A CONFRONTATION BETWEEN security personnel hired by Bord na Móna and a man who was living and cutting turf on their land has been widely publicised online, with false claims that it shows foreigners taking over that man’s property.

That man, Liam Gorman, had been repeatedly barred from the land, including in a 2025 judgment handed down by the High Court.

Despite this, far-right and anti-immigrant accounts have used the situation as a cause to rally around by spreading inflammatory rhetoric about foreigners taking over Ireland, including in videos and posts seen many millions of times on social media.

However, the court has found that most of the land is owned by BnM, formerly known as Bord na Móna, an Irish semi-state company that was created to boost the economy of the midlands and the peat harvesting industry.

Nowadays, their current website describes BnM as a “renewable energy company” and explains that their plans for peatlands include restoring bogs to their natural state.

Much of the misinformation about the confrontation at a Co Laois bog on the weekend of 22-23 May was spread by a far-right county councillor, whose videos on Facebook have been seen millions of times, though other websites and individuals have shared similar claims.

Misinformation

“An Irish farmer has been thrown off his farm and refused to be let back on with a cohort of migrant scum forcing him off his own land,” a 22 May post by TheLiberal.ie reads.

“Africans, Muslims and Asians – who have absolutely no connection to Ireland, are telling the Irish farmer to get off his own land and stay away. When is enough going to be enough?”

That post has been viewed more than 1,300,000 times, according to stats on the social media platform X.

“An Irish farmer attempted to gain access to his own farm land was greeted by imported Africans acting as security stopping him,” Hermann Kelly, leader of the far-right Irish Freedom Party, wrote in a 22 May post on X, viewed 113,100 times.

“Muslim Paramilitary Seize Land From Irish Farmers,” reads a 26 May post from American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. “This Is All Part Of A Larger Globalist Plan Being Deployed Across The West!”

Jones’ posts about the incident were viewed more than 380,000 times on X.  

These posts all showed videos of confrontations between what appear to be private security guards and a group of shouting men that took place on the weekend of 22-23 May in Garrymore bog, north of Mountmellick in Co Laois.

The incident was quickly latched on to by far-right activists, who sought to portray it as a battle between locals and foreigners over who controlled the land.

Some of Ireland’s most well-known far-right activists also appeared at the scene.

Philip Dwyer, an anti-immigration campaigner who was convicted of affray over an altercation during his unsuccessful campaign for election in 2024, broadcast more than five hours of live videos from the scene.

“Live from County Laois where foreig1n [sic] mercenaries are trying to remove an Irishman from his land,” Dwyer’s posts read.

However, more extreme rhetoric was posted by Tom McDonnell, a councillor elected to Kildare in 2024, perhaps best known for his comments about women needing to “breed” more.

McDonnell was elected after he publicly and repeatedly said that climate change is a “lie” and claiming that diesel prices are high to pay for migrants “destroying your culture”.

Later that year, McDonnell was convicted of causing criminal damage to house windows during a work dispute.

Videos he took over the weekend were viewed more than 2.4 million times on Facebook, and feature him shouting at the security personnel and gardaí

“These foreigners all coming here, taking over our country. Coming from the north. Coming from Africa. God knows where,” he shouts at the security men.

“Get these c**ts out of our country. Every one of ye should be gone out of our country. Ye will be driven out. We drove out the English, we’ll drive ye fuckers out too.”

Many of McDonnell’s videos implored other people to come and help to fight against the security men, whom he falsely claimed were performing an illegal land grab “to evict the man off his own bog” with “no right, no court orders.”

McDonnell also made the claim repeatedly and without evidence that the security men were from refugee centres.

“Every IPAS centre needs to be emptied,” he shouts at the security men. “We won’t stop until ye are back where ye come from.”

In messages with The Journal, McDonnell said that one of the security personnel had said they came from a “hotel Ipas”.

The claim that the security men were all foreign was repeatedly made throughout posts and videos, despite other utterances in the videos showing that the people clashing with them knew some were Irish.

“Why are you going against your own people?” the men facing off against the security personnel shout at one of them. They also refer to another security person in the distance who they attempt to film as “an Irish woman hiding. We’re going to make you famous”.

In a video seen more than 1,400,000 times, McDonnell is seen shouting at gardaí to bring the security men back to their own countries.

When a garda asks him to leave the area, McDonnell refuses. “I’m standing my own ground, you won’t push me back,” he says.

Videos of the incident have also been shared overseas, including by an English social media personality who posts videos about, among other things, claims the Earth is not round.

“The foreign farmers that had taken over the land,” Jack Maclean says in one of a series of videos he posted about the confrontation, badly misreading what had happened.

Maclean’s videos were viewed more than 900,000 times.

All of these videos suggest that the security personnel of BnM were illegally grabbing the land of local farmer Liam Gorman. However, according to the Irish courts, that’s not the case.

Court findings

The confrontation is just the latest in a long series of disputes between Gorman and BnM that have been going on for years, according to a High Court judgment handed down in 2025.

The judgment found that the mother of Liam Gorman had owned a plot in the bog, but sold it to BnM in 2023, and that Gorman no longer had any claim to its ownership.

Despite this, Gorman told the court that he was living in a caravan in the bog and extracting peat there, which he sold to farmers.

Since 2024, BnM has been granted a court order “restraining Mr Gorman from trespassing on the Garrymore Boglands, interfering with [BnM's] use of the bog, and restraining Mr Gorman from carrying out any works on the bog or removing any materials from the bog.”

Despite this, Gorman broke that order and returned to the bog in 2025.

The court judgment notes that, while back on the bog, Gorman had brought his excavator and had erected signs, including notices reading: “Warning Notice –No Trespass”, “Common Law Jurisdiction Applies Exclusively”, and “There will be a charge of €100,000.00 per minute per man, woman, or corporation and for any incursion what so ever”.

However, the court found that the land claimed by Gorman was not his.

“I am satisfied that there was no credible basis to Mr Gorman’s assertion (made on his feet during the brief period when he was present in court) of ownership to Plot 570 or indeed any other plot in the Garrymore Bog lands by means of adverse possession,” the court’s judgment reads.

As well as adverse possession — sometimes known as squatters’ rights — Gorman’s case against BnM appeared to rely on a previously rejected legal theory that the Irish High Court isn’t real.

“Mr Gorman also disputes the jurisdiction of the courts and specifically claimed that the High Court was ‘legally non-existent’,” the High Court’s judgment reads.

“Having made his submissions, but without waiting to hear the reply or the Court’s ruling, Mr Gorman then left the courtroom along with a number of individuals who had been supporting him,” it says.

The court found that although the ownership of a small section of the plot was unclear, “there was no evidence to suggest that Mr Gorman has any entitlement to be on the lands.”

In messages to The Journal, Gorman said that his mother had never received any money for the land, had merely exchanged one plot of the bog with another, and that BnM had misled the High Court. 

BnM had estimated that Gorman had already extracted €189,000 of peat, however the High Court did not award damages as BnM decided against providing evidence for their claim.

The court found that Gorman was trespassing and ordered Gorman not to enter, trespass, or occupy the land again. It also ordered “Gorman and his servants or agents and all persons having notice of these orders” from interfering with BnM or their staff.

Further legal proceedings had been initiated by Gorman in April, but remain undecided.

Gorman told The Journal that he intends to prove, with the help of an American forensic investigator, that BnM had lied and used doctored maps in the previous court case. It is expected to start next week.

In a response to The Journal, Councillor McDonnell said through Whatsapp that he supported Gorman because he saw it as an ongoing dispute and the security personnel were breaking and entering. 

BnM declined to give comment, acknowledging the ongoing legal proceeding initiated by Gorman. 

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