No evidence Irish army intervened in riots after knife attack
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 29, 2023 at 20:49
- 5 min read
- By AFP USA
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"The treacherous Irish government has called the army on its own people," says Ashlea Simon, chair of the far-right Britain First party, in a November 23, 2023 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The post includes an image of army vehicles supposedly in the streets of Dublin that same night.
Similar claims circulated elsewhere on X.
A mob of an estimated 500 people rampaged through central Dublin on November 23 after three children were hospitalized over a knife attack outside a school. A five-year-old girl was left in critical condition.
Authorities say unconfirmed reports that the stabbings were carried out by an "illegal immigrant" sparked the disorder. The violence, which resulted in dozens of arrests, started when agitators broke through a police cordon around the scene of the attack, setting buses and trams alight and looting shops.
Irish police were out in force November 24 to prevent a repeat of the rioting, but the picture shared online does not show the military joining the effort.
"Images circulating of Defence Forces vehicles in Dublin City Centre are not from this evening, but from a separate routine operation and have no connection to this evening's events," the Irish Defence Forces say in a November 23 post on X (archived here).
"We ask everyone to be sensitive to the spreading disinformation, and to take care."
Different locations
Local residents said on X (archived here and here) that the image circulating online shows an area in Terenure, a suburb south of Dublin's city center.
Using Google Maps, AFP geolocated the street corner where the photo was taken -- about three miles away from where police officers formed a cordon the night of the riots (archived here and here).
The Irish Defence Forces press office told AFP in a November 29 email that while it could not "confirm the exact time that those vehicles were out," the image shared on social media is not in "any way connected to the events of the evening."
"The Defence Forces conduct routine driving and training exercises both in Dublin City and beyond very regularly," a military spokesperson said. "Terenure is close to Cathal Brugha Barracks and is also on the route from our training area in the Glen of Imaal to Cathal Brugha Barracks, and military vehicles in this part of the city is a regular occurrence."
AFP could not independently verify the origin of the photo shared online, but AFP journalist Peter Murphy said there were no army vehicles at the scene of the riots on November 23.
"I roamed quite widely around the trouble spots between 6:30 pm when the riot broke out and 9 pm approximately and did not see any military vehicles," Murphy said November 27. "There were no credible reports or evidence of such vehicles being deployed that night."
More unrelated visuals
The tank photo is not the only visual that circulated out of context following the Dublin riots.
A video claimed to show the violence actually depicts a pro-Palestinian protest (archived here) during the 2023 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York City.
Another photo purportedly showing the unrest first surfaced months before the knife attack. It depicts a counter-protest in Dublin during the February 2023 Ireland for All march, which mobilized tens of thousands of people (archived here, here, here and here).
AFP has fact-checked other misinformation about Ireland here.
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