Young America’s Foundation (YAF) hosted its 41st annual National Conservative Student Conference (NCSC) July 29 to August 3, 2019, bringing more than 1,300 participants together to learn from leading figures of the Conservative Movement. These students came from 37 states, the District of Columbia, and four countries.

Following the week long conference, several Irish students in attendance were blindsided by attacks from a reporter with the Irish Independent under a headline calling their attendance at NCSC “entirely inappropriate.” The piece goes on to quote attacks against the Irish students and Young America’s Foundation for mainstream conservative stances on today’s issues quoted as “regressive positions,” by the Independent. Even more absurdly, Irish media are now shamefully alleging that YAF’s National Conservative Student Conference has a “commonality” with the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton over the weekend.

Additionally, other journalists piled on with their own ad hominem attacks and calls for the students to lose their jobs. Among those endorsing the intolerant and baseless claims about Young America’s Foundation is MEP Maria Walsh, who liked a tweet calling YAF “a horrific hate-filled organisation” and demanded a resignation from one of the Irish students in attendance.

The fact that anyone in Ireland is so threatened by a handful of students attending YAF’s flagship conference is a testament to these intolerant individuals’ weakness and insecurity in their own ideas. 

The Irish students at NCSC were attending in their personal capacity—anyone would be honored to hear from and interact with America’s leaders, including Vice President Mike Pence, the Honorable John Bolton, Senators Marsha Blackburn, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and Ted Cruz plus Mia Love, Lila Rose, Michael Knowles, and Liz Wheeler, among others.

In addition to this year’s distinguished speakers, NCSC has been addressed by the likes of President Ronald Reagan, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman along with a Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader over the past four decades.

“The intolerance of the Left clearly knows no borders. The fact that Members of European Parliament or leaders from Ireland would attack a group of students for striving to broaden their intellectual horizons and learn from some of America’s leading decision makers is pathetic,” remarked YAF Spokesman Spencer Brown. “These students—and all those who took time out of their summer to learn and engage in a true free and open exchange of ideas—ought to be applauded, not demonized or threatened. Furthermore, the attempts by Irish media to sling baseless accusations and politicize a tragedy in the United States is disgusting.”

Young America’s Foundation has a long history of inviting students from around the world to participate in its conferences as YAF advances its mission to reach the rising generation with the principles of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and traditional values.

Young America’s Foundation looks forward to inviting even more students from Ireland and other countries to attend the next National Conservative Student Conference.