CLAIMS SHARED LAST night that suggested a man was arrested on O’Connell Street in Dublin for brandishing a gun turned out to be untrue.
Several versions of the claim circulated online, often accompanying a video showing the “gun”, which suggested that the man was not Irish and that it showed how Dublin has become “lawless” due to “open borders”.
However, the gun, in reality, was just a toy.
“Dublin is not safe,” a tweet from the site TheLiberal.ie reads. “Just your typical Monday afternoon in central Dublin where a gun is taken in broad daylight #IrelandIsFull”.
The hashtag #IrelandIsFull is regularly used by anti-immigration activists.
TheLiberal.ie also posted video clips including that zooms in on a blurry object that resembles a revolver. In another, a witness describes the object as a “handgun”.
A tweet viewed more than 40,000 times said (in all caps): “Foreign national allegedly caught with a hand gun in Dublin city.
“This criminal cartel in the guise of a government have to go”. The tweet also used the hashtags #IrishLivesMatter and #éireBelongsToTheIrish.
Other tweets referencing the incident were explicitly racist or implied that multiple foreigners had recently been found carrying guns in Dublin.
Posts claiming the gun was real were also found on Facebook and Instagram, though in significantly lower numbers.
However, the gun was a toy and not a real firearm.
“An intoxicated male in possession of what appeared to be a suspected firearm was arrested at the scene and he is currently detained at a Garda station in the North city centre,” the Gardaí said in a statement.
Other commentators also said that the incident had led to a Luas tram in the area also being stopped, with some saying that the suspect had bordered the tram.
However, Luas services across the city had been disrupted due to a power failure. including the entire green line which runs down O’Connell Street.
Gardaí said enquiries into the incident are ongoing.
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