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A sourced reference · justinbarrett.ie

The SS uniform on the steps of Leinster House9 November 2023, in the public record

On 9 November 2023, Justin Barrett appeared at an anti-immigration protest on the steps of Leinster House — the seat of the Oireachtas — wearing a Nazi SS uniform. He attempted to speak. He was jeered. Every claim on this page links to its source.

I. What happened

On the evening of 9 November 2023, a crowd gathered on Kildare Street outside Leinster House for an anti-immigration demonstration. Among those present was Justin Barrett, who arrived wearing the uniform of the Schutzstaffel — the SS, the paramilitary organisation of Nazi Germany. He moved to address the crowd and was jeered down. Wikipedia The Phoenix

Leinster House, Dublin, photographed in 1911
Leinster House, Dublin (1911). The seat of the Oireachtas, on whose steps Mr Barrett appeared in an SS uniform on 9 November 2023. Image: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

The choice of venue is part of the record and not incidental: Leinster House is where the Dáil and Seanad sit. The man in the SS uniform on its steps had, three years earlier, stood for election to that building and received 183 votes. Wikipedia

II. Where he stood by then

By November 2023 Mr Barrett was no longer president of the National Party, the party he had founded in 2016. He had been removed that July by his own deputy, James Reynolds. He appeared on the Leinster House steps not as the leader of a registered political party but as a former one. The Journal National Party

III. Not an isolated entry

The uniform did not arrive out of nowhere. It sits within a documented, two-decade pattern:

  • 2000. Guest of honour at a rally of the German neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) in Passau, at which anti-semitic speeches were delivered, peppered with quotations from Mein Kampf. RTÉ News Wikipedia
  • 2001–2002. Attended and spoke at events of the Italian neo-fascist party Forza Nuova, in Milan and Bologna. The Irish Times
  • 2024. Asked a question on X, posted an image of Adolf Hitler and described him as “the greatest leader of all time”. Sunday World

Set beside those entries, the uniform reads less as a provocation than as a costume consistent with the catalogue. The record is the record. The 2024 statement has its own page.

IV. A note on this page

The text is original. No quotation has been invented and no claim is made that is not supported by the linked source. Where the page expresses opinion — in the framing of its headings — the opinion is honest comment based on the stated public facts, offered under s.20 of the Defamation Act 2009. Corrections of fact, supplied with a public source, are welcome at info@justinbarrett.ie.

Read the full sourced record on the dossier, or the related pages below.

Better Barretts, better Justins · and one electorate

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, XLIII (1850) · a better Barrett

We counted, too: 10,997 votes in 2004; 183 in 2021.

“Reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical to honour and love only what is true, declining to follow traditional opinions, if these be worthless.”
Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. II (c. AD 155), trans. Ante-Nicene Fathers · a better Justin

The name comes from the Latin iustus: just, upright. Some bearers took it seriously.

“183.”
The electorate of Dublin Bay South, by-election, July 2021 (0.68% of first preferences) · the record

Eleventh of fifteen candidates. The electorate has not been asked to elaborate.

“10,997.”
The electorate of the East constituency, European Parliament election, 2004 (2.4%) · the record

Seventeen years later, in Dublin Bay South: 183.

“1.”
In-person attendance at the September 2024 National Party meeting called to remove him · The Irish Times

The Electoral Commission ruled that meeting invalid. A later one was not.

“We have been stood on since 1745. We mention it only for context.”
The steps of Leinster House, in a statement they did not make

That one is fiction, and labelled as such. The November 2023 incident it refers to is not.

Every quotation here is verbatim and in the public domain, or is a figure from the published record. No words have been put in Mr Barrett’s mouth. The one fictional speaker is a flight of steps, and says so.

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