Man (30s) arrested after car hit three cyclists in Cork
Gardaí have arrested a man aged in his 30s following a collision between a car and three cyclists in Co Cork on Wednesday night.
The collision happened shortly after 8pm on the R627, a regional road in the Westpark area of Midleton.
The Garda Press Office said the car failed to remain at the scene of the collision.
Gardaí said a man was later arrested on suspicion of drink-driving. He was released as investigations are ongoing.
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Emergency services were called to the crash site and the road was closed for a forensic examination. It has since reopened.
The cyclists were treated for their injuries, which are believed to be non-life threatening.
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Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘The country is going to the dogs': How agitators exploited the Carlow shooting
The shooting in Carlow last Sunday was shocking, but what followed online was depressingly familiar. As soon as word emerged of an incident at the Fairgreen Shopping Centre, far-right agitators surfaced online, like moths to a flame, spouting confident falsehoods before any facts were known. How could they know the details so quickly? They couldn't, but that didn't deter them. Offline, figures from the same ideological milieu travelled to the town to use the backdrop of the shooting as an opportunity to rant about immigration, the Government or the media – again, a well-established playbook that by now is both predictable and exhausting. And all details that had little to nothing to do with the incident itself. Just one hour after the incident in Carlow, Derek Blighe, formerly the president of the minor far-right Ireland First political party, posting on X, claimed – without evidence, because there was none – that 'apparently 7 people including a child have been shot'. This post has been viewed just shy of 400,000 times on the platform, but at the time of writing includes no note by X stating that it is false. Philip Dwyer, once associated with Ireland First, travelled to Carlow and livestreamed himself shouting at members of the fire brigade outside the shopping centre for not furnishing him with details about the supposed number of casualties. He then returned to a familiar topic. 'The country is going to the dogs. Everyday there's something going on … crime, mental health … migrant crime. I'm looking around me here in Carlow … good God. The diversity … the non-Irish people,' he said. READ MORE Back online, British far-right agitator Tommy Robinson posted on X that there were 'multiple reports of a suspected terror attack in Carlow, Ireland … gunman shot dead by Gardaí'. Another viral post, viewed over 200,000 times on X. Journalists, gardaí and emergency responders at the scene were berated for not releasing details about the incident fast enough. And when they did release details, they were admonished when those details didn't match the narrative circulating on social media. Carlow has quickly become another case study in how false and misleading information pollutes our online information environment, and why our democratic institutions must better equip themselves to counter this challenge. By now, we have a good grasp of the facts. Shortly after 6.15pm last Sunday, a man entered the Fairgreen Shopping Centre and fired a number of shots into the air. In the ensuing panic, a young girl suffered a minor leg injury when fleeing the scene. Outside the shopping centre, the man used his firearm again and died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No one else was shot and gardaí did not discharge their firearms. Evan Fitzgerald, from Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, walked through the Fairgreen Shopping Centre in Carlow firing a shotgun into the air The gunman was later named as Evan Fitzgerald, from Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, a 22-year-old who appeared in court last month on charges related to offences associated with purchasing firearms on the dark web last year. This was established through media reporting and garda statements, four of which were released by Monday lunchtime. In the second of those statements , gardaí confirmed the ethnicity and nationality – white Irish – of the man who died at the scene. In their fourth statement, they shared detailed information about the incident. Media reports described him as 'vulnerable'. [ Man dead after shots fired in Carlow shopping centre, Army bomb disposal team called to scene Opens in new window ] The practice of gardaí sharing such specific information regarding a suspect and an unfolding situation is unprecedented. It signals the force's attempts to combat the spread of harmful misinformation before it has potentially deadly consequences. We don't have to look too far back to recall how online misinformation and hate can fuel offline violence in the space of a few hours. Rioting broke out across the UK last summer after the Southport stabbing when anti-migrant and anti-Muslim narratives helped instigate violence, while closer to home, we all remember the Dublin riots of November 2023. More recently, police in Merseyside acted similarly in the aftermath of the car ramming incident at the Liverpool FC parade . Blighe, Dwyer and Robinson have a track record of portraying their respective countries as places of lawlessness, neglected by authorities and riven by (typically migrant) crime. They opportunistically jump on any purported incident they believe – usually incorrectly – reinforces this sentiment and, in the words of Steve Bannon, accordingly 'flood the zone with shit' online. It is, at its heart, part of a wider nativist, populist strategy employed internationally by the far right to appeal to the public for political support, monetised subscriptions and broader cultural influence. While evidence was still being gathered, none of these figures could have been aware of what had transpired. Yet they – and many others – worked swiftly to fill an information vacuum that develops after such incidents while gardaí, local services and the media work to establish the facts. It is no coincidence that the three operate 'blue tick' accounts on X. The platform offers financial rewards for creating viral, sensationalist content, with few repercussions when that content later turns out to be wrong. These posts are then weaponised by far-right figures for their own ideological agendas, and sometimes used to exploit tragic cases such as this one. [ Carlow shooting: Taoiseach criticises spreading of misinformation and 'blatant lies' online Opens in new window ] There is an ongoing conflict between old and new media systems here. The slower, methodical practices of police and media in reporting on such incidents is rarely a match for the rapid sharing of content online that includes serious and potentially harmful claims with no factual basis. All of this signals how fundamentally broken our online information ecosystem has become. This is best encapsulated in the tiring trope that is typically found in online spaces after reports of an incident like the Carlow shooting emerge: repeated cries that the gardaí or mainstream media are deliberately not releasing information about an incident. Delay is interpreted as deceit and fact checking becomes censorship. This week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said this kind of misinformation can result in a lot of 'public disquiet' and needs to be addressed. 'There is a family in mourning right now. The level of misinformation on Sunday was quite shocking, and we can't just ignore that and say: 'Well, we don't have to do anything about that.'' This wasn't a question of freedom of speech, he said. 'I wouldn't overstate the impact on clamping down on blatant lies online as a sort of incursion or an undermining of freedom of speech.' The Carlow shooting has quickly become another reminder that unless we address these imbalances – between old and new media, the power of social media and the need to stop misinformation – trust in our core democratic principles and institutions will continue to erode. Ciarán O'Connor is a researcher and journalist who focuses on extremism and technology
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Woman tells court husband has abused her ‘many times in his sleep'
A woman who alleged that her husband of more than a decade has become increasingly abusive to the point of abusing her while he was sleeping has been granted an interim barring order against him. The woman told Dublin District Family Court she has been attacked by her husband 'many times in his sleep' further claiming that, on several occasions, she has woken to find him sexually assaulting her. She told Judge Gerard Furlong that her husband was also 'extremely abusive and controlling when he's not asleep,' saying he does not want her to work, and does not want her 'going out with anybody or seeing my family'. Her husband left their family home for several months and, after returning, his behaviour in his sleep was 'way worse' and happens every night, he said. READ MORE 'He tells me regularly that I'm mad, mental, unhinged and said that I should kill myself, that my children would be better off without me,' she said in a sworn statement. On one recent occasion, she said her husband followed her 'everywhere' including to shops, making comments about her throughout, adding that he 'humiliates' her in front of their children. She said one of her children, who is currently completing their State exams, is in a 'desperate state' and that the atmosphere in the house is 'unbearable'. the judge granted the interim barring order until a full hearing later this month, saying he did not believe a protection order would be sufficient, given the evidence heard. 'In those circumstances, I'd be asking the gardaí to remove him from the house and he's not to come back,' he said. The woman, who broke down once the interim barring order was granted, thanked him, saying the length of the order 'will be enough time to get the exams out of the way'. In a separate case, a woman who claimed her former partner had lost thousands due to gambling was granted a protection order after an alleged recent rape. The woman originally from eastern Europe, told Judge Furlong their relationship had been 'abusive from the start' but had worsened in recent months due to fights regarding his gambling addiction. 'He's lost thousands of euro,' she said, further claiming that he recently lost his entire wages shortly after being paid, first losing €200 through online gambling before losing a further €800 in city centre casinos days later. 'When he came home, he had 54c in his bank account and no money to pay the rent,' she said, adding that the gambling 'was destroying' their lives. The woman told the judge that, last week, her former partner 'became aggressive and he raped me'. She said following the incident, she tried to call gardaí but he 'shouted and commanded me to go back to bed', adding that he subsequently took her phone and placed it on his side of the bed for the night. She said she believed the rape was 'revenge' for refusing to give him money, and for arguments and her repeated refusals to have sex with him. She said after attending the Rotunda Hospital and reporting the rape to gardaí, she was brought to a women's refuge centre where she has stayed since. She fears seeing her former partner, who has called her mother in an attempt to locate her since, the woman added. The judge said the option of a barring order was available to her, which would result in him having to leave their apartment, though the woman said she could not afford to pay €1,300 in rent. He granted an interim protection order 'with no hesitation' until her case returned to the court.
Sunday World
14 hours ago
- Sunday World
Judge tells man whose partner died after festival drug use it is ‘one of the saddest cases'
The court heard that Mr Carroll and his girlfriend had attended the Forbidden Fruit festival on June 2, 2024, where they both consumed drugs A 24-year-old man whose partner died after they both took drugs following a music festival has avoided a conviction for simple possession, in what a judge described as "one of the saddest cases" to come before his court. The District Court was told that the defendant Brian Carroll has now made a commitment to living a "drug-free life". Mr Carroll, of Cedarmount Road, Mount Merrion, Co Dublin pleaded guilty to possession of MDMA and cannabis and appeared before Judge Conor Fottrell at Dún Laoghaire District Court on Wednesday. Stock image News in 90 Seconds - 7th June The court heard that Mr Carroll and his girlfriend had attended the Forbidden Fruit festival on June 2, 2024, where they both consumed drugs, while further substances were taken later at a house in south Dublin. The woman was found unresponsive later that night and died as a result. Mr Carroll had been in a relationship with the deceased for two and a half years. Gardaí who carried out a search of the house recovered cannabis worth €44, €16 of MDMA and a small quantity of cocaine. Garda Harry Poole told the court that the drugs were for personal use and were at the lower end of the scale. The court heard that Mr Carroll later voluntarily attended a garda station, gave a full account of what occurred and has not come to garda attention since. Judge Fottrell initially questioned whether the District Court had jurisdiction to hear the case, given the serious background circumstances. 'I appreciate the plea before the court today, but this is a serious matter,' he said. 'I'm not sure it's a District Court matter.' Defence solicitor Mark O'Sullivan said it was a tragic accident and argued that the case before the court concerned a minor possession matter. 'That's all the court is being asked to hear today,' he said. After considering the details, Judge Fottrell accepted jurisdiction. 'On the basis of what's before me, the circumstances are tragic. I'll accept jurisdiction.' Mr O'Sullivan told the court that Mr Carroll and the deceased had bought the drugs together, but the woman had taken more than his client. He said his client was fully cooperative, had no previous convictions, and had voluntarily presented himself to Gardaí. Letters were handed into court from Kilmacud Medical Centre and the Community Addiction Response Programme. The court heard Mr Carroll had engaged in trauma counselling following the incident, tested negative for drugs in recent months and remained in full-time employment. He had also volunteered with Little Flower Penny Dinners during the Covid-19 pandemic. The woman's father and sister were present in court. 'On behalf of my client, I extend our sympathies to the family,' Mr O'Sullivan said. 'Relations remain good between them. This was an absolute tragedy.' In a personal letter to the court, the man expressed remorse and a commitment to living a drug-free life. Judge Fottrell acknowledged the man's remorse, the steps he had taken since and the tragic nature of the case. 'This is a tragic case,' he said. 'The consequences were anything but minor. However, the value of the drugs involved is low, and there are no previous convictions". 'You've pleaded guilty, made full admissions, and taken meaningful steps since. I don't propose to impose a conviction. "This is one of the most unusual and saddest cases to come before the court. I hope you continue your recovery," the judge said, addressing the defendant. Judge Fottrell concluded the matter without a conviction, following a €1,000 charitable donation. Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme.
