Issue Ownership, Immigration, and the Far-Rightness of Two Irish Political Party Websites

Abstract Ireland has largely avoided the escalation of far-right populism seen across Europe. There has, however, been an upsurge in far-right politics and activism, underpinned by anti-immigration sentiment. Within this context, this paper aims to determine how two Irish political parties commonly identified by media outlets as far-right present their websites, which issues they seek to own and whether these issues align with far-right ideology. Qualitative thematic analysis was conducted on transcribed screen recordings of every textual and visual component of these websites during a period of routine politics sandwiched between the 2024 European and local elections and the general election. The key finding was that, while the two parties diverged on some issues, both sought to own immigration and exhibited high degrees of nationalism, which often veered into nativism. Immigration was the core issue for both parties and interwoven with other policy positions (Euroscepticism) and issues (housing, COVID-19, the economy).