The complex interplay between utopian and dystopian currents in Irish politics and society in recent decades has been starkly reflected in recent ustopian Irish film and literature, particularly texts that adopt a speculative aesthetic to imagine Ireland under authoritarian or pseudo-fascist regimes. This essay will focus on David Freyne’s film The Cured (2017) and Paul Lynch’s novel Prophet Song (2023), investigating how both conjure a near-future Ireland in the midst of a terrifying drift towards ideological extremism and dystopian socio-political structures. The Cured, set in Dublin, offers an original twist on the zombie genre by focusing on a group of people (“the Cured”) who have been cured of a zombie virus and who are now beginning their post-pandemic life through re-integration with the non-infected population. The brutal treatment of this community by intolerant sections of the public and the larger police-state apparatus invokes the fate of refugees in contemporary Ireland (especially under Ireland’s Direct provision system) and also the broader refugee crisis within Europe. Prophet Song, also set in a dystopian near-future Dublin, relates the disturbing rise of a right-wing political group called the National Alliance party after an undefined national crisis. The narrative powerfully explores the gradual dismantling of Ireland’s democratic structures and the total seizure of power by the National Alliance party and their secret police. As with The Cured, Prophet Song casts light on how the interaction of dystopian and utopian forces have fundamentally shaped Ireland’s present politics and how they might shape them in the decades to come.