Former Xposé presenter Aisling O’Loughlin says Dublin Halloween ‘hoax’ was a ‘set up’

O’Loughlin who once featured on the TV3 show Xposé has, in more recent years, been espousing conspiracy theories on everything from vaccines and chemtrails to people being replaced by immigrants and her suspicion that the Earth is flat.

She often singles out what she refers to as “the mainstream media” as being behind “false narratives” that are being built “to manage the public’s perception”.

She has now taken to X to ask followers: “Anyone else sniffing a set up off this one?” alongside an Irish Independent article reporting how people waited on O’Connell Street on Halloween night for a parade that was never scheduled to take place.

“Too many politicians and media types repeating the same thing – that people are too quick to believe what they read on the Internet,” O’Loughin posted. “Message: Don’t trust the Internet, trust the mainstream media/government.”

According to the article, a Halloween-themed website, that no longer features any information about the Dublin parade it had described as “a centrepiece of the city’s festive celebrations”, also listed a number of genuine events that took place across the country on Thursday night.

However, a spokesperson for the My Spirit Halloween website “highly apologised” for the article.

They described the incident as “a mistake, not a scam or clickbait”.

They said the operators of the website “are not scammers” and that sharing the incorrect information “wasn’t on purpose”.

“It was a mistake rather than hoax,” they said.

“It was our mistake and we should have double-checked it to make sure it was happening.

“If we had heard before the day that the parade was not going to happen we would have removed it, but no one alerted us. We are highly embarrassed and very sorry.”

The non-existent Dublin parade was set to follow “a well-planned route that ensures maximum visibility and excitement” between 7pm and 9pm.

“It typically starts at Parnell Square, proceeds down O’Connell Street and concludes at Temple Bar,” the website claimed, urging people to arrive early as the parade “attracts large crowds”.

Hundreds turned out to see the supposed event, before gardaí asked the crowds to disperse as “contrary to information being circulated online”, there was never any parade due to take place down the capital’s main thoroughfare.

Users believed they were sharing information about a genuine parade that was set to take place in the city centre, with one TikTok user sharing it with their own followers in a video which has since been viewed over 20,000 times.

Although a “light-hearted” example, the “hoax” parade doubles as an important lesson in how misinformation can spread online as we face into a general election.

“This is quite a humorous story at the heart of it – and certainly (did not result) in ‘chaos’ like some have said – but it does show that online misinformation can influence the public and influence people at a mass scale,” Ciarán O’Connor, a senior analyst who researches the spread of disinformation at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said.

“It’s difficult for people to distinguish between what is real and what is entirely fake on the internet. This is a fairly benign example of people who turned out for a Halloween parade, but what if this was a protest, advertising a protest in the heat of a very severe incident or an election?”

O’Loughlin, who previously covered the fashion world on Xposé, recently expressed her fears that everyone is wearing tracksuits as part of a New World Order agenda promoted by Kim Kardashian and Vogue magazine.

Combining her fashion commentary from her former role with her conspiracy mindset of today, she wrote: “Is fashion being phased out as per the New World agenda?” in an online post.

“Something has gone terribly wrong with fashion. Karl Lagerfeld must be spinning in his grave. Everyone’s wearing tracksuits. Defeat and elasticated waists go side by side.”

She hit out at celebrities for wearing tracksuits and suggested it’s all part of a deliberate plot.

“Like Hailey Baldwin Bieber, promoting the New Look for her unsuspecting fans to duly copy. It’s far from accidental that she’s constantly papped out and about in sports gear, irrespective of the gym,” she wrote.

O’Loughlin conceded tracksuits were comfortable but added that “comfort is where dreams go to die and where rebellions are cut off at the pass.”