The whole "the Irish are just like us" agenda is predicated on a desire to consolidate the support of all white people in the UK against those of a darker hue, and it's no coincidence that the BNP is currently growing its support in Northern Ireland. Not that I would link to their website, but there is a publication currently being touted by the BNP which puts forward some crackpot theory about a common British genetic heritage that includes the Irish, and supposedly pre-dates various Saxon and Norman invasions - and claims that some huge number of people in the UK and Ireland still share this genetic heritage.

The reason for all of this, of course, if you read their propaganda, is because the BNP's current folk devil is not the Eastern Europeans, but Muslims. They are trying to convince everyone who lives in these islands that they have a common heritage which should unite against the threat of the "Islamification" of Britain.