We have seen this before with familiar actors, familiar strategies and familiar networks of funding and influence. At the centre stands Niamh Uí Bhriain, an Irish Catholic policy lobbyist, anti-abortion campaigner and Eurosceptic activist who has become one of the driving forces behind the current culture war against trans people in Ireland. She is also a 50 percent owner of Gript Media Limited, one of the so-called alternative media outlets shaping political discourse on the right.
Uí Bhriain first rose to public prominence through anti-abortion activism. In 1992 she was a co-founder and leader of Youth Defence, an organisation that campaigned aggressively against legalisation of abortion in Ireland. Today Youth Defence does not maintain a standalone online presence and exists in large part on the Life Institute website, the successor organisation she also helped establish.
The Life Institute, of which she remains a prominent spokesperson, was set up in 2008 to promote anti-abortion policy and the sanctity of human life. Irish media reporting from the period noted that the organisation was established with the equivalent of a €410,000 interest-free loan from a sympathetic voluntary organisation whose identity was not made public.
Outside critics have raised serious questions about where that funding originated, given that many anti-abortion campaigns in Ireland around the repeal referendum were financed through networks linked to US conservative Christian organisations. US far-right groups such as the Pro-Life Action League openly admitted funding Irish anti-abortion activity, most notably affiliating with Youth Defence in the 1990s and early 2000s.
A 2023 investigation by Rebel News documented that Youth Defence was founded by her mother, Úna Bean Mhic Mhathúna, and that both Uí Bhriain and her brother Dónal Mac Mathúna went on to establish the Life Institute, which is closely affiliated with Youth Defence. The article noted that Uí Bhriain told The Irish Times that the Life Institute’s startup funds came from Irish supporters and Youth Defence. Given historic patterns of international funding, including from the US, many commentators view such explanations as incomplete.
The same Rebel News investigation highlighted the broader context of American influence on Irish conservative activism. US religious conservative networks have funnelled money into social conservative movements in Ireland for decades. Attempts by Ireland’s ethics watchdog to compel groups like Youth Defence to disclose foreign funding have repeatedly failed due to non-cooperation and legislative limits on investigative powers.
After the decisive defeat of the anti-abortion movement in the 2018 referendum, the machinery of organised moral panic did not disappear. Abortion was lost. Trans people became the next wedge issue. Uí Bhriain pivoted accordingly, bringing her policy and organisational networks with her.
Uí Bhriain’s control of a media outlet gives her and her allies a powerful megaphone. Gript.ie, which she co-owns, publishes content that frequently portrays Ireland’s trans and non-binary communities as a social threat, often adopting narratives imported from UK and US conservative culture wars. The outlet’s founder and Editor-in-Chief, John McGuirk, is a frequent contributor who has defended Gript against being labelled far-right even as media analysts and critics describe the site as part of a right-wing or far-right ecosystem.
Gript’s own site includes a trans tag that collects content framing gender identity issues as ideological impositions rather than as matters of human dignity and law. Examples include an article arguing that Irish state broadcaster coverage of a legal case involving a trans woman exemplifies confusion rather than lawful debate. Multiple pieces urge resistance to gender-inclusive school policies by characterising guidance around pronoun use as having “no legal standing”, even though Irish educational policy recognises gender identity rights in practice
These narratives reflect a broader pattern where Gript amplifies claims that legal reforms benefiting trans people are symptomatic of ideological capture and social decline. Many medical, legal and human rights experts reject the notion that recognition of gender identity lacks legal grounding or evidence base, pointing instead to well-established professional standards and protections that balance rights and safeguards. Figures such as Graham Linehan, who frame gender ideology as incompatible with free speech and push narratives of widespread social harm, have been amplified repeatedly on platforms like Gript in their efforts to influence Irish public debate.
Gript’s editorial output has also attracted documented criticism. Critics from media and political circles have characterised the outlet as amplifying hostile narratives against migrants, LGBTQ+ people and left-of-centre voices, and have linked some coverage to waves of online harassment against public figures who refuse to engage with the outlet, including the death threats received by Ruth Coppinger TD . A 2025 critique described Gript as propagating content that feeds into misogyny and racism and highlighted donations the outlet reportedly made to European conservative parties.
These developments reflect a wider ecosystem of ideological influence shared across the Irish, British and US right. Historical links between Irish anti-abortion activism and far-right figures such as Justin Barrett, who once served in Youth Defence leadership and later led Ireland’s marginal National Party, illustrate how social conservative networks have overlapped with far-right movements. Barrett’s past included appearances at events with fascist parties in Italy and Germany prior to 2004, and associations with UK loyalist and far-right operatives via anti-abortion and nationalist activism.
Uí Bhriain did not just change her politics after 2018. She adapted an existing machine, embedding it in media, policy lobbying and international networks now targeting Ireland’s trans community. The narrative offered on Gript and allied platforms does not defend women’s rights. It defends hierarchical definitions of sex, rejects self-determination of gender identity, and aligns Irish culture with foreign culture-war agendas.
The cost of this pivot is real for trans and non-binary people who already face barriers to healthcare and high levels of discrimination. This campaign is not organic Irish discourse. It is the recycling of defeated moral panic machinery, repurposed to divide rather than unify Irish society.
Ireland has already defeated the Anti-Abortion campaign at the ballot box. The rise of anti-trans campaigns feels eerily familiar because it is not rooted in organic Irish grassroots organising but in the recycled strategies of defeated movements, funded and amplified through international echo chambers.
The resurgent culture war built by Uí Bhriain and her allies is not a defence of women’s rights. It is an adaptation of old machinery repurposed to divide rather than unite Irish society.
Sorcha Rosa is an Irish feminist writer and activist focusing on human rights, trans and intersex justice, and the intersection of far-right politics, media and power in Ireland and Europe.
References and Further Reading
Gript Media Articles by or involving Niamh Uí Bhriain
- “RTÉ’s Reporting Mirrors Confusion of ‘Gender Ideology’” — Gript
https://gript.ie/rtes-reporting-mirrors-confusion-of-gender-ideology/ - “‘Citywest’ and the Lies Used to Deflect Us” — Gript (transgender coverage)
https://gript.ie/ui-bhriain-citywest-and-the-lies-used-to-deflect-us/ - “Anger at Media Report on Guide on Schools and Pronouns” — Gript
https://gript.ie/anger-at-media-report-on-guide-on-schools-and-pronouns/ - Gript Trans Tag — archive of trans-related posts
https://gript.ie/tag/trans/ - Author Page for Niamh Uí Bhriain — Gript
https://gript.ie/author/niamh-ui-bhriain/
Organisational Information
- Youth Defence (Wikipedia entry; notes Life Institute affiliation)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_Defence - Life Institute (affiliate information on funding and Youth Defence history)
- Company Ownership Record for Gript Media Limited — Irish Ownership Registry
https://ireland.mom-gmr.org/en/owner/individual-owners/detail/owner/owner/show/niamh-ui-bhriain-2/
Investigative Reports on Funding and Far-Right Connections
- Clara McCormack, “Who Pays the Piper? The Funding Behind the Far-Right” — Rebel News, July 27, 2023
https://rebelnews.ie/2023/07/27/who-pays-the-piper-the-funding-behind-the-far-right/
Criticism and Analysis of Gript and Allied Networks
- “Gript: A Far-Right Outfit Exposed” — Socialist Party of Ireland, May 2025
https://www.socialistparty.ie/2025/05/gript-a-far-right-outfit-exposed
Legal and Policy Documents (Ireland)
- Gender Recognition Act 2015 — Government of Ireland
https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2015/act/25/enacted/en/html - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission — Reports on Gender and Equality
https://www.ihrec.ie/
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