Lolek Ltd, Trading as 'The Iona Institute'

The Iona Institute is the more common name used for Lolek, Ltd., a private company established in 2006. Iona refers to the Iona Abbey, a Scottish church based on the isle of Iona, a center of Celtic mythology. David Quinn has led Iona since its founding. He is a former editor of the traditionalist Irish Catholic weekly newspaper and former religious affairs correspondent for the conservative Irish Independent daily newspaper. Quinn has written extensively against “aggressive secularism,” claiming that Christian influence on the state is seen as “illegitimate and somehow undemocratic” while at the same time feminists and socialists don’t “have to operate under similar handicaps.”

The institute is deeply embedded in the anti-LGBTQ+ movement in Europe and is adamantly against same-sex marriage and civil unions. Iona’s representatives have appeared at Agenda Europe summits, a group which has argued that Islam is an inherently violent religion, that feminism is in fact Marxism, and that declining birth rates are threatening Europe, alongside a number of well-known anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion rights campaigners and groups. In 2014, at the Munich Agenda Europe summit, Quinn moderated a discussion on the topic of marriage and “how do we need to defend it in public.” Other speakers came from well-known anti-LGBTQI+ groups, including Brian Brown, who heads the US-based World Congress of Families and is a board member of the similarly anti-LGBTQ+ CitizenGo. Another speaker was Dr. Željka Markić, leader of the Croatian anti-LGBTQ+ and conservative group U ime obitelji. The 2015 Agenda Europe event was held in Dublin, and Quinn participated, though no information is available on his activities. Iona has criticized pro-LGBTQ+ teaching in schools and pushed discriminatory ideas under the guise of religious freedom, notions originally constructed by American social conservative groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, which it praises on its website. They are generally skeptical of hate crime laws. Iona argues crime is rising, family breakdown increasing, and other social problems are caused by fewer opposite-sex marriages and a fall in organized religion. Its principals have also questioned climate change. In 2020, Twitter banned proposed ads by Iona about its work. Facebook had done the same earlier for content related to abortion.

In 2021, the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights published a report that claimed that Iona had received substantial funding from Russia to pursue an anti-gender/anti-trans rights agenda. The Fondazione Novae Terrae was identified as the immediate donor to the Iona Institute, after it had in turn benefited from €2.39 million from a Russian-Azerbaijani “laundromat” designed to channel funds to like-minded campaign groups. Iona patrons include the psychiatrist Patricia Casey, columnist Breda O’Brien, Roman Catholic priest and theologian Vincent Twomey, and Anglican bishop the Rt. Rev. Ken Clarke.