ONGOING TENSIONS OVER a proposed Orange Order march in Portadown, Co Armagh, have led to misinformation online. This includes claims by fringe commentators that the march was a purposeful tactic to stop people talking about immigration.

Protesters have blocked Garvaghy Road since Sunday, which has led to the DUP accusing Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill of breaking the law, potentially putting the Stormont power-sharing arrangement under threat.

The PSNI announced today that they had opened a criminal investigation into the protests against the march, though whether the law would side against O’Neill is not so clear-cut.

Other claims that have been shared during the stand-off are easier to judge.

The dispute has also led to an AI-generated image being shared on Tuesday night by Belfast City councillor and deputy leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice party (TUV), Ron McDowell.

McDowell had in fact spoken at a rally held that night beside Garvaghy Road in support of the Orange Order.

However, a now-removed post showing a huge, densely packed crowd watching him speak attracted scrutiny on social media and by news outlets, with many noting the uncanny and blurred figures seen in the crowd, often typical of characters in AI pictures.

Screenshots show that McDowell’s post had been liked more than 1,400 times and shared more than a hundred times in the first four hours it was published.

However, McDowell admitted today that the image he had shared purporting to show him speak before a huge crowd was generated by Artificial Intelligence.

In his post, McDowell said that he had only posted the AI-generated photo for “entertainment” and claimed that he had actually spoken in front of about 500 people (both the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish News reported estimates of a crowd of 200, though we are unable to independently confirm these figures).

McDowell also blamed the “pathetic” BBC for “trying to deflect” by covering the story.

Discussion points

Other groups online have argued that this whole controversy has been a manufactured distraction.

“They’ve been playing us all along!!!” reads a Facebook post shared more than 480 times since it was posted on 27 September by an account called Our Northern Ireland Voice.

“Whilst all eyes are on Drumcree, I’ve now had two separate reports from eyewitnesses claiming they both saw suspicious activity at the docks today, with what looked like large numbers of migrants exiting a Stena Line ferry into approximately 12 coaches waiting for them.”

The PSNI and Stena Line said that they had no knowledge about a group of migrants coming in through Belfast Port that day. Stena Line also noted that there were “a lot of tours travelling at the moment”, though could not determine a match based on the information given.

The UK Home Office did not respond to inquiries, though a separate press release published on 29 September noted that it has recently made scores of arrests in a crackdown on illegal immigration at the Irish border. It contained details of how extra patrols had been in effect between 22 and 24 September at UK ports. Four Romanian men were arrested during that time by Belfast Harbour Police after counterfeit products were found in their vehicle. 

A screenshot of this migrant ferry claim was further spread on X, where it was posted by Kirk Loco, an anti-immigration commentator who was before the courts last year charged with making false claims that an asylum seeker based at an Ipas centre had exposed himself on a bus to a teenage girl.

“A very large group of illegal migrants have been dumped into the six counties,” reads his post later that same day.

“It makes sense now why all the Socialist parties attended today,” he continues, saying they have “once again facilitated the replacement”.

The Great Replacement is the name of a conspiracy theory which claims that a group of clandestine, powerful elites is orchestrating the replacement of the native people of Europe with non-white immigrants.

Many posts on the Our Northern Ireland Voice page reflect similar views, saying that the march was a “formulated distraction to deflect from the real issues”, which it said was “the establishment and the 3rd World invaders pillaging, raping our women & children and murdering along the way to eventually replace the white Christian people of Europe, the UK & Ireland”.

Before the stand-off over the march, the page, which has more than 43,000 followers, consistently posted inflammatory anti-immigrant content. These included claims that mosques were not places of worship, but were rather “military bases and forward operating outposts… ALL OF THEM”.

The parade dispute, largely dividing along nationalist and loyalist lines, was just the latest to be used by the page as fodder to complain about immigration.

The page was also one among many to claim anti-immigration causes had finally bridged the divide between the nationalist and unionist communities.

Something of a counterclaim had also spread online — that the Orange Order purposely inflamed tensions following a very successful Fleadh Cheoil festival this year in Belfast, which saw participation and featured bands from the loyalist and unionist traditions.

Other speculation that the march was a distraction, noted that it has eclipsed some coverage of the conviction of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson for rape and sex abuse.

However, even if the event is being used as a distraction, it is unclear how it could have been planned as one. The controversies over the parade route have raged for years, and permission was only granted due to a confluence of decisions by the Orange Order, the PSNI, the Parades Commission, and the High Court.  

Dublin-based politicians

TDs from the Dáil who attended the protests have also been targeted by anti-immigration groups.

Images of Paul Murphy on the Garvaghy Road were shared along with condemnation.

“These Dublin gobshites going up North to stand against a group of orange invaders while the whole island is flooded with brown invaders,” read one 28 September post that attracted more than 645 likes on Facebook.

Another post made that day by an anti-immigration group contained an AI-generated image of Murphy wearing a dress and feather boa — the latest in a series of similar AI-images by that group.

However, perhaps the most easily debunked online misinformation came from a prominent British conspiracy theorist who made a video about the protests on 27 September.

“Well,” he begins, “I can guarantee you won’t see this on the mainstream media today.”

The story was widely covered by major news organisations in Ireland and the UK. 

The post received more than 94,300 likes on Instagram.

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