Old photo of Obama's Dublin crowd misrepresented as Trump rally
- Published on October 29, 2024 at 19:55
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, Tommy WANG, AFP USA, AFP Hong Kong
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"I took this photo 3 hours ago of people lined up at Madison square garden," says an X post shared hours before Trump's rally.
Similar posts spread across X and other platforms, such as Threads and Instagram.
Former president Trump has been scrambling to quell backlash for racist rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally -- including a comedian calling Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage" -- ahead of the November 5 election against Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
While Trump did fill the nearly 20,000-seat venue in New York City, with supporters and protesters surrounding the arena, the picture circulating online is unrelated to the crowd and his campaign.
Reverse image searches revealed the photo dates to Obama's 2011 trip to Ireland and appeared at the time in outlets such as the Daily Mail (archived here). The then-president spoke in Dublin on May 23, 2011 and visited Moneygall, the village from which his maternal great-great-great-grandfather emigrated.
The caption on Getty Images -- which includes a typo in the year -- says photographer Peter Macdiarmid snapped the picture as people lined up for a security check before Obama's speech and a concert (archived here). An Irish flag is visible on the right side of the shot.
The image also shows a storefront for an internet cafe. By searching Google Maps for internet cafes near Dublin's College Green -- where Obama spoke, according to his White House's website -- AFP geolocated the picture to a section of R137 near the Temple Bar neighborhood leading up to Christ Church Cathedral (archived here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the 2024 US elections here.
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