Conspiracy theories: ‘It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are. Everyone is susceptible’

Among the protesters who gathered for the opening day of the Dáil last month was a man who loudly declared to anyone listening that Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was a “clone”.

A few weeks earlier, a small group of people who had gathered with others for the centenary of Michael Collins’s death at Béal na Bláth laughed at a soldier who collapsed while on ceremonial duty, shouting that he must have received the Covid-19 vaccine. Earlier in the year, the Freemasons’ Hall in Dublin was set alight after being daubed with anti-vaccination graffiti.

Conspiracy theories have taken a secure foothold in parts of Irish society since the beginning of the pandemic. Almost everyone appears to know someone who has developed outlandish theories about the vaccine, 5G technology or even Government “plans” to enslave or replace the Irish population.

It is very easy to mock or dismiss conspiracy theories and their followers. But it is also counterproductive and fails to understand why people fall victim to them, according to a new book from conspiracy theory researcher Aoife Gallagher (no relation). In Web of Lies: The Lure and Danger of Conspiracy Theories, Gallagher recalls how she herself, along with many others, was once taken in by the film Loose Change 9/11, a 2005 grab-bag of easily debunked September 11th myths. One of the producers of the film was Alex Jones, who would go on to become America’s conspiracy theorist-in-chief.

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“Anyone can fall into this stuff. The cognitive functions of our brains are built for conspiracy theorising,” Gallagher says. Humans crave easy answers to complex questions, and conspiracy theories can often appear to provide that.

Her book also debunks the idea that conspiracy theories are confined to the unintelligent or uneducated. More than a few doctors and scientists have come to prominence during the pandemic spreading misinformation about vaccines. Take, for example, Dolores Cahill. The former UCD professor was once a highly regarded scientific researcher. Now her views are too extreme for the Irish Freedom Party, of which she was chair before being asked to leave last year following a particularly strange rant about face masks.

Anyone can fall into this stuff. The cognitive functions of our brains are built for conspiracy theorising

“It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are, or how many degrees you have. Everyone can be susceptible,” Gallagher says. She uses the term “Nobel disease”, a reference to the surprisingly large number of Nobel Prize winners who, later in life, began to espouse scientifically unsound ideas.

False information which was spread about the HPV vaccine led to many young women contracting cancer needlessly, before a health campaign led by the late Laura Brennan helped restore public faith in the vaccine. Many others died because they believed Covid-19 was no worse than flu, including Donegal man Joe McCarron, who was severely ill with the disease when he was encouraged to leave hospital by anti-vaccine activists. Within days, he was back in hospital on a ventilator and he died not long afterwards.

Overall, Irish people have not fared too badly when it comes to falling for modern conspiracy theories. Far-right parties have been constantly rejected at the polls, and vaccination rates here remain high compared with international averages, Gallagher notes.

But there are still a lot of angry people who resent researchers like Gallagher highlighting the danger of falling down conspiracy theory “rabbit holes”. And they are not afraid to make their views known. News of Gallagher’s book has already provoked a strident response. “The forces she serves are the most evil scum on the globe and they have declared war on Ireland,” one of the louder voices declared online this week.

The matter is perhaps not helped by the fact that Gallagher’s “day job” is with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which researches disinformation campaigns and receives some funding from businessman and philanthropist George Soros – a favourite bogeyman of many conspiracy theorists.

“It’s not a fun part of the job at all,” Gallagher says, noting that she gets far more abuse than her male colleague who does exactly the same job. “But it also kind of spurs me on a little bit too.”

Falling for conspiracy theories is not altogether a new phenomenon in Ireland, Gallagher points out. As in other countries, conspiracy theories here have often gone hand in hand with hatred of those perceived as ‘the other’.

During what became known as the Limerick Pogrom – a campaign of violence, intimidation and threats against the city’s small Jewish Community in 1904 – a correspondent writing in the Jewish Chronicle recalled a mob shouting: “Down with the Jews: they kill our innocent children.”

Redemptorist priest Fr John Creagh called Jewish people “Christ-killers” and repeated the by then already well-worn conspiracy theory and false claim that they harvested the blood of Christians for their rituals. The Catholic Church had no greater enemy than the Jews, the congregation of Limerick was told, and their businesses needed to be boycotted.

Gallagher reminds us that two Jewish men were shot dead in two attacks in Dublin in 1923. The culprits were believe to be two members of the Free State Army who were never convicted. One fled to Mexico, and the other is believed to have become a member of the pro-fascist Blueshirts.

Conspiracy theories have been adapted to Irish circumstances. In the 1950s, the Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid harnessed international panic about a communist takeover to defeat Noël Browne’s Mother and Baby Scheme and, bizarrely, to make sure a visit to Ireland by Hollywood actor Gregory Peck was cancelled.

Web of Lies: The Lure and Danger of Conspiracy Theories is published by Gill Books (€18.99)