Nathan Hutchinson is an Irish socialist and environmental activist. He is a co-founder of the Student Neutrality Front and has recently completed his MA in Geography: Spatial Justice at Maynooth University.

Trigger Warning: The section “Sexism in Irish Society” discusses gender-based violence in detail, references elsewhere are made to racially motivated attacks.

In recent months we have seen a flare-up of racist rhetoric and marches in Ireland. This reached a peak with riots in Citywest outside an IPAS centre, and the attempted arson of a building containing small children in Drogheda.¹ A campaign to spoil the vote, while not the main result of the Presidential election, did mobilise a large number of disaffected right-wing voters. The rise in racist rhetoric was alarming. 

Yet some are calling for a retreat from so-called “identity politics”. In this article I will explain why I believe this approach to require caution, the class-first politics endorsed by some can slide easily into a class-only approach, taken by recently former TCDSU President László Molnárfi. Through dissecting his writings, I intend to highlight the inherent flaws to such an approach, and the need to “stay woke” in the face of calls to ignore “culture war” issues.

The masses! The masses!

In February, Molnárfi published an article “Communists Should Learn to Stop Being Annoying” on how the left needs to stop playing purity and identity politics. We should not focus on issues such as reparations, or talk about “masculine privilege”, or call people out for such minor sins as popping onto Joe Rogan’s podcast. We should tolerate a certain level of racism, sexism, and transphobia in left spaces – after all the masses might find this uncomfortable. I found this part of Molnárfi’s critique particularly illuminating:

“We need to recruit the masses for our cause, amongst whom in Western countries majorities are white male/white female, so we need to adapt. Therefore, there is no need for communists to use terms such as “white supremacy”, “toxic masculinity”, “privilege” … and the likes out in the open, even if these are socially-existing processes“²

Shh! Don’t mention the patriarchal elephant in the room. To give him credit he does suggest talking about it “in layman’s terms” so as not to scare people off. Whatever that means. We somehow have to discuss sexism without using the word sexism and without acknowledging that this benefits men. Because that will scare our precious masses off. By asserting the primacy of class, and the need to cast off consideration of a secondary “identity”, Molnárfi has created a revolutionary subject that is working-class but unaffected by racism, homophobia, sexism etc. This, by definition, creates an idealised subject that is a white, able-bodied, working-class man. It is notable that only three of the twenty two citations in this paper are from women authors. One of these is an interview with a man. I guess if an old guy didn’t say it then it’s not worth saying.

The same article contains dismissal of anti-colonial indigenous critique. Don’t use terms like Turtle Island – you’ll scare away the masses:

“The United States began as a settler colony, but the primary contradiction today is that of the capitalist and the worker“³

This is a naive assertion. Yes. Workers are exploited in America. But Molnárfi’s insistence on seeing everything through the class lens denies a multitude of interlocking structures of oppression. Work on the Plantationocene has highlighted how capitalism is an inherently racialised process, which has always relied on the devaluing of black lives.⁴ But no, ignore this analysis – don’t frighten the masses. In a similar spirit Molnárfi has argued against⁵ counter-protesting fascists to avoid scaring away these same masses (what colour/gender are they I wonder?). He has also criticised the propensity to give speaking time to ethnic minorities, or horror of horrors, let Palestinians make decisions about Palestine. Crazy stuff. They may not have read Deleuze.

Sexism in Irish society

In a later article Molnárfi bemoaned how in the Socialist Party “everything must be subsumed under this ‘feminist’ framework where all phenonema [sic] is patriarchal, misogynist, sexist and contributes to rape culture and so on” taking a stance against #MeToo.⁶ But it is all very well for Molnárfi to claim that we should refrain from calling people sexist in fear of alienation, or that in such a focus on gender “reality has been disemboweled, substituted for by abstracted framework”. He is not a woman. He is in fact a white man. As am I incidentally. But let’s take a little look at the facts and see whether dismissive references to a so-called “rape culture” make sense. 

In Ireland rates of rape are four times higher amongst women than men.⁷ 52% of Irish women are estimated to have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime as compared to 28% of men.⁸ There have been 62 cases of femicide on the island of Ireland between 2020 and 2024, only one reported to be carried out by a woman.⁹ However, men are considerably more likely to consider women to frequently make up cases of rape¹⁰, and are also more likely to underestimate the prevalence of sexual violence in Irish society.

Putting aside all this statisticising, surely it’s not hard to see how common the epidemic of gender-based violence is in Ireland? Like many men I did not have many close female friends as a teenager, as such I may have underestimated it then. However, in college it became clear that instances of sexual aggression were commonplace. Talking to women for long enough a story would eventually pop up. Everyone had one- classmates, colleagues, friends, co-activists. No one had avoided experiencing some sort of discrimination, violence, or unwanted attention. The prevalence was first shocking, later dispiriting but predictable. It seems that the price you have to pay for being a woman in society is to put up with a constant and certain level of violence. Even in leftist spaces “nice-guys” struggle to avoid being sex-pests.¹¹ Personally, I can think of several men who acted in downright creepy ways yet continued to be held in high regard in both academic and activist circles.

So, rape-culture is pervasive, I don’t think we can deny that from the above figures. But more than that it is structural. Rebecca Solnit puts it thus: 

“These men could not do with they did without a culture—lawyers, journalists, judges, friends—that protected them, valued them, devalued their victims and survivors. They do not act alone, and their might is nothing more or less than the way a system rewards and protects them, which is another definition of rape culture“¹²

Further this intersects with a history of state violence towards women, exemplified in the mother and baby homes, Magdalene laundries, denial of access to contraception, divorce, abortion or work after marriage. As a structural form of oppression, which permeates an entire legal and social system, it makes sense to theorise that most phenomena in Irish society can be considered under their relation to this culture. This is not an “abstracted framework” but rather a lived reality. However, by dismissing situational analysis, Molnárfi misses the necessity of considering a positionality other than that of the idealised white working-class man. Instead, he homogenises working class women, many of whom are aware of “toxic masculinity” and have fought it in the divorce and Repeal campaigns, into an extension of this same man. To those who face gendered discrimination – both as a facet of class struggle and beyond – this will seem a blinkered analysis. 

To take one example, in Molnárfi’s recent anti-woke screed on the need for “Dirtbag Leftism” he argues that we should not focus on feminist concerns such as “which age gaps are forbidden, whether you can choke, hit or tie up your partner when you fuck”. Only a small minority of people are opposed to BDSM and age gap relationships. What feminists are concerned with are structural issues, such as the prevalence of BDSM in porn leading to increased intimate partner violence.¹³¹⁴ Women who warn each other about the dangers of abuse should not be dismissed as “woke”. This is a matter of survival. But by casting the subject as a white man, and ignoring the structural prevalence of sexual violence, Molnárfi is able to recast a justified concern as paternalistic nonsense. The point I’m trying to make here is that sexism, racism, homophobia¹⁵, ableism¹⁶ and transphobia¹⁷ are real, ever-present threats in Irish society, operating synergistically with class oppression, though also beyond the strict confines of capital. These forces are also present within leftist spaces, which too often prioritise the participation of powerful men over women’s safety.

There is a narrative that we all have a common enemy, that intersectionality only serves to silo us. Anti-culture war activists say that a general improvement in working class conditions will improve the livelihoods of all oppressed groups. Yet within the context of an ever-present rape-culture we can’t wait until after the revolution to deal with the “woman question”! Claiming that “a rising tide lifts all boats” seems at best naive, at worst an attempt to deny responsibility and a cloak for bad behaviour. Gender based violence is a particular form of violence that does disproportionately affect a particular group in society. We need to be aware of this and describe it now.

A red-brown alliance

Since April, Molnárfi’s weird right-wing turn has taken a more dramatic turn. After temporarily walking back on some of the claims he made in the first article, he has recently gone on a rampage. He first published a piece on Dirtbag Leftism¹⁸ (arguing that we should dress up in Brownface because it’s funny), then defended riots in Citywest, before being expelled from the Red Network.

Most recently and shockingly he has written a piece for The Burkean. In it he pushes for an alliance between the Left and the Right against the centre’s support for Israel. In this article he plays into antisemitic tropes, pushing a Zionist lobby narrative, appealing to right-wingers by alluding to how the Israelis control the world: 

“This is conducted via Zionist finance capital. It is institutionalised in the country via the blood-stained administrative arms of Ursula Von Der Leyen’s European Union, tainted dollars from the United States, and socioeconomic fraternity with the arch-Zionist United Kingdom. These ties have sunk their roots deep inside the 32 counties, poisoning its lands, casting a dark cloud over the grassy fields and temperamental skies of little Ireland. This is nothing more than an unelected, unaccountable, and foreign power pressuring the State to do its bidding … Beyond economic influence, a sprawling network of Mossad operatives, around the world, blackmail politicians”¹⁹

This is not only a thinly veiled antisemitic conspiracy theory, it is poor material analysis. Israel is a material pawn in American imperial control, not a sprawling octopus of Jewish evil.²⁰ For example, in 1986 then-senator Joe Biden famously said that if there wasn’t an Israel in the Middle East, America would have to invent one. But in his attempt to appeal to the racist attitudes of fascists, Molnárfi utilises language that is abhorrently consonant with xenophobic nationalism (“poisoning its lands, a dark cloud over… little Ireland”).

Beyond this, in the same piece he draws a parallel between Nick Fuentes (a rabid Christofascist) and Zohran Mamdani (a Muslim democratic socialist). These two should make common cause against their joint enemy- Israel. Arguing that trans leftists should feel comfortable marching beside those who want to kill them and who call them  “groomers” in common cause against Zionism is a new low. Once again it shows that by taking an identity-blind approach Molnárfi privileges the white, male subject. If we consider all the corrosive effects of racism and cis-hetero-patriarchy as secondary, happening to “other people,” then one could argue (albeit incorrectly) that it is childish to not join forces with antisemitic right-wingers. But, as highlighted above these are real phenomena that must be considered from the perspective of the majority of leftists.

Further, arguing that the right and the left would both benefit from the fall of Israel, Molnárfi makes the following statement: 

“A true Irish Nationalist, who believes that the destiny of Ireland should be in the hands of the Irish people themselves, has a duty to speak up and raise the Tricolour, alongside the flag of Palestine, and burn its Israeli counterpart“²¹

Here the Irish flag is invoked cynically, given recent controversy over the use of the flag to signify “immigrants out” by right-wingers. This controversy fed into the burning of an IPAS centre in Drogheda, where four children and a baby were rescued from the top floor of the building. Acknowledging this as a legitimate position in an article signals again the privileging of white lives over asylum seekers. Further though, this is a position that doesn’t understand the role of far-right nationalism. Far-right nationalism is not a carefully argued position, based on principles of sovereignty. Instead, it is a tool used by members of the ruling class to shore up the existing order when it is threatened by its own contradictions. As Clara Zetkin put it: 

“[T]he bourgeoisie offers its hand for fascism’s kiss, granting it complete freedom of action, contrary to all its written and unwritten laws. It goes further. It nourishes fascism, maintains it, and promotes its development with all the means at its disposal in terms of political power and hoards of money“²²

As such the interests of the far-right are not to be ideologically clear, they are to spread chaos and violence, prevent the development of class-consciousness, and redirect anger away from the government. Appealing to their sense of patriotism to unite against Israel is only possible by using racist language – as this prevents a proper analysis of the situation and foments violence and chaos.

Is Molnárfi entirely unaware of this? Perhaps not. To him, though, the violence and discrimination against minorities brought about by such an alliance is secondary. What is primary is to bring along members of the “white working-class” – who he has elsewhere associated with nationalist marches and the Citywest riots – to the anti-Zionist position. These are the true revolutionary subjects, given his class-only analysis, as they are not affected by identity issues. The asylum seekers, victims of domestic abuse and gender-minorities harmed by such an alliance, are not, in this analysis, necessary for the anti-Zionist struggle to win.

In defence of Woke

Controversial though it may be, I am in favour of “Woke politics.” I think leftists should stand side by side with their oppressed comrades. I think we should support IPAS centre residents when their children are targeted by arson attacks. This doesn’t mean letting the right set the agenda. A recent look at Zack Polanski’s performance on Piers Morgan demonstrates how to handle this. Asked if a woman could have a penis he replied “Yes, it’s gonna take them a long time on the National Health Service to get rid of it.” This redirects attention to class-based issues, while at the same time unequivocally standing up for the rights of trans people. A similar approach, focusing on class-based politics has won Zohran Mamdani the New York Mayoral election. 

I initially started work on this article in April but decided not to publish it. Now I feel the evolution of Molnárfi’s thinking offers a cautionary tale to the left of the pitfalls of class-only politics, to the point of suggesting alliances with fascists. This article does not intend primarily to debate with Molnárfi’s writing; I am unsure if there is a point. I worked with him in TCDSU for a year and I hope he realises his mistakes, but in the meantime there are two main takeaways I believe we can all benefit from in this article.

Firstly, by expanding our analysis beyond class we can understand better how capital operates. The right will not join forces with us as they are in the services of capital. Understanding colonialism allows us to understand how Ireland’s energy sector serves multinational capital.²³ Trans misogyny, in the words of Jules Gill-Peterson:

“is not a mere psychological and irrational hatred of trans women. In fact, trans misogyny as a concept helps explain how individuals, or interpersonal violence, can act on behalf of the state or other abstract political movements“²⁴

By only playing class politics we miss these nuances, ignoring key leverage points in the battle to overthrow capital’s domination of our society. 

Secondly by playing class-only politics, we simultaneously make the left more exclusionary and actively enable the misdirection of violence towards vulnerable people. I don’t want to be part of this movement, instead I aspire to take my place in a movement that has a:

“commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels–sex, race, and class, to name a few–and a commitment to reorganizing [Irish] society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires“²⁵

This is not just a matter of what I want though. The majority of the working class are not white, able-bodied, cis-het men. If we want to build a broad left, we need to have spaces where women, non-binary people, disabled people, trans people, immigrants, and Irish people of colour can contribute, and indeed lead, freely. Only by bringing these voices to the fore can we overcome the artificial divisions between us that capital depends on to survive. Otherwise, we limit our own capabilities as a movement:

“The revolution and women’s liberation go together. We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph. Women hold up the other half of the sky“²⁶

NO PASARÁN!

If you want to get in contact with a submission or a response to the above article reach out at [email protected]

1. Laura Hogan, “IPAS Centre Fire Started Deliberately, Say Gardaí”, RTÉ News, November 1, 2025, https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/1101/1541586-fire-louth-ipas/. ↩︎
2. László Molnárfi, “Communists Should Learn to Stop Being Annoying: Tactics, Strategy, and Optics,” Everyday Analysis Substack, March 4, 2025, https://everydayinquiry.substack.com/p/communists-should-learn-to-stop-being. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Janae Davis et al., “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, … Plantationocene?: A Manifesto for Ecological Justice in an Age of Global Crises,” Geography Compass 13, no. 5 (2019): e12438. ↩︎
5. The original article (like many of Molnárfi’s) has been removed from Red Network. It was reprinted in Aontacht Media. László Molnárfi, “We Need Class Struggle and Organic Anti-Racism Not Performative Politics”, László Molnárfi, Aontacht Media. A response to this article is found here Alexander Rakhmetov , “László Molnárfi Is Wrong About Antifascism,” Aontacht Media, July 1, 2025, https://aontachtmedia.ie/2025/07/01/laszlo-molnarfi-is-wrong-about-antifascism/. ↩︎
6. László Molnárfi, “Reprint: The Machinic Enslavement of Programmatic Nihilism”, Aontacht Media, June 7, 2025, https://aontachtmedia.ie/2025/06/07/reprint-the-machinic-enslavement-of-programmatic-nihilism/. ↩︎
7. “Overall Prevalence Sexual Violence Survey 2022 – Main Results – Central Statistics Office,” Central Statistics Office, April 19, 2023, https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-svsmr/sexualviolencesurvey2022mainresults/overallprevalence/. ↩︎
8. This includes 65% of women aged 18-24. Elish Kelly et al., Measuring the Prevalence of Adult Sexual Violence in Ireland: A Review of Irish and International Literature, ESRI, September 29, 2025, https://doi.org/10.26504/sustat131. ↩︎
9. Maria Delaney & Patricia Devlin, “Lost to Violence: The 37 Women Killed in Ireland in the Last Five Years,” TheJournal.ie, January 3, 2025, https://www.thejournal.ie/investigates-violent-deaths-women-6576152-Jan2025/. ↩︎
10. The study found that 46% of men believe that people “often make up accusations about non-consensual sex” as opposed to only 27% of women. Ailbhe Conneely, Gap between Men, Women over Understanding Consent – DRCC, News, January 30, 2025, https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0130/1493725-consent-research-drcc/. ↩︎
11. This is not to imply that men have a natural instinct to be a sex pest. ↩︎
12. Rebecca Solnit, “In Patriarchy No One Can Hear You Scream: Rebecca Solnit on Jeffrey Epstein and the Silencing Machine,” Literary  Hub, July 10, 2019, https://lithub.com/in-patriarchy-no-one-can-hear-you-scream-rebecca-solnit-on-jeffrey-epstein-and-the-silencing-machine/. ↩︎
13. Strangulation during sex has become rapidly more prevalent, potentially causing brain damage and strokes. Anna Moore, “‘There Is No Safe Way to Do It’: The Rapid Rise and Horrifying Risks of Choking during Sex,” The Guardian, July 7, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jul/07/no-safe-way-risks-of-choking-during-sex ↩︎
14. BDSM porn is regarded as a normalising factor in partner violence. “I Thought It Was Normal,” We Can’t Consent To This, 2021, https://wecantconsenttothis.uk/i-thought-it-was-normal-research. A meta-review, while noting the heterogeneity of results, found that “Cross-sectional studies showed that pornography use is associated with (and even predictive of) sexual aggression, teen dating violence, and experiences of sexual victimization”. Gemma Mestre-Bach et al., “Pornography Use and Violence: A Systematic Review of the Last 20 Years,” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 25, no. 2 (2024): 1088–112, https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380231173619 ↩︎
15. “New Research Highlights Fears of Troubling Rise in Anti-LGBTQ+ Rhetoric and Violence across Ireland,” University College Dublin, October 9, 2024, https://www.ucd.ie/newsandopinion/news/2024/october/09/newresearchhighlightsfearsoftroublingriseinanti-lgbtqrhetoricandviolenceacrossireland/. ↩︎
16. Colm Keena, “ESRI Study of Ableism Finds Differences across Disabilities,” The Irish Times, January 23, 2024, https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2024/01/23/esri-study-of-ableism-finds-differences-across-disabilities/. ↩︎
17. Ethan Moser, “Rise in Transphobic Rhetoric in Ireland and Europe Sparks Concern Ahead of EU Elections,” GCN, March 13, 2024, https://gcn.ie/rise-transphobic-rhetoric-ireland-europe/. ↩︎
18. László Molnárfi, “We Should All Be Dirtbag Leftists,” Trinity News, October 12, 2025, https://www.trinitynews.ie/2025/10/we-should-all-be-dirtbag-leftists/. ↩︎
19. “For a Sovereign Ireland, the Left and the Right Must Unite Against Israel: László Molnárfi,” The Burkean, November 5, 2025, https://archive.ph/Zr8Vo ↩︎
20. See Joseph Massad, “Why Blaming the Israel Lobby for Western Middle East Policies Is Misguided,” Middle East Eye, July 16, 2024, https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/why-blaming-israel-lobby-western-middle-east-policies-misguided; Andreas Malm, “The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth,” Verso Blog, April 8, 2024, https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/the-destruction-of-palestine-is-the-destruction-of-the-earth. ↩︎
21. “For a Sovereign Ireland, the Left and the Right Must Unite Against Israel: László Molnárfi,” The Burkean, November 5, 2025, https://archive.ph/Zr8Vo ↩︎
22. Clara Zetkin, Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win (Haymarket Books, 2017), 34. ↩︎
23. Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie, “From Toxic Industries to Green Extractivism: Rural Environmental Struggles, Multinational Corporations and Ireland’s Postcolonial Ecological Regime,” Irish Studies Review 32, no. 1 (2024): 93–122. ↩︎
24. Jules Gill-Peterson, A Short History of Trans Misogyny (Verso Books, 2025), 27. ↩︎
25. Bell Hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Pluto Press, 2000) ↩︎
26. Thomas Sankara, We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolutions, (Pathfinder, 2002) 49-50. ↩︎