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Sadly, as long as fascism has existed as an ideology, there have been fascists in Ireland.

As soon as Mussolini did his march on Rome, you had a very small Italian

community in Dublin who formed a Italian fascist group here called the Fasciste di Dublino de Michelangelo,

the fascists of Dublin of Michelangelo. To be honest, they had little impact on Irish politics.

Their policy was not to attempt to interfere in domestic politics, but to kind of rally Italians,

that small community in Dublin, for Mussolini, for the fascist cause.

They used to meet on the anniversary of the March on Rome and hold gatherings at the Italian Embassy,

wear their black shirts in the embassy.

They weren't really active on the streets. There was no fighting between them and anti-fascists.

So that would have been late 1922 they would have been set up just after the march on Rome.

And then in early 1923, the first British fascist group was started.

At that time, Ireland, the south of Ireland at least, had just left the United Kingdom

after the Irish War of Independence and Civil War.

And the first British fascist group was set up was called the British Fascistee.

And it was set up by a woman called Rotha Linton Orman.

And basically it's the kind of stuff that, you know, you'd see in peeky blinders.

You had the conservative right in Britain were convinced that the Irish, the Bolsheviks, the Germans, international juryry, as they would put it, were all part of a global conspiracy to destroy the British Empire.

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