A VIDEO THAT has spread widely on social media was accompanied by incorrect claims that it showed Muslim men selling real guns outside a mosque in Tallaght, Dublin.

The video was not filmed outside a mosque, and gardaí said they investigated the case and determined the rifle seen in the video was an imitation gun.

In the video, one man removes an apparent weapon from the boot and shakes the hand of another man. He then aims what appears to be a rifle at the wall, before handing it to another man on his right. The third man holds it up and he and the first man exchange words.

“3 Muslim men take guns from the back of a car outside a mosque in Tallaght,” reads one typical example post description posted to X on 31 August. It has been seen more than 1,300,000 times.

Other versions of the claim have been shared on Facebook and Instagram more than a thousand times.

Versions are also available on TikTok and YouTube, where one 1 September video says that the video show foreigners “coming over here to kill us”.

One of the men in the video is wearing a jacket with Arabic writing on it.

There is no other evidence in the video to suggest the background of the accompanying men.

In either case, the footage was not filmed at, beside, or behind a mosque. Nor are either locations within sight of each other. 

A door shutter, changing brickwork, as well as a fence and its supports seen in the video confirm its location.

The footage was filmed in a car park outside a takeaway in the Hibernian Industrial Estate in Tallaght.

There is a mosque in that same estate, but neither it nor the larger building it is based in are adjacent to where the footage was filmed.

Gardaí yesterday said they are aware of a video circulating on social media “purporting to show an exchange of firearms in Dublin”.

“An Garda Síochána has established that no illegal firearms were involved in this matter – these were replica (airsoft) guns,” gardaí said.

Airsoft rifles are legal to sell and own, provided that they have a power rating of less than one joule — over this limit, they are treated like real guns.

One joule is about the amount of energy an apple falling one metre and colliding with the ground would make.

However, there are restrictions on carrying or displaying airsoft guns openly in public.

A register for dealers in “realistic imitation firearms” such as airsoft guns is currently being established.

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