*Michael Loughrey.
A LOCAL ELECTION candidate has promised to build a prison for politicians if elected to Clare County Council.
London born, Michael Loughrey (IP) is running for the Irish People party which have shared principles including ‘house the Irish first not the world’ and ‘sensible immigration not open borders’.
Living in Gort since 1989, Michael is running in the Ennistymon LEA for the local elections on June 7th. He lived in Tuam before relocating to Gort but the English born candidate said of his adopted country, “it was a beautiful place once, it is not so beautiful now”.
He joined the party which was officially registered as a political party in November 2023 when it began. “I’m not a politician, I’m an ordinary person like everybody else running in the party, we aren’t politicians but we have to make a stand against the doctrination that these mainstream politicians of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, Social Democrats and People Before Profit all of those guys, I was listening to politics for a long time, I realise there is a lot wrong in Ireland, we want to reinforce family values back, the whole country has gone astray”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, the retired stonemason explained why he put his name on the ballot paper. “I’m part of direct action, we’ve been over the last three years we’ve been doing direct action and trying to make people aware”.
Part of this “direct action” included protests outside libraries in Cork and Limerick, they attempted to protest outside Killaloe Library but did so on a day when the library was closed. The protests were against the availability of LGBTQ+ reading materials for children, the City Library in Cork had been the scene of rolling protests in 2023 and their actions resulted in “early closures” of the facility.
Among those involved with Loughrey were Andy Heasman and Ross Lahive. Heasman was jailed for two months during the pandemic for refusing to wear a mask on public transport and was also involved in protests outside Leo Varadkar’s home in 2021 and was charged after a protest in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day in 2023. Lahive had been involved in some of the most widely broadcast and aggressive actions in libraries. He was also heavily involved with anti-Covid-19 restrictions protests during the pandemic. He was convicted in 2022 of breaching Covid guidelines after attending a children’s birthday party at the height of the pandemic. Gardaí told the court how Lahive had been “insulting and abusive” and had called them “Nazi scum”. Both men are running as candidates for the party in the European elections.
Loughrey when questioned by The Clare Echo admitted he didn’t read the books he was protesting about. “They are quite disturbing, I haven’t read them but we looked at various parts of these books, I wouldn’t read them books, I’ve seen various parts that we’ve read and shown to the general public, we’ve been into the libraries and said they’ve been contaminated with the ideology with the sexualisation of children, it is pornographic, we’ve never had that in Ireland, there is nobody against the ordinary gay person, children are like plasticene you can mould their minds”.
When it was put to him that it was very odd for a person to protest against a book they hadn’t read, Michael responded, “Let me get this through to you. The pages were shown and read out, if you were to, I didn’t read it, I didn’t read the whole book, you have to take little excerpts of the book to see how it is aimed at children, it is ungodly, it is not good and bad for our children’s future, it is turning all the children gay,” he claimed.
As part of their protest, they also camped on Inis Cealtra and raised their banner on Holy Island. Cathaoirleach of the Killaloe Municipal District, Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF) described their actions as illegal and said they “desecrated” the protected structure and national monument.
Defending his actions on that weekend last August, Michael stated, “We went onto Holy Island because we did a sovereign voyage up the Shannon and the previous year, we put the banner up, there are only two genders, male and female”.
Cllr O’Brien said they “desecrated” the protected structure but Loughrey insisted, “We love our heritage, we didn’t do any harm to the area, we respect, we are godly people. We’re not into the muck that has been spewed out and everybody expecting to go along with it”.
On Tuesday prior to the recording of Clare FM’s election debate with candidates in the Ennistymon LEA recorded at the headquarters of Clare County Council, security within the local authority had to be called after Loughrey began to kick up commotion in what some candidates later described as “a bit of exuberance”.
“I don’t remember security being called,” Loughrey told The Clare Echo. “If security were called, it’s funny that you know more than me, nobody said security were called to me,” he added. He said one candidate though he was unable to name him had previously labelled Mike “a nutter, I don’t know which one is what but he called me a nutter”.
To attend the debate, he travelled by bus from Gort, “they’ve all lovely cars with their faces on it, it is unbelievable, they are all well dressed and have plenty of wods of cash in their pockets with their brown envelopes, we’ve got nothing”.
According to the sixty six year old, “the mainstream media have caused massive damage to this country along with the politicians, you all work hand in hand, you don’t give a damn about us ordinary people, you are all caught up in a brainwashed idea,” he said.
A father of two, Michael said he did not get a vaccine from COVID-19 and labelled it “a plandemic”. He commented, “where did the virus go, it all ended when everyone got vaccinated”. Loughrey added, “We’ve been censored, highly censored, you guys have everyone thinking there was a pandemic, it was a genocide”.
Members of the public have been conned, he claimed. “If they (people) are going to be brainwashed, I can only try to help them wake up, they’ve been conned. Dáil Éireann has a bunch of criminals, if I get in I’ll build a prison for politicians, I am sick and tired of the mainstream media, the Government and An Garda Síochána acting like tyrants against their own people”.
On the influence he can have as a councillor, Mike stated, “I’ll do a lot, I’ll make sure hotels are available for tourists, all now they are only available for immigrants”. He remarked, “the mainstream parties are a bunch of treasonous people. We’re beyond the snarly talk, we don’t give a damn anymore, we’re fighting for our survival, we’re fighting for the indigenous people, you can put that in and call me what you like, people are waking up now”.
