Max HeyraudIn a year marked by deep political divides and rising far-right backlash, Irish Pride 2025 emerged as a powerful celebration of identity, resilience, and hope.
So far, 2025 has been about as politically divisive as it gets. The left and right feel like they’ve never been further apart, yet somehow always tangled up in the same arguments. Freedom of speech, foreign policy, identity politics, it’s all starting to feel like a drunken three-legged race where no one knows who’s leading. And both sides are stumbling.
What’s clear is that both ends of the spectrum are clashing harder than ever, and in Ireland, a country that has historically played things closer to the centre, there’s an undeniable shift. The political middle feels like it’s evaporating, and more people are being pushed to extremes.
So what does that mean for Pride this year?
There’s a growing feeling that the values Ireland once proudly stood for, values we championed not long ago, are starting to feel fragile. This is the same country that in 2015 became the first in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote. That same year, we passed one of the most progressive gender recognition laws globally, allowing people over 18 to self-identify without any medical intervention. Go back even further, and you’ve got the Equal Status Act (2000) and the Employment Equality Act (1998), making it illegal to discriminate based on race, religion, nationality, or ethnic background. Ireland even has a dedicated Human Rights and Equality Commission to promote fair treatment across all communities.
In Ireland, the rise of far-right influence has brought oppressive and frankly extremist views closer to the mainstream. What’s more disturbing is how comfortably those views have taken root in communities that have been historically left behind. The lower-income, working-class corners of the country, the ones hit hardest by housing insecurity, social neglect, and political apathy, are being targeted and radicalised.
And when you’ve been ignored by the state long enough, it’s not hard to see why resentment brews. Refugees are framed as the problem, not the symptom of a broken system. Far-right voices exploit that resentment, redirecting rage away from the government and toward the most vulnerable. But it doesn’t stop at migrants. Any thread of compassion, any “love thy neighbour” instinct Ireland once held close, is now being mocked, branded as “woke culture,” ridiculed as weakness. And yes, this includes the LGBTQ+ community.
We’ve already seen where this is heading…. In cities like Cork, Tralee, and Dublin, far-right groups have begun storming public libraries. They’ve targeted drag story times and queer book displays. Staff members have been filmed without consent, harassed, and called “groomers” or “paedophiles.” In Cork, they reportedly tore up books. The goal is intimidation, make no mistake.
According to Garda data, hate incidents based on sexual orientation dropped slightly, from 109 in 2023 to 70 in 2024, but the attacks that are happening are more targeted, more violent. There was the horrifying case in Phoenix Park last year, where queer men were allegedly hunted with knives.
The strategy is clear: stoke conspiracy theories online, weaponise misinformation, then carry that threat offline, into real-world violence and harassment. It’s a coordinated assault on marginalised people, and it’s escalating.
As the voices of oppressive ideology grow louder, the hum of far-right rhetoric seeps further into everyday life, infiltrating online spaces, public discourse, and even elements of pop culture. And yet, landmark events like Pride serve as a counter-force. It’s a loud, unapologetic reinforcement of the ideals on which Ireland has built its modern identity. Pride inherently ties into our post-colonial experience, for generations, Irish people were taught to be ashamed of who we are, whether through colonisation or the long, damaging shadow of the Catholic Church. Pride is about reclaiming space. It’s a celebration of culture, personality, and ways of living that were once silenced or exiled. And it’s exactly these values: authenticity, compassion, defiance, that the far-right is now trying to suppress.
Pride 2025 arrived not only amid the gusts of far-right winds sweeping across Ireland but as part of a broader, worrying global shift toward far-right ideology taking hold in real-world policies. In the UK, for example, the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers declared that under the Equality Act 2010, the terms “woman” and “sex” must be understood strictly based on biological sex at birth, not gender identity, even for those with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). Across the Atlantic, several U.S. states, including Florida, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho, and South Carolina, have enacted laws or executive orders requiring restrooms, locker rooms, and shelters to be used according to sex assigned at birth, not gender identity.
The trend stretches further still: since early 2024, Russia has convicted over 100 people under laws banning the promotion of LGBTQI+ rights, criminalising actions like displaying rainbow symbols, organising Pride events, or sharing LGBTQI+ content. Other countries following this troubling path in the last year include Argentina, Ghana, Georgia, Peru, and Hungary, all rolling back protections and rights for transgender and LGBTQI+ communities. These global setbacks mark a sickening backwards step that’s hard to ignore, no matter the geographic distance.
But these movements don’t arise out of nowhere. Policy shifts don’t happen without a foundation of support, and although it might feel like this is a million miles away from Ireland, the growing cohort of far-right ideologues here tells a very different story.
And yet, in the face of these global attempts to strip LGBTQ+ communities of their rights and visibility, humanity continues to rise. In March 2025, Hungary’s Parliament passed a constitutional amendment banning all public LGBTQ+ activity under the guise of “child protection.” The law allows authorities to fine participants up to €500 and deploy facial recognition software to identify them. But despite the crackdown, on June 28, Budapest defied the narrative. The city hosted its largest-ever Pride march, with an estimated 200,000 people taking to the streets, shattering the previous record of around 35,000. In a remarkable act of resistance, Mayor Gergely Karácsony and Budapest City officials legally reframed the march as a city-organised event, sidestepping national restrictions. It was a bold reminder that even under authoritarian pressure, people will find ways to reclaim joy, visibility, and space.
Although for just a weekend, it felt as if the swirling movement aimed at displacing the rights of transgender and LGBTQI+ communities existed in a parallel universe. Across Ireland, from various corners of the island, streets were splattered with all the colours of the rainbow. People danced freely, music played loud, and voices were heard, whether speaking passionately about the importance of trans and LGBTQI+ rights or simply expressing pride in being queer. It was a genuine celebration, a much-needed break from the relentless storm that 2025 has become.
Photo Credits: Babs Daly & Dean Fitzgerald
