Ireland? More like Fyre-land.
Halloween revelers in Dublin felt trick-or-cheated after showing up in droves to a much-anticipated parade — that wasn’t actually scheduled.
In one TikTok video with over 100,000 views, thousands of disillusioned partiers could be seen milling aimlessly along O’Connell Street in the Irish capital, as they try and process the alleged holiday hoax — which evoked memories of 2017’s disastrous Fyre Festival in The Bahamas.
“It was funny. The Gardaí (Irish authorities) were trying to clear the street,” Peter Farrelly, who filmed the fiasco, told the Independent.
The revelers had reportedly seen advertisements for the so-called shindig on myspirithalloween.com, which rounds up hundreds of events from across the globe and calls itself the “Biggest Halloween Website.”
Copy is composed by content creators clattering away at their keyboards remotely in various, sometimes far-flung countries, the Irish Times reported.
Said listing for the Macnas Halloween Parade, which was slated to go down in Dublin on the spookiest night of the year, had been widely circulated online ahead of October 31st — after catching on in Google’s search rankings.
It later emerged that the announcement had allegedly been posted by accident, but not before revelers had descended on downtown in anticipation of a hootenanny for the ages.
Their hopes fizzled after the police published a social media post at 8pm — an hour after the event’s listed start time — that there was no such bash and that they needed to vacate the premises immediately.
“Please be advised that contrary to information being circulated online, no Halloween parade is scheduled to take place in Dublin City Centre this evening or tonight,” the authorities wrote on X. “All those gathered on O’Connell Street in expectation of such a parade are asked to disperse safely.”
Attendees said they felt hornswoggled by the happening, a la the notorious Fyre Festival, a so-called luxury musical event that famously stranded thousands of revelers on an island with nothing but meager food and emergency tents.
“People waiting for a Halloween parade,” wrote one disillusioned attendee on X alongside photos of costumed folks milling around aimlessly. “No Gardai (police) around, no official announcement, people waiting on the wrong side of the road… Someone did pull a big hoax.”
However, it later emerged that their parade hadn’t been rained on intentionally, but was rather the result of an innocent mistake by a writer, the Irish Times reported.
The website’s owner, who identified himself as Nazir Ali, claimed that one of his team members had searched for events happening in Dublin and found a listing for a previous Halloween parade.
Assuming the soiree would be happening again this year, they copied and pasted details from another site to their listing.
“It was our mistake and we should have doubled-checked it to make sure it was happening,” Ali said. “We are highly embarrassed and highly depressed and very sorry.”
This isn’t the first time in 2024 the luck of the Irish hasn’t been with one of Dublin’s busiest shopping streets — earlier this year, a notorious video portal between the bustling strip and NYC’s Flatiron District was shut down after a rash of offensive behaviors took place on camera.
The appalling Transatlantic antics included one lowlife showing New Yorkers a triggering image of the World Trade Center on 9/11, while another across-the-pond provocateur flashed a swastika on his phone, The Post reported.
