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A PETITION AGAINST a proposed mosque on the outskirts of Letterkenny misleads about the size and style of the structure, using images of an English mosque with ten times the expected maximum capacity.
“Stop Mega mosque in Letterkenny,” a number of social media posts dating as far back as last December read. “Sign the petition.”
Such posts have garnered more than 17,000 reactions on Facebook (largely thumbs up emojis).
Clicking through the links on these posts brings users to the website of Síol na hÉireann, an anti-immigration group led by Niall McConnell.
Síol na hÉireann is not a registered political party.
The Journal has previously debunked numerous false claims spread by both McConnell and Síol na hÉireann.
“The majority of people didn’t know this was approved — that there’s a mega mosque on their doorstep,” McConnell says in a 3 December video on the Síol na hÉireann website page the link leads to.
He is referring to an Islamic Cultural Centre that was granted planning permission in May last year, on a site in an industrial area of Lisnennan, on the outskirts of Letterkenny in Co Donegal.
According to the Síol na hÉireann website, more than 27,475 people have signed the petition, though there is no way to verify this number.
In the video, McConnell is waving a fistful of leaflets he says he is distributing, featuring a picture of an imposing mosque with a dome and many minarets.
Many of the social media posts linking to the petition also feature that same image.
This image is of a real mosque, but not the one planned for Letterkenny. It shows the Grand Mosque in Bradford, a northern English city where more than 30% of the population are Muslim.
According to the mosque’s website, Friday prayers are “attended regularly by some 3,000-4,000 worshippers”. It is sometimes regarded as one of the largest mosques in Britain by prayer hall capacity, and is said to have space for 8,000 attendees.
According to the planning documents for the planned mosque in Letterkenny, the maximum number of attendees is expected to be about 150.
It should also be noted that the Letterkenny plans look nothing like the Bradford mosque, instead showing a sleek, contemporary design with some minor Islamic architectural features near the doors.
So, if the mosque is expecting a modest attendance, and has no domes or minarets, what would make it a so-called “mega mosque”? Is it a particularly large building?
It could roughly be described as being about 38 metres long and 21 metres wide, though the shape of the building is irregular, giving it a total ground floor area of 850 square meters. Although much of the building is one storey, there are toilets, storage areas, and a small library on an upstairs foyer next to the prayer hall.
This could be compared to the nearest functioning religious building, the Church of Irish Martyrs. According to aerial images, this Catholic church has a bigger ground floor area. And like the plans for the Islamic centre, it has a car park and auxiliary buildings.
Last year, The Journal debunked claims that Dublin was building “the largest mosque in the world”. That site was actually developed into homes.
The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.
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