nativist movement in Ireland, even though at the moment the overwhelming zeitgeist there is internationalist and progressive.
There is an old authoritarian element in Ireland that rears its head from time to time. Of course Ireland had its own fascists in the 1930s, the Blueshirts, arising partly from the Free State national Army who had fought the Republicans in the Civil War.
Then you have the likes of George Hook with his Christian Brothers and rugby background - very typical Irish middle class, middle aged male - who is interesting in that he is so pro-priest at a time when the RC church as an institution has come under such fire for decades of abuse and cover ups. He appeals to many Irish people of a certain age, men because of the machismo of rugby and women because they grew up in a very authoritarian era and are well trained handmaids. Aine ni Chonaill is an example of a woman who swallowed the Kool-aid of her youth and the education system she eventually became a part of in no uncertain fashion - another authoritarian, with a very conservative RC philosophy accompanied by naked racism, quite a mish mash. Interesting that she seems to have been a supporter of the Progressive Democrats, who were an authoritarian and fiscal rectitude splinter from Fianna Fail, considered by many in the more left wing and Republican grouping in FF to be worse than the Blueshirts because they were traitors.
Overall, Ireland has a lot of pride in having shaken off the authoritarianism of the past, and perhaps this will be a defence against creeping fascism.
The danger renewed sectarian violence in NI poses is that authoritarianism can be unleashed again, though this particular area of state power has been an exception to the overall reduction in authoritarianism in recent decades.
The willingness to use the power of the State against Republican paramilitaries has been a feature of policy in Ireland since Fianna Fail was founded and became the one true church of Republicanism, with heretics not tolerated. Likewise, or some would say maybe even moreso, Fine Gael has been happy to preside over censorship, restriction of legal rights (special courts, etc) and draconian imprisonment for paramilitary activity.