American users were responsible for the majority of posts on X mentioning the location of a recent violent protest in Ireland in recent days, data obtained by Sky News shows.
On April 25, a group of anti-immigrant activists gathered in Ireland to protest outside a site being converted into asylum accommodation near the town of Newtownmountkennedy.
Within a few hours, the scene became violent. A video recorded at night showed that a fire was lit at the scene and activists clashed with officers.
Migration to Ireland has become a focus of debate beyond the country’s borders. Prominent figures in the United States and elsewhere have frequently weighed in on social media, pushing it further into the international spotlight.
An analysis of social media data by Sky News has revealed the role played by international users in stoking division.
Posts mentioning Newtownmountkennedy
Sky News examined posts about X written between April 2 and May 1 using social media monitoring tool Talkwalker.
A search for X posts mentioning Newtownmountkennedy shows that only 75 were posted on April 24th. But on the day of the protest, April 25, that number shot up to 26,801 posts.
As social media users discussed the violent clashes the following day, the number of posts mentioning the city peaked at 53,907.
Talkwalker data shows that of the posts mentioning Newtownmountkennedy, 56.1% were from users in the United States.
Posts from users based in Ireland were the second most common, accounting for 20.9% of the total. While 9.6% of the posts came from users based in the United Kingdom.
Of the five accounts that attracted the most engagement on posts that included the term Newtownmountkennedy, three were based outside of Ireland.
The most compromised account was that of an Irish activist who posted images of the event, the second was The Liberal, an online publication in the country.
Tommy Robinson, an English far-right activist, attracted fourth place in terms of participation. In total, his posts mentioning the city received 42,500 interactions.
Use the hashtag #IrelandBelongsToTheIrish
To better understand the conversations around this topic, Sky News analyzed two hashtags commonly used in relation to anti-immigration protests in Ireland.
Use of the hashtag #IrelandBelongsToTheIrish began to increase on April 25, the day of the protest. Usage of this term continued to increase over the following days, reaching a peak of 11,420 posts on April 28.
As with mentions of Newtownmountkennedy, users outside Ireland were the authors of the majority of posts on X mentioning this hashtag, according to data obtained by Sky News. 57% were posted by US-based accounts and 24.7% by Irish users. Another 8.8% were attributed to users based in the United Kingdom.
While four of the top five accounts that attracted the most engagement on posts mentioning this hashtag were based in Ireland, the fifth belongs to Alex Jones, an American media personality and conspiracy theorist. Jones’ posts using this hashtag generated 10,700 engagements.
Use the hashtag #IrelandIsFull
The #IrelandIsfull hashtag followed a similar trend. Mentions of the term peaked on April 26, being used in 10,498 posts that day.
Once again, American accounts were the authors of the majority of posts mentioning #IrelandIsFull in the time before and after the protest.
In total, 54.4% were published by users in the United States. 28% came from Irish accounts and 8.1% came from UK accounts.
Of the five accounts that attracted the most engagement using this hashtag, all were Irish.
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