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Irish Examiner
20 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Cianan Brennan: How the far right tried to hijack Carlow shooting
Online information in 2025 moves at speed. But the tragic events in Carlow on Sunday, where a gunman opened fire in a shopping centre, appear to sum up the perils of unregulated social media discourse, and what State bodies like the gardaí can try to do to mitigate it. By 12.30pm on Monday, gardaí had put out four statements regarding the shooting incident at the Fairgreen Shopping Centre in Carlow Town. The second and fourth were most noteworthy. The second arrived at 9pm on Sunday night and followed a new but increasingly familiar trend – confirming the ethnicity and nationality (white and Irish) of the gunman who was dead at the scene. This is a calculated risk to take legally, one most recently employed during the incident in Liverpool where a car struck dozens of football fans on the street. The Merseyside Police quickly and publicly identified the driver as being both white and from Liverpool. It seeks to balance the potential negatives of being so specific so early regarding a suspect's personal details, versus the upside of nipping the misinformation and narratives spreading about the incident online firmly in the bud. The fourth garda update, at 12.30pm on Monday, was extraordinary. It set out in detail many of the specifics of what had happened – including the age and ethnicity of the dead man, the fact he had died by his own hand, and that no garda had fired a shot, while the only other injury recorded was a minor leg issue suffered by a young child while running away from what was happening. Contrast that wealth of corroborated, checked information, delivered just 18 hours after the traumatic incident had occurred, with the reams of misinformation which spread online, particularly on X (formerly Twitter), in the immediate aftermath of shots being fired at the shopping centre. To list just some of the claims being made: the gardaí had shot a person with a gun, a mass shooting had taken place, seven people had died, nine people had died, a nine-year-old child had been shot, the shooter had explosive objects strapped to his body. Many of these posts got thousands of views. Absolutely none of what they claimed was true. Gardaí near the scene at Fairgreen Shopping Centre in Carlow. By 12.30pm on Monday, gardaí had put out four statements regarding the shooting incident. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Tommy Robinson, the British hard right agitator, was one of those to pass comment. So too our own far-right ideologues and failed political candidates Derek Blighe and Philip Dwyer. None of them could possibly have known what had happened, because it takes time to sift evidence and be certain about what has transpired in chaotic circumstances. But that didn't stop them. After gardaí confirmed that the deceased man was white, Blighe even had the gall to claim that "skin colour is only important when it can be used against you" on X. His point being that if the shooter hadn't been white, the gardaí wouldn't have said so. Meanwhile, his own post stating that 'apparently 7 people including a child have been shot' - posted exactly an hour after the incident, is, of course, still up. It has 332,000 views at the time of writing. 'There is a rush by members of the far right to portray such incidents under their own ideological viewpoint,' said Ciaran O'Connor, senior analyst with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 'In doing so they are knowingly contributing to disinformation around this incident given there is simply no way for first responders to establish what facts are known at a scene in that timeframe, let alone people following viral Whatsapp and social media posts from a distance,' he said. Emergency services attended the scene at Fairgreen Shopping Centre, Carlow. Photo: Niall Carson/PA The trouble is that there are simply no consequences for people pushing these false narratives. The only response is for people to be vigilant and to take everything they see posted online by unverified or untrusted actors with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, despite the gardaí's unprecedented pushback on this occasion, the information war feels like a battle that is currently being lost, and comprehensively. Read More
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
BRIAN READE: ‘Haters may try to divide us but they can never conquer our spirit'
WITH the shocked and injured still strewn across Water Street, the lies began to spew. Without a thought for the fate of dozens of casualties hit by a driver at Liverpool's trophy parade, or the fears of hundreds of thousands of others who knew loved ones were present, the immigrant-haters, far-right trolls and conspiracy theorists frantically pushed their agenda on social media as they declared it a terrorist incident. Tommy Robinson's X account called it 'suspected terror attack,' high-profile Reform UK supporter Ant Middleton deemed it a 'terrible terror-type incident' and warned: 'Do not believe anything that comes from police statements or the msm.' The leader of the British First Party, Paul Golding, fired off four posts headlined 'POSSIBLE TERROR ATTACK' while dozens more raged about uncontrolled Islamism, diversity destroying the West, Britain getting what it deserves due to opening its borders… and on and on the cesspit seethed. They were all ignorant of the truth and all extremely dangerous. And what's worse they knew it. Which was why Merseyside Police, recalling what happened last summer in Southport, rushed out the news that the alleged perpetrator was a 53-year-old white, British man. Which only further triggered the trolls as they demanded to know why the 'two-tier' police had mentioned his ethnicity. Is it because he was white, they asked? No. It's because you knuckle-scraping keyboard warriors had left them fearing another riot. But something else was happening on social media platforms in the aftermath of Monday's incident, when transport was closed down in the ensuing chaos, leaving thousands of people who had travelled to Liverpool for the celebrations, stranded. Locals were offering their phones to those without power, lifts to other towns and their spare bedrooms for those with nowhere to sleep. Nathan Johnson, along with two friends, drove 26 people to different parts of the UK and arranged rides for many others. When, in the following days, the grateful recipients offered him petrol money, he told them to donate it to food banks. John and Kerri Davies, who run J&K Travel, called in staff, mobilised four minibuses and spent six hours transporting more than 400 people across the Mersey to the Wirral, and would not take payment. Oli Fountain was one of dozens offering somewhere to stay for the night, posting on X: 'Anyone stuck in town who can't get home give me a dm, have 2 sofas people can crash on, can put the kettle on and get people warm at least.' People turned up at Lime Street railway station with food and drinks, taxi drivers offered free lifts and hospital staff abandoned their bank holiday plans and went into work. This, along with the swift actions of the emergency services, was the real story of the human response amid Monday's panic. This is the real truth about people in this country, especially in my home city of Liverpool. That most are a font of goodness who want to unite communities not divide them. The individuals and political organisations who shout loudest about being the true patriots among us are often cowardly traitors consumed with prejudice. The real patriots are those who get on with helping others without caring what colour or race they are. As the aftermath of Monday's horror showed: Heroes don't always wear capes, but villains always wear their keyboards out with hate.
The National
5 days ago
- Politics
- The National
Minorities are being blamed for failures of the UK class system
Oh, there were some workers already on strike in disputes with bosses as well as government; Birmingham bin workers, for instance. Us working-class folk should be in complete solidarity with them, but they did NOT come out on strike in response to calls from fascist fans of that con man Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the alias 'Tommy Robinson'. READ MORE: SNP call out BBC over 'unacceptable' Hamilton by-election programme Fascists did manage to assemble in various places, but they weren't 'on strike'. The number of folk who actually went on strike in response to this ridiculous call for a 'Great British Strike' was zero. From my point of view, it's not just Sir Kid Starver's regime that is corrupt, the entire 'United' Kingdom ruling class is a mass of corruption. There is widespread, justified anger. This was an attempt by fascists to harness that widespread anger for their own advancement. Their attempt ended in abject failure, but they will probably try again. Like all fascists, they seek to blame minorities for things that are in fact failures by the class system. The best way to defeat them is through challenging corrupt class rule with genuine working-class solidarity. Dave Coull Findowrie AFTER nearly a year in office, Labour's betrayal is obvious. Like under the Tories, the poor and vulnerable are again targeted. From the winter heating debacle and failure to protect the Grangemouth refinery, to the plight of the Waspi women and the war on benefit claimants along with the fishing industry, this UK Labour Government is faltering. With fuel bills soaring, especially in Scotland, and more people going hungry, the cost of living is leaving many families unable to afford the basics. Surely any Labour government should be targeting the billions lost each year in corporate tax avoidance and fraud. Indeed, instead of stealth taxes, a penny rise in income tax would bring in billions for the NHS, rail and roads; along with abandoning Trident, Britain's broken-down, American-owned, so-called independent nuclear deterrent. READ MORE: Angela Rayner cancels by-election appearance amid protests Furthermore it's actively rumoured that the UK fleet of Vanguard submarines, which carry the outdated Trident nuclear missile system only 20 minutes from Glasgow, is falling apart! These weapons of mass destruction, at huge expense, do not protect us but actually make us a target! In truth, only a richly endowed independent Scotland (in line with happy and prosperous Nordic countries), in full control of all its assets, can progress towards a fairer, greener and prosperous nation; working with the other nations of the British Isles, Europe and the world. Grant Frazer Newtonmore FOR those who have lived and practised in the 'managed decline' era of our NHS, the Auditor General of Scotland, Stephen Boyle, offered some hope this week. Against a background of continued failure of current political and senior managers to fully address excess mortality and more than half a million anxious people on waiting lists, Mr Boyle informed us this week that in order to remain 'affordable and sustainable', NHS Scotland's governance needs to be strengthened and that reform is urgently necessary. This 'reformation' has been called for from voices in the wilderness for decades now and amounts to this. The multiple levels of a self-propagating, top-down managerialism and political interference in the goal-setting and delivery of care to the sick and the worried well by doctors and nurses has to end. In addition, the constant drain on resources by inflated and non-contributory corporate salaries on health boards and the numerous parasitic panoply of legal and consultancy gravy trains linked to 'marketisation' need to be thoroughly scrutinised by disinterested experts, namely the Scottish public! READ MORE: Ukip plans for 'mass deportation' rally in Scotland 'pathetic' Once again, I and my people call for an urgent national conversation in a national health convention heavily recruited from a breadth of our citizenry and not a perfunctory 'consultation' run by the politicians and so-called experts who have overseen the evolution of the present crisis. It cannot be overstated the extent to which true national 'reformation' policies in all the domains of public services, not only the NHS, will provide a meaningful alternative to Reform UK in Scotland. In the year leading up to the Holyrood elections, I hope to see all patriotic parties provide some kind of vision for the health of the nation that heeds the Auditor General's critique of the malgovernance and mismanagement of the NHS. The well-researched and radical work of Common Weal, the non-party-political think tank, would be a good place for policy-makers to start, and multiple freedom of information requests from individual citizens about corporate remuneration, expenses, procurement, 'time and motion' studies and legal and PR expenditure in health boards could start the 'audit' process that will begin the 'reformation' that is urgently necessary. Lives literally depend on it! Dr Andrew Docherty Selkirk OUR beloved PM described the car crashing into the public in Liverpool as appalling. I've yet to hear him use that word to describe the indiscriminate bombing and starvation of a civilian population. Jim Butchart via email
Irish Examiner
7 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Irish Examiner view: Our support for the people of Liverpool
Readers have no doubt seen the horrifying footage from Liverpool when a day of celebration was abruptly turned into a terrifying experience for thousands of fans. With more than half a million people lining the city's streets to celebrate Liverpool's league title victory and watch the players parade the trophy on an open-top bus, the stage was set for a day of joy and excitement. The shocking sight of a car driving into the crowds assembled at Water St in the city ended the festival atmosphere. The terrible scenes in Liverpool will resonate with anyone who has enjoyed such sporting celebrations, as they imagine similar scenarios. The fact that Liverpool has such a large following in Ireland will deepen the impact here. Many Irish fans of the club were among the thousands thronging the streets for the parade, while others will be familiar with that part of the city from regular visits for games over the years. At the time of writing, few details have yet emerged from the incident. It has been reported that 65 people were injured, including several children, with at least four people very seriously injured. The motivation of the individual or individuals responsible remains unclear. It was notable that the authorities moved swiftly to establish the ethnicity of a person arrested soon after the incident, describing him as a 53-year-old white British man. He has since been charged with attempted murder, as well as dangerous and drug driving. There was a time not so long ago that such specificity would have been surprising, but clearly lessons were learned in Britain after the Southport attack last year, when three young children were killed at a dance class. There was widespread rioting in the UK following that attack, fuelled by online speculation which was sometimes ill-informed and sometimes manipulative and misleading. In that vein, the X account of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson — who was himself just released from prison — was quick to speculate on the possibility of a 'terror attack' in Liverpool even as the situation was still unfolding. Exploiting the terror and suffering of others is a regular tactic used by Robinson and his ilk, but this is a particularly loathsome example. All sympathy and support with the people of Liverpool at this difficult time. Housing targets The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) made one of its regular visits to Leinster House yesterday, addressing the Oireachtas housing committee. Its news was not good. The ESRI expressed deep concern about geopolitical uncertainty, estimating that the situation is twice as uncertain as the covid-19 period, and was equally gloomy about the prospect of Ireland meeting housing targets for this year. Its projection — 35,000 completions for 2025 — is higher than that of most developers, for instance, while the institute estimates that Ireland will need a staggering €7bn in investment each year to build the 54,000 dwellings required per annum for the growing Irish population. Little wonder that the ESRI describes the housing crisis as a costly one, which must be one of the most understated descriptions of all time. It was interesting to note that the ESRI attributed what it described as a 'surge' in commencements last year to a specific cause: temporary waivers of levies on development and water connections. This is worth considering in light of emergency legislation brought forward this week by minister for housing James Browne. Among the measures envisaged by the minister is a change to the law that will allow developers with just two years left on their permission to apply for an extension for up to three years. Clearly, the minister is motivated by the best of intentions in trying to deal with a problem sprawling across all aspects of Irish life. But it is deeply concerning, surely, that waiving levies and extending planning permissions are seen as possible solutions. The planning application and permission structures are in need of considerable reform, but lengthening the time periods of permissions by that much makes them all but meaningless. And waiving levies temporarily could be seen as a step closer to waiving them permanently, which would be disastrous. Many parts of the country are still dealing with the relaxation of oversight and regulation during the Celtic Tiger period. Similar action now might relieve the housing crisis temporarily, but at the risk of storing up trouble down the road. What's your view on this issue? You can tell us here Emmanuel Macron The antics of US president Donald Trump have set a high bar for surprising behaviour from world leaders, but French president Emmanuel Macron certainly rose to the challenge last Sunday. Video shot by Reuters of Macron's arrival in Vietnam showed him inside an airplane, ready to disembark, when a hand in a red sleeve appeared to push his face. Macron looked up, waved, and then left the plane with his wife Brigitte, who was wearing a red jacket. 'I was bickering, or rather joking, with my wife,' he later told reporters. 'It's nothing.' Macron added that this was not the first time people have leaped to conclusions about videos featuring him, pointing to a recent incident when some observers claimed a video showed him taking a bag of cocaine out of his pocket. His point was strengthened when the Russian foreign ministry hurried to mock him about the airplane video, with a spokesperson asking if Macron's wife was handing him a tissue. Russian insults notwithstanding, however, it was still an undeniably strange scene. Read More Irish Examiner view: The clock is ticking on housing and infrastructure projects
NBC News
7 days ago
- NBC News
Why British police raced to release details after car plowed into Liverpool crowd
LIVERPOOL, England — Images of a car plowing into a large crowd of soccer fans celebrating their team's English Premier League title win had barely made it to national newscasts when notorious right-wing voices started to call the incident a "suspected terrorist attack" on social media. The X account of Tommy Robinson, a convicted fraudster who is well known as the leader of the English far right, retweeted video of the vehicle knocking down people dressed in Liverpool Football Club's ketchup-red strip, writing that it looked "very intentional." (The posts were labeled "admin," a probable reference to the fact that Robinson did not write them himself since he was in prison at the time.) Others swiftly followed suit, opining that the driver had been motivated by Islamic extremism. Within a couple of hours, Merseyside Police released details on a suspect detained at the scene, describing him as a 53-year-old white British male from the Liverpool area. Officials also urged the public 'not to speculate on the circumstances' surrounding the incident. Within five hours, police had described the incident as 'isolated' and not being investigated as terrorism-related. The release of these details by the British police, most notably the suspect's race, was remarkably fast. For many, it was a sign of lessons learned after the 2024 Southport stabbing attack that saw the very same police force pilloried for not sharing enough information soon enough, and allowing rumors to run rampant. In this vacuum, speculation turned into calls for action, which soon bloomed into racist riots that rocked Britain in the aftermath of the deadly assault that killed three young girls, with more injured. In Southport, violent riots erupted last summer after false information shared on social media claimed the suspect in the stabbings was a radical Islamist migrant. Police were accused of failing to share accurate information on the suspect quickly enough, allowing rumors to circulate unchallenged. On Tuesday, Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram praised Merseyside Police for having 'handled the situation fantastically' in an interview with Sky News. Dal Babu, a former Metropolitan Police chief superintendent, described the force's swift release of information, including details on the race of the man arrested in the incident, as 'unprecedented.' 'I've never known a case like this before where they've given the ethnicity and the race of the individual who was involved in it,' Babu told BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday. 'I think that was to dampen down some of the speculation from the far-right that sort of continues on X even as we speak,' he said, adding that it appeared to be a lesson learned as a direct result of what happened after the Southport attack. In that case, he noted rumors swelled of the suspect being 'an asylum seeker who arrived on a boat and it was a Muslim extremist — and that wasn't the case.' In a news conference Tuesday, Detective Chief Superintendent Karen Jaundrill said the suspect had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drugs. Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims separately said police believed the man arrested had been able to follow an ambulance responding to reports of a member of the public having a heart attack, after a road block was temporarily lifted. More than 50 people were initially taken to or showed up at hospitals for treatment, with children among those hurt. Eleven people remained in the hospital for ongoing treatment, but all appeared to be in 'stable condition' and 'recovering well,' police said. Lessons learned Darrin Hooper, who traveled with his wife from Maidstone, Kent, just over 30 miles southeast of London, to celebrate Liverpool's win, praised the police's quick response on the scene as well as on social media. 'It was a good thing that they announced it straight away,' he said Tuesday as he stood among a crowd gathered on the edges of scene of Monday's incident, which had been cordoned off. 'They've just got to say it. And then it stops all the speculation,' Hooper, 60, an electrical engineer, told NBC News. Sneha Venket, who traveled to the city with her husband, a major Liverpool F.C. fan, all the way from Cologne, Germany, to join in the parade, described the events that unfolded Monday as a 'very bitter end to a very, very happy day.' Recalling the grim events of last year in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, in which a 9-year-old child and four adults were killed after a car was driven into a crowd at a Christmas market, Venket, 39, said she wasn't surprised to see speculation swirl in the aftermath of Monday's incident. In that case too, Europe's far right was quick to tap into fears around the deadly attack. Venket, who is studying screenwriting, said it was important to allow police to investigate before jumping to conclusions, but, she said, 'nowadays, it looks like society is more polarized than ever, every society.' 'I think it's just a global trend right now.'
