It has the ingredients of a Frederick Forsyth thriller: stolen gold bullion, political intrigue, betrayal and a sprinkling of Adolf Hitler.
The saga of Ireland’s far-right National party and its vault of gold bars, however, has played out more like an Armando Iannucci farce.
On 23 July tweets on behalf of Justin Barrett, the leader of the tiny anti-immigrant party, said a “considerable” amount of gold had been removed from the party’s vault in south Dublin and that Barrett had asked police to intervene. The tweets called the alleged theft despicable and traitorous. “We will emerge from this fire and trial. Heat makes iron into steel.”
Gardaí promptly retrieved the gold, estimated to be worth €400,000 (£344,000), but two weeks later it remains unclear if the gold really was stolen, who owns it, what it was doing in the vault – and whether Barrett remains the party’s leader.
“An Garda Síochána is carrying out inquiries into an allegation of theft from a premises in Dublin 4,” a police statement said on Wednesday. “These inquiries are ongoing and no further information is available at this time.”
Media reports say police believe the party owns just a small fraction of the gold, with senior party members owning the rest. Barrett said it was stockpiled in case of a collapse in currency values.
Emma Blain, a councillor with the ruling Fine Gael party, has asked the Standards in Public Office regulator to investigate reports that the National party has not filed accounts for several years nor explained funding sources. The party did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.
The National party, founded in 2016, claims Irish people are being replaced, and their identity extinguished, by immigrants in a new “plantation” sponsored by the EU, financial institutions and political elites. It has no elected representatives. Party meetings tend to attract several dozen people.
Barrett, who polled 0.7% in a 2021 Dublin byelection, and has quoted Hitler, appears to have lost his party’s support.
A message on its website on 31 July said he had been removed as president “due to an overwhelming lack of confidence from active party members” and replaced by his deputy, James Reynolds.
“I have no wish to enter an unedifying public dispute with Mr Barrett. Despite recent events, I thank him for his past service and wish him well for the future,” Reynolds said. He promised “root-and-branch reforms” to stabilise the party.
In a post on his Telegram channel, Barrett disputed suggestions he had been ousted and called the party’s statement farcical. “I was and am the president of the National party in law,” he wrote.
