How misinformation took hold in the aftermath of Carlow shooting

RTÉ News​

a day ago

Just after 6pm on Sunday 1 June in the centre of Carlow Town a 22-year-old man discharged a firearm inside a supermarket at the Fairgreen Shopping Centre.
The man later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was the sole fatality.
While there was understandable panic in the shopping centre, it was amplified online by false claims, misinformation, and disinformation about the number of victims and nature of the incident.
The only other person physically hurt was a young girl who sustained a minor leg injury while fleeing the scene. She was treated by ambulance personnel and later brought home by family members.
In the hour after the incident prominent individuals online claimed falsely that a child had been shot, that the gunman was a foreign national, and that the incident was a terror attack with multiple casualties.
Some of these claims first appeared on online accounts with small followings. Others were amplified by prominent anti-immigration campaigners, at least one of whom travelled to Carlow to film the scene.
What followed was a fast-moving and often chaotic swirl of information, in which rumour outpaced fact, and where the Gardaí ultimately felt compelled to issue unusually detailed public statements to try to calm public concern and set the record straight.
Here's how that narrative took hold, step by step.
The first claims appear
Gardaí received multiple reports of shots being fired in the Fairgreen Shopping Centre shortly after 6:15pm on Sunday evening.
Armed Garda units responded to the scene, and members of the public were quickly assisted to leave the area.
While some local media, including radio station KCLR 96FM, had begun reporting on the incident as early as 7:05pm — noting that Gardaí were dealing with an incident and that shots were believed to have been fired — the first official Garda statement didn't come until 7:27pm.
In it, Gardaí said the area had been evacuated and specified that there was no "further concern for public safety."
The statement also urged anyone who had recorded footage of the incident "not to share it on social media platforms or messaging apps, but instead to provide it to Gardaí at Carlow Garda Station."
It was an early indication of concern about a narrative that was already beginning to spiral online.
In the period between the initial incident and the first Garda statement, a trickle of posts on X began to appear — mostly expressing confusion and concern about what had happened.
Before long, speculation was spreading rapidly across social media.
By around 6:51pm, some users were falsely claiming there were multiple shooters.
At 7:05pm, a commenter on a fringe online forum claimed the incident was a "terror attack" and that the gunman had been "shot dead."
Gardai would later specify that the gunman was a white Irish male, however the commenter inferred the person was non-white, saying "gunman shot dead. Have we been given his colour chart number yet?"
By 7:13pm, others on X were alleging that a nine-year-old had been shot in the leg and that Gardaí had returned fire on an attacker, neither of which was true.
One user posted around the same time claiming they'd heard "reports" of up to five injuries resulting from the shooting.
Videos were soon circulating, in one filmed outside the shopping centre a voice could be heard saying "they f**king shot him down," adding to the confusion.
At 7:20pm, Cork-based Derek Blighe the founder of the nationalist and immigration-focused 'Ireland First' party, weighed in on X.
"Unconfirmed Reports of a mass shooting in Carlow," he wrote, "apparently 7 people including a child have been shot."
In a video posted alongside the caption, Mr Blighe — who has been unsuccessful in several recent elections — speculated that the individual responsible had "been shot dead."
His video also included a screengrab of a Facebook comment thread showing incorrect information about the incident, including that a nine-year-old had been shot.
Mr Blighe commands a sizeable online following and regularly posts during high-profile incidents.
Minute-by-minute analysis of posts on X containing the word 'Carlow' at the time shows a marked increase in activity following his comment.
Gardaí issued the aforementioned first public statement providing the initial account of the incident shortly after.
But the statement, that said there was "no further concern for public safety," did little to stem the spread of rumour.
At 7:31pm, a user on X posted that: "rumours are a migrant went into the shopping center and started shooting."
At 7:35pm, online outlet TheLiberal.ie, known for publishing hardline and often sensationalist content, posted to its near 70,000 followers that "Gardai appear to have shot an active shooter at a Carlow Shopping Centre."
It followed up with a series of posts including one saying: "A 9-yr-old child has been shot during the crossfire."
Traditional media sources began reporting on the incident soon after.
Some local media had shared brief updates on social media earlier in the evening, but most outlets held off until Gardaí released their first official statement at 7:27pm.
RTÉ News published its first online story at 7.40pm, reporting that a man had died and that a child had been injured.
The report added that details of the incident remained "unclear" but that it appeared "a man fired a number of shots," and that it appeared the man had died as a result of "self-inflicted" gunshot wounds.
Despite these emerging reports, false information continued to be shared elsewhere for hours.
Shortly after at 8pm, Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League, began amplifying false claims about the incident, saying "Multiple reports of a suspected terror attack in Carlow, Ireland. Gunman shot dead by Gardaí."
Robinson, who was jailed in the UK for contempt of court in October after repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee, was released from prison last month.
He has previously posted inflammatory claims related to events in Ireland, often amplifying false or unverified information.
Despite the posts from Mr Blighe, TheLiberal.ie, and Robinson being inaccurate, they remain online more than a week after the incident.
Influencers on the scene
As speculation intensified online, Philip Dwyer, an unsuccessful candidate in the most recent general election and self-styled 'citizen journalist', travelled to Carlow to film outside the Fairgreen Shopping Centre.
In a live video stream, which started at 8:27pm, Mr Dwyer approached frontline emergency service personnel and asked them how many casualties there have been.
When they declined to answer, he told viewers that "the next thing they'll be going around in their LGBT fire engines." He later accused them of "belligerence."
Earlier that day, he had been livestreaming from an anti-immigration protest in Clonmel. That stream drew just 6,000 views. His Carlow stream, filmed hours later amid public fear and confusion, has since been viewed more than 80,000 times.
On his social channels, Mr Dwyer includes links inviting followers to donate to his mission to "expose Ireland." He also offers a subscription service, with an 'Ultra Tier' option of up to $100 a month to help him "expose the madness."
The official response
A second Garda statement was issued at 9pm on Sunday, confirming that the gunman was a white Irish male who was known to Gardaí and had died at the scene.
It was notably specific, appearing to be partly an attempt to address misinformation by countering circulating claims.
The statement also gave media outlets more verified details to report.
RTÉ News followed up its earlier online coverage in the Nine O'Clock News bulletin after the second Garda statement was issued.
Again, even with verifiable information now widely available about the incident, rumours continued to spread.
Users like Mr Blighe repeated unverified claims about explosives and tactical gear in a post on X at 9:07pm.
International escalation
While the volume of posts about Carlow peaked around 8pm, the reach — the number of people viewing and engaging with those posts — continued to climb, peaking at 10pm.
As with previous incidents, the Carlow shooting revealed a pattern in how information and misinformation now spreads.
In the crucial early hours, the facts often become secondary, with online figures racing to insert themselves into the narrative before the full picture emerges.
And as the night wore on, accounts with international followings began wading in to the discourse.
One of the most widely shared falsehoods came from the account @CilComLFC, which regularly posts Ireland-related anti-migrant content, and has recently been amplified by X owner Elon Musk.
At around 10:50pm, it shared a video of Gardaí responding to an unrelated incident weeks previously in Dublin city centre, alongside a caption containing terminology which would be familiar to a US audience.
"Today's Shopping Mall Massacre, which saw a 9-year-old girl shot by a man who had explosives strapped to his body, has enraged the General Public," the post said.
The post, though entirely false, was viewed more than 5.7 million times.
The aftermath
By Monday afternoon, the facts had settled. At 12:30pm, Gardaí issued their fourth statement, setting out in detail what had occurred.
It confirmed that the gunman was a 22-year-old Irish man who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No Garda had discharged a weapon.
Additionally, it said that a bottle containing an unknown substance was found on the deceased, prompting the involvement of the Defence Forces' Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team.
The gunman
It later emerged that the man with the weapon, named Evan Fitzgerald, was on bail having been arrested last year as part of a Garda investigation into the sale of firearms on the dark web.
He had been facing 13 charges related to firearms, ammunition, and explosives, and was granted bail with Garda consent under strict conditions. The Director of Public Prosecutions has since directed that the charges be withdrawn.
On Tuesday morning, during a sitting of Naas District Court, Judge Desmond Zaidan addressed what he described as "sensational headlines" about Fitzgerald having been out on bail at the time of the shooting.
While that was true, he said, crucial context about the court's limited power to deny bail in such cases was omitted from much of the reporting.
His comments came after several outlets highlighted the bail decision in their headlines, but did not always explain that consent from Gardaí meant a judge had no discretion to refuse it.
"Once gardaí consent to bail, the court cannot go beyond that — remember that," he said.
Bail had been granted to Fitzgerald on consent in March 2024.
"This judge or no judge in Ireland has the power to go behind that… They'd be running to the High Court if I did," he added.
"Please report sensibly. Please tread carefully." The judge's comments were themselves widely reported on by media outlets.
Judge Zaidan said he felt compelled to set the record straight after reviewing court recordings with his staff.
Swirl of confusion
In a matter of hours, a shooting incident involving a single gunman and no victims of gunfire became the subject of widespread misinformation, with false claims spreading faster and further than verified facts.
Despite multiple Garda statements, speculation continued to dominate online.
The Carlow shooting was a moment of real panic. But it also showed how quickly events can be reshaped online, often before the full picture is known.