Gardaí 'keeping watching brief' for far-right violence following Belfast stabbing

Emergency services attend to a Glider bus, set on fire by protesters, on the Newtownards Road in east Belfast, as disorder flared on Tuesday. Picture: PA

Gardaí are “keeping a watching brief” for any violence or far-right activity following the Belfast stabbing.

They are also understood to be conducting inquiries as to the movements of the suspect while in Dublin and what, if any, interactions he had with gardaí or justice authorities.

They will seek to identify, and speak to, any associates of the man and assist the PSNI in any way they can.

Far-right influencers have been active online since Monday night, sharing content about the stabbing and linking it to white supremacist and anti-migrant narratives.

Calls have been made online for protests to be held at Garda stations and IPAS centres across the country.

Some far-right influencers travelled North to protest on Tuesday, with one well-known activist livestreaming there in the evening and charging for his content.

Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson, and Conor McGregor have all weighed in on the incident with incendiary and white supremacist comments.

Some anti-migrant voices in the UK shared videos from airports as they travelled to Belfast to protest.

Completely false information was shared on social media platforms, including that the victim was a child and had been killed.

A video of the attack was shared millions of times on platforms, despite it breaching those platforms’ terms of service by sharing extreme violence and an attempted murder.

Both X and Meta had the video of the attempted murder shared widely on their platforms.

A video calling for people to protest in Belfast, in which it was stated that men over 18 should be "ready to fight or be arrested", was also shared widely, even though content promoting violence is not supposed to be shared on social media platforms.

Online platforms and their role in fomenting violence and unrest has again been raised as a serious concern, one expert who monitors the far right told the Irish Examiner.

Although they had seen calls for protests across Ireland, they did not expect major unrest in the Republic on Tuesday night.

Many workers in Belfast were sent home from work early on Tuesday due to fears over potential riots, with overt warnings made online for businesses to close in the evening.