The threats are no longer abstract. In recent weeks, Tánaiste Simon Harris and his family were targeted with bomb hoaxes, kidnap threats and explicit intimidation that forced Gardaí and Interpol to step in. Across the Atlantic, Americans watched live as conservative activist Charlie Kirk was gunned down while carrying out his work in Utah. And four years ago this month, British MP Sir David Amess was murdered during a constituency surgery in Essex, stabbed 21 times in an attack that shocked Westminster and his local community. 

The pattern is clear and it's getting worse: politicians and their families are becoming targets in a new wave of violence that blurs the line between online rhetoric and real-world attacks. The cost is measured not just in lives lost but in the growing fear that public service itself is becoming a deadly risk. 

In today’s podcast, Ciara Doherty speaks to Katie Amess, daughter of the late Sir David Amess. From her home in California, she reflects on the trauma of losing her father, the unanswered questions about why he was left vulnerable, and her campaign for accountability from the British authorities. She also warns that the same failures within terrorist monitoring and complacency about policing she saw in the UK are now mirrored in Ireland and the US. 

This episode examines the rising tide of political violence — from Westminster to Dublin to Washington — and asks whether democracies can protect their representatives without sacrificing openness and accessibility. Four years on from her father’s killing, Katie Amess argues that leaders must not look away, because without systemic reform, the attacks will not stop.