Boosted by his anti-immigrant street videos, Cork construction worker Derek Blighe has shot to prominence
Born in 1980, he is one of Mallow man Denis Blighe and his Millstreet-born wife, Maureen’s six children, though he moved with his mother and four brothers to Rylane in Mid-Cork when his parents split up.
There, he met his Canadian-born wife. In those days he showed little interest in the online activism other than liking various articles critical of plans to curb oil production and pipeline construction. By 2017, however, he had become interested in immigration, liking and posting statements from European right-wing figures such as Matteo Salvini in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France and Viktor Orban in Hungary.
That three of the Blighe brothers should adopt such views surprises many in Mallow who knew their late father, Denis, a staunch trade unionist and supporter of the late Workers’ Party and Democratic Left TD Joe Sherlock. “Denis was a very dedicated trade unionist – he would have been a union representative for the workers in Erin Foods and it would have been the ITGWU at the time. Politically, then, he was very loyal to Joe Sherlock,” says one Mallow local.
He had more success in Fermoy organising a rally against housing refugees there, when 60 or so protesters attended, but this was dwarfed three days later when over 300 people gathered to reject his anti-immigrant message. His public confrontations, she says, are designed “to provoke a reaction”, while his online history shows that he shares conspiracy theories about the war in Syria, Infowars’ Alex Jones’ content, climate change denial, the anti-vaccine movement and QAnon. Conspiracy theories have “a snowballing effect”, she warns: “When people buy into one, they will buy into more.
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