Two weekends ago, I was called upon to pause and honor the memory of Charlie Kirk.

“It feels like the right thing to do, the noble thing to do, the correct thing to do, for all of us to hold a moment of silence to tribute this great warrior,” the speaker urged the crowd.

I was not inside Glendale, Arizona’s 63,000-seat State Farm Stadium, where Kirk’s official memorial service was held. I wasn’t even on American soil at all.

Instead, I stood in an abandoned shed in Boyle, a small town in Ireland’s northwestern corner, listening to Vincent Carroll—a physician who became a leading voice spreading Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theories. For the rest of his talk, he ranted about the supposed threat posed by Muslim communities, claiming they sought to “change” Irish society to match their own vision.

Carroll, who never responded to a request for comment, was one of more than 20 speakers at the Rebels Across the Pond conference, a gathering built to strengthen ties between conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists on both sides of the Atlantic.

The event, and how quickly Kirk’s killing became a core narrative for extremist groups outside the U.S., proves once again how globally influential the American far right has become. Carroll was far from the only speaker to invoke Kirk’s name that day. Another was Eddie Hobbs, once a prominent Irish television presenter who in recent years launched a YouTube channel that leans into conspiracy theories, and now counts his former media employers as his number one enemy.

“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, who subsequently begged him to run for political office.

Hobbs later told WIRED he does not actually believe he will be assassinated for his beliefs.

Boyle is an idyllic town of just 3,000 people in County Roscommon, best known as the birthplace of Chris O’Dowd, the star of Bridesmaids and Black Mirror. But since 2017, it has also been home to Mark Attwood, an Englishman who founded Live 5D Health in the town in 2023. The business’s website describes it as “a private members holistic wellness club.” Alongside mainstream offerings like saunas and steam rooms, the club provides more esoteric services such as the Orynoco Healing Pod, which the site bills as powered by “quantum healing we can’t really explain.”

Attwood is a well-known figure in online conspiracy circles, hosting a popular video podcast and Substack where he covers everything from QAnon to the supposed threat demons pose to everyday life. Leveraging his connections in this space, Attwood organized the event, inviting many guests he features on his show to travel to Boyle. (Attwood did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.)

On Saturday morning, after paying $170 to attend the conference, I was required to sign up for a Live 5D Health membership before receiving a wristband granting me entry to the event. Inside the club, among the alternative treatments on display, was the Pure Body Extra detox treatment that anti-vax communities have long claimed can treat autism—despite the product’s manufacturer stating clearly on its website that it is “not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”

The event’s location, kept secret over fears of counter-protesters, turned out to be a covered beer garden and music venue for a local pub on the banks of the River Boyle, just a few minutes from Live 5D Health. A local resident told me the space had previously hosted a range of events, including a professional chainsaw workshop.

Before the event began, attendees milled about outside, browsing wares and services from visiting vendors. I spoke to Louis Sexton, who was selling black stone medallions under the brand Atlantis Round Towers of Eire. He claimed the items boost energy and focus, adding he located the special stone using instruments he collected during his career working in the nuclear energy industry. A woman standing next to me quickly handed over €150 ($180) for three medallions.

Further down the vendor table, other attendees chatted with Martin, a representative from the PanTerraVida Private Society, a sovereign citizen-style organization. It remained unclear if anyone signed up for the group during the event, and Martin did not respond to a request for comment.

Inside the hall, attendees filled rows of white folding chairs that would have looked more at home at a wedding reception. The crowd was split roughly evenly between men and women, and while the average age was definitely over 50, around two dozen attendees were in their twenties. Amulets, gemstones, and bare feet were common sights, alongside one woman wearing a green “Make Ireland Great Again” baseball cap.

Most attendees were from Ireland, though there was one woman from Scotland’s east coast, a small group from Germany, and another woman from the Netherlands.

At the front of the hall, which Attwood said he had cleansed with sage the night before, a stage was outfitted with a large-screen TV and flanked by big speakers. At the front of the stage, someone hung a T-shirt bearing the phrase “Hey Satanists, Go Fü¢% Yourselves.”

Also on the stage was a device purported to emit scalar waves, aligned with an unproven pseudoscientific claim that invisible energy can heal a wide range of health conditions.

Attwood opened the conference by sharing his own supposed experiences with demonic forces, including a claim that while he chopped vegetables in his kitchen, someone used “voice to skull” technology to beam a command into his head telling him to “kill your children.”

Over the next seven hours, with no breaks, one speaker after another took the stage to spread wild claims about child sex trafficking, global elites controlling the world, anti-trans rhetoric, and the coming Rapture—though not the one that was predicted to arrive within days of the conference.

Jana Lunden, an anti-trans activist from America now living in Ireland, told the crowd “the tsunami of what is happening in America is coming over to Ireland.”

As an example, she claimed she recently met in Dublin with Kimberly Fletcher, head of the far-right activist group Moms for America, which has close ties to former Trump administration officials. Lunden said the pair discussed her leading an Irish chapter of an international women’s movement, and added she would soon travel to Washington, DC—where, she said, she would “hopefully” not need a bulletproof vest. She also claimed a meeting at the White House was a possibility.

(Lunden and Moms for America did not respond to requests for comment.)

Following Lunden on stage was Fergus Power, a prominent Irish far-right agitator who was named via parliamentary privilege by an Irish lawmaker who implied he was among those who incited the November 2023 Dublin riots.

He told the audience that “God has chosen me for this battle” and that he would not stop until “every indigenous man, woman, and innocent Irish child in this country truly knows the meaning of the word freedom.”

Power, who is followed on X by disgraced former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn, has been at the forefront of the far right’s recent anti-migrant campaign, which demands Ireland be preserved for the Irish. He failed to note the irony that the conference was organized by an Englishman, and the previous speaker was an American living in Ireland. (Power agreed to answer questions from WIRED but did not respond after the questions were submitted.)

At this point, the event was briefly disrupted by a small counter-protest outside, where two local activists highlighted that Attwood had promoted a toxic bleach solution as a cure to his followers. Power and fellow far-right activist Philip Dwyer confronted the two protesters and asked if they were trying to get Attwood killed, just like Kirk. Dwyer declined to answer WIRED’s questions about his comments but called this reporter a “communist left-wing radical.”

Back inside, Attwood laughed off the protesters, and a later speaker referred to them as “clones.”

Eventually, after mystic Honey C Golden told everyone that “The Matrix was a reality show” and that she doesn’t “really believe in time,” it was time for Lewis Herms, a fringe candidate for California governor, to take the stage.

Herms, who gained popularity through his online Screw Big Gov platform, is running as an independent conservative and is one of almost 70 people who have filed statements of interest to run for California governor. Calling himself an “anti-politician,” Herms slammed the GOP for refusing to talk about “child trafficking,” “election fraud,” or the influence of “Big Pharma.”

While Herms has chosen not to hire a campaign manager—arguing it would make his campaign inauthentic—he did claim he is already working with a network of allies.

“I'm very proud to say a lot of RFK Jr.’s team is already working with us,” Herms said. “And they already label our team Super MAHA because we're looking for different modalities that we can bring back to California and bring to a whole other level than he’s even doing it right now.”

Herms and Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment.

Herms received a standing ovation at the end of his nearly 45-minute speech, even though most attendees were already very cold by that point. But even after dark fell outside, there was still one more speaker left: Janine Morigeau, a Canadian tarot card reader.

Just as the day had opened with invocations of Kirk’s name, so it ended. “Is Charlie Kirk really dead?” an audience member asked, drawing an excited reaction from the rest of the crowd. Morigeau drew half a dozen different cards and quickly concluded that the person seen being shot on camera was not actually Kirk at all.

“Whatever they were doing there was likely a white hat op, because it’s to the benefit of humanity,” Morigeau said before adding mysteriously: “I don’t know if even the real Charlie Kirk was who we thought he was.”