Young Irelanders Spray-Paint Europa House In Halloween Protest Over Triple Lock

The European Union's representation office on Dublin's Molesworth Street was spray-painted with political slogans on Halloween night by the new republican group calling itself the Young Irelanders.

The graffiti, applied to the exterior of Europe House, read "SAVE THE TRIPLE LOCK" and "NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR". Europe House houses the European Commission and European Parliament representation offices in Ireland.

In a statement issued after the action, the group described the recent abolition of the Triple Lock as "underhanded" and "anti-democratic", claiming it "drags Irish people into EU and NATO/Zionist-aligned conflicts that benefit only the Epstein class". The group said the change represented "a turning point in Irish history", "a new low for the FFFG regime" and a "significant worsening of material conditions for the working class".

The statement went on to criticise EU “murderous” border policing and the bloc's position on Israel's genocide in Gaza, declaring that "our sovereignty does not belong to the state, to NATO, to the EU or to US multinationals".

The Triple Lock is the mechanism under which Irish Defence Forces participation in overseas missions required a UN mandate, government approval and a Dáil vote. Its removal has been the subject of sustained opposition from socialist and republican quarters, who argue it destroys Ireland's standing with the Global South and lays the groundwork for participation in EU and NATO military structures.

A Name Borrowed From 1848

The group's name is a deliberate reference to the Young Irelanders of the 1840s, the movement of Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy, John Blake Dillon and William Smith O'Brien, which broke from Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association and culminated in the failed rising of 1848.

That movement took shape during the broader "Springtime of the Peoples", the wave of revolutions that swept Europe in 1848 from Paris and Vienna to Berlin, Milan and Budapest. The contemporary group's recent activity has coincided with a Europe-wide wave of protest; strikes and demonstrations over the cost of living in France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Serbia and Albania, spreading to Germany in the past week, which commentators have described as a new "European Spring". General strikes are planned in multiple countries this week.

Previous Action At Doonbeg

The Halloween action is not the group's first. In September, members of the Young Irelanders defaced road signs near the Doonbeg golf course in Co Clare ahead of Donald Trump's visit to Ireland for the Irish Open. The signage carried messages including "Epstein Links", "Fuck NATO" and "Pedos Out, Fuck Trump".

In a statement at the time, the group said local Irish Republicans had "ensured there would be a warm welcome for genocidaire and paedophile in chief, Donald Trump", describing the course as "Epstein Links" and accusing Irish politicians of "debas[ing] themselves before a US Empire that treats Ireland as a resource for its genocide-funding tech companies and its arms deliveries to Israel". The statement also referenced vulture fund landlords, data centres and water restrictions.