National Party (Ireland, 2016)

The party was founded in 2016, by Justin Barrett as party president and James Reynolds as party vice president. The National Party had planned to hold its press launch in the Merrion Hotel in Dublin but the event was cancelled by the hotel,[9] which subsequently said it had done so for "public safety reasons".[10] There had been much adverse reaction online to the announcement of the launch.[4][5][3] The party's press release claimed they seek to espouse the "true spirit of the Republic".[3]

Barrett, who was raised in County Tipperary, has a background in anti-abortion and anti-immigration politics, formerly being a leading figure in Youth Defence and campaigning against the Treaty of Nice. Barrett attracted media attention due to his participation in events in both Germany and Italy organised by far right parties, the National Democratic Party and Forza Nuova, respectively, in the 1990s.[11] Barrett has denied sharing their far right views and said he attended these events in his capacity as an anti-abortion campaigner.[10][12][13][14] In 2016, in an interview where he incorrectly overstated the levels of migration to Ireland by a factor of three, he called his attendance at these meetings "a mistake".[15]

Reynolds, from County Longford,[16] was the County Longford affiliate for Youth Defence in the early 1990s.[17][18] He was associated with the Libertas Ireland political party in 2009,[19][20] and campaigned for a no vote in the Fiscal Compact referendum in 2012 as chairman of the small Farmers for No group.[21][22] Reynolds was previously the Longford county chairman of the Irish Farmers' Association, and national treasurer of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association. He was suspended from the IFA in 2012 for "bringing the county executive into disrepute". In March 2017 he secured a temporary High Court injunction preventing his dismissal as national treasurer of the ICSA,[23] but the High Court upheld his dismissal from the role in June 2017.[24]

The party held its first Ardfheis in November 2017, at Donald Trump's Doonbeg hotel in County Clare. Approximately fifty delegates attended. Justin Barrett criticised Fine Gael in his speech for not calling its annual conference an ardfheis. John Wilson, a guest speaker from County Cavan, challenged homophobic comments made by deputy leader James Reynolds. Barrett defended Reynolds' comments and reportedly answered in the affirmative when asked by Wilson whether the National Party was "only for straight Irish people". Wilson then walked out in protest at the comments.[11]

Abortion Never was formed as a No campaign by the National Party in March 2018 to contest the 2018 referendum to legislate for abortion.[25] Abortion Never presented itself as "an Irish nationalist anti-abortion campaign."[26] At the launch of the campaign, Barrett stated that if the abortion referendum passed, it would lead to euthanasia for the elderly; "It doesn't just begin with abortion and stop there. It ends in euthanasia, because they already have a plan. You see discussions in the newspapers sometimes, 'What are we going to do about the pensions crisis?'".[27] At the same event, he called for the abortion referendum campaign to be "as divisive as possible". The referendum was ultimately approved by 66.4% of voters.

In April 2019, the party was added to the Register of Political Parties for Dáil, local and European elections,[28][29] but did not field candidates in the 2019 local elections or 2019 European elections.

The National Party contested an election for the first time at the 2020 general election. It put forward ten candidates, although party leader Justin Barrett did not run himself.[30] No candidates were elected,[31] with a share of first preference votes between 0.49% (224 votes) and 1.74% (983 votes) in their respective constituencies.[32] Party vice president, James Reynolds, had 1.74% of first preference votes (983 votes) in the Longford–Westmeath constituency.[33]