Lads First: The Case for Youthful Leadership
Word count: 1,962 words
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Summary: Peter Ryan argues that real leadership must come from young Irish nationalists—not from the old guard or abroad.
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The Irish nationalist movement only needs to follow its heart. The beating heart of the current iteration of the Irish nationalist movement is the collection of intelligent, motivated, and realist youth. Let’s colloquially call them “the lads”. They engage with the historical literature of their forebears to ground them in an Irish nationalist continuum and reconcile it with modern analysis. They buck nihilism and hedonism with active contributions to an Irish nationalist zeitgeist whether through writing, events, or political operations. They don’t get distracted by peripheral crank ideas nor flights of faddish fancy but instead objectively interpret reality whether at the level of common sociability or elite complexity. Ireland’s nationalist movement needs only to follow their lead for success. The lads must come first.
However, the youthful energy has a tradeoff. The youth turn to the old to lead them. Understandably, the youth have insecurities about experience, knowledge, judgement, skill, and so forth. It is much more comforting to rely on the heuristic of age as an insurance policy. It’s not unreasonable and those with grey hairs have roles to play but this is being over-indexed. There is more knowledge, intelligence, talent, and perhaps most importantly tenacity in the youthful lads than the older generation. They only need to dispel the insecure anxiety from their minds to fully manifest their legitimate will.
The 1916 rebels were mostly composed of twenty and thirty somethings. Pádraic Pearse was just 36 when he led the Easter Rising and shortly thereafter died. The average age of the current Irish Dail is 48.5 years old. The status quo that many of the lads disagree with is in no small way derivative of the older generation’s flaws since they have an outsized impact in steering the country. Even representations of a status quo critical Irish nationalist movement appears to lean older. Watch any video from some of the past rallies and one cannot deny the disproportionate visibility of those over 40 years old. People with knee replacements don’t lead revolutions.
I don’t mean to criticize good natured people that happen to be at the farther end of life’s journey but in general the net effect of an older movement presents problems. As stated, most older people don’t possess the je ne sais quoi to overturn the established order. For all the polemical rhetoric, most would be content with marginal policy changes on single issues not grand sweeping state and ideological overhaul.
Second, the older generation didn’t mature in the era of the social media nor did they encounter the socio-economic challenges of today’s youth. This means their ability to decipher the chaos of online information is pathetically inadequate which often leads them into conspiratorial and bizarre beliefs that fuels much of their polemical rhetoric. Also, one who owns their house and lived through a less socio-economically challenging time, can never fully understand the legitimate rage of the youth leading them to challenge the established order. If elders already have their nest made, then their primary motivation can never rise above inconvenience which is very different than rage. This leads elders to dismiss concerns of the youth and point policy away from correcting their problems.
Finally, the older generations, ironically, have an undue confidence in contrast to the shy lads. They have no problem stepping in front of a camera or microphone and proclaiming themselves the modern-day reincarnation of Brian Boru. Many of these people have never educated themselves in the literature of historic Irish nationalists nor taken a comprehensive examination of today’s problems. Some of them are simply dimwits whose brains get hijacked by dopamine inducing social media feedback loops that reward their egos for every instance of narcistic peddling of their slop. This only compounds the problems of their bizarre beliefs (distorted by social media), shallow understanding of deep statecraft, and lack of education on history and modernity.
The overshadowing of the lads by these confused elders will only sink this era’s instantiation of authentic Irish nationalism. Putting the lads second snuffs out revolutionary embers that are capable of becoming a roaring fire. Whether by elder narcissism or youthful insecurity, the lads’ arrested development will push many of them to depoliticization and emigration. Why engage if you have no effect? Why be a part of a clown show? If left unchallenged, the confused elders will passionately ferment a political ghetto that will never win over few percent of voters while the establishment continues Ireland’s negative trajectory.
Age is not the only dichotomy. The lads seek out foreign sources of ideas, methods, and influence. It’s a similar motivation to seeking those with age. Reliance on native sources, such as themselves alone, is anxiety inducing. It’s another insurance policy that foreigners by virtue of not being mired in native Irish disfunction can provide better leadership. In this sense, the lads see the franchise model as safe strategy. In this sense, the Irishness in Irish nationalism is merely aesthetic advertising to a particular market demographic for a commoditized political product managed elsewhere. The lads may gain a superficial leadership status over the franchise, but such leadership will be purely nominal. Effort, risk, and creativity are components of true leadership. By franchising, the lads deliberately avoid effort, risk, and creativity to instead be inert conduits for a foreigner’s leadership.
Such foreign leaders maybe those within the halls of the European Union. Some lads even develop a fetish for the Hungarian nationalist scene. But America stands out as biggest and most enticing. All that glitters is not gold in America. The temptation for the lads to seek inspiration and collaboration in America would similarly snuff out revolutionary embers. America is an imperial superpower derivative of ideological strains originating in the British Empire. At its foundation, institutional America is hostile to the very being of Irish nationalism since Irish nationalism is foundationally hostile to the British Empire.
The practical consequences of this are found in the way American interests pollute the ideological development of an Irish nationalist zeitgeist. For example, one such American interest is cannibalizing Ireland’s resources for its data centers at the expense of Irish people just as the British Empire exploited Irish resources for its cattle industry at the expense of Irish people. An Irish nationalist movement needs to challenge any such circumstance that puts foreigners first and the native Irish people last. Irish resources need to be affordable, plentiful, and reliable for the Irish people. Yet, whether by passive epistemological pollution or active Faustian deal-making, subordination to America will lead the lads to the opposite conclusion.
That is but one practical example that is downstream from American interests but also the abstract zeitgeist of America. Irish nationalism’s ideas should not come from immoral or idiotic influencers (thinkers is too complementary a word for them). The production of ideas in America is a function of corrupt oligarchs funding think-tanks and media organizations that leverage select rhetoric to wrap American oligarchic interests inside of. Not only does following this present the flaw of absorbing subversive ideas but also that these ideas are designed for American contexts not Irish ones. Importing these ideas to Ireland is both subversive and irrelevant. Even historic American thinkers that can be afforded legitimacy are incongruent with the Irish context. For example, American thinkers spent the long 19th century schizophrenically spazzing out over a central bank and state-led industrial policy. In contrast, since at least the 17th century, Irish nationalists were unanimous and explicit in their endorsements for an Irish central bank and Irish state-led industrial policies. Even the importation of more legitimate historical American ideas deconstructs conclusions arrived at by Irish nationalists over hundreds of years ago. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Shapiro cannot be the fountains of which Irish nationalism flows out of but instead Arthur Griffith and Desmond Fennell.
My argument is not lad isolationism. The elders can be appreciated. Lessons can be learned from foreigners. But over-indexing them will destroy the hope of a successful Irish nationalist movement. My critique is most scathing for counterproductive elders and subversive foreign influences but, while provoking, most constructive for the lads themselves. They must confront obstacles in their path to leading Irish nationalism. If others won’t get out of the way, make them. At this point, there is no reason to be crippled by youthful insecurities. I have had the good fortune to directly interact and indirectly observe the lads. In doing so, I could come to no other conclusion than the lads of Ireland are some of the most impressive young people, not just in Ireland, but in the entire west. It is my unshakeable belief in the lads’ potential that drives me to provoke them. The price of admission to true successful leadership is effort, risk, and creativity. The lads must embrace this struggle and not shy away — youthful Pearse certainly didn’t. Ideas and actions must originate in the lads. The lads must be the center which radiates out. The core principle of the Irish nationalist movement should be: lads first.