A claim was made on x.com on Friday, May 24th, that a firearm was found at the scene of the Anti-Plantation protests at Ballyogan where 9 individuals were arrested.

We at The Burkean investigated this claim and found it to be false.

One individual arrested, Sean Rush (33), was arrested after Garda brutally charged a peaceful protest akin to scenes of the RUC. He was charged under Section 9(1) of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990 for having a Stanley knife on his person.

The person who tweeted this seemed to comprehend that the word ‘Firearms’ under Section 9(1) meant a firearm was found at the scene, and appears not to have read the rest of the sentence of the section nor the charge at hand.

The individual also posted a stock image of a gun, which he does not state is a stock image, and which has mislead people into thinking that the stock image gun was a gun at the scene. If one looks at the image, you can clearly see ‘adobe stock’ written in transparent writing, along with ‘Adobe Stock #248490916’ in black font on the left side.

This tweet currently has 340 likes and 17.7k views, with no community note, showcasing a deadly example of misinformation.