The weekend before last, I was asked to stand in memory of Charlie Kirk.
“It just seems the right thing to do, it seems the noble thing to do, it seems the correct thing to do, for us to stand in a moment’s silence to honor a great warrior,” the speaker implored.
I was not inside the more than 63,000-seater State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where Kirk’s official memorial ceremony took place. I wasn’t even in the United States.
I was in a derelict shed in the town of Boyle in the northwest corner of Ireland listening to Vincent Carroll, a doctor turned Covid vaccine conspiracist. He spent the rest of his speech ranting about the threats posed by Muslims who, in his telling, want to “change” Irish society in their image.
Carroll, who did not respond to a request for comment, was one of more than 20 speakers at the Rebels Across the Pond conference, a gathering designed to strengthen ties between conspiracists and far-right extremists on either side of the Atlantic.
The event and the rapid speed with which Kirk’s killing has become a central narrative for overseas groups show once again how influential the US far right has become on a global scale. Carroll was one of many speakers who invoked Kirk’s name during the event. Another was Eddie Hobbs, a former prominent TV presenter in Ireland who in recent years has launched a YouTube channel that flirts with conspiracy theories and now views his former employers as enemy number one.
“My job is to go for the jugular against the Irish media on my channel, and I will do that until or unless I end up like Charlie Kirk,” Hobbs told the audience, which then pleaded with him to run for political office.
Hobbs subsequently told WIRED that he doesn’t actually believe that he might be assassinated because of his beliefs.