FACEBOOK HAS moved to shut down several Instagram accounts promoting an illegal St Patrick’s Day ‘lockdown’ rave.
Tickets for the St Patrick’s Day rave were being sold at €20 per person alongside a promise revellers would get the chance to “party hard” and avoid "another miserable Paddy’s Day."
A bio featured on one of the Instagram accounts promoting the event read: “Paddys day lockdown rave in the Kildare/Dublin area 17th march 2021 tickets are €20.”
The exact location of the event, which has been advertised across multiple social media platforms, was due to be confirmed 12 hours before the party was scheduled to start.
Despite being a clear breach of the current Level 5 Covid-19 restrictions prohibiting mass gatherings of this kind, one of the Instagram accounts connected to the rave had close to 2,000 followers.
That account and several others have now been shut down while a PayPal account from which tickets could be purchased is also no longer available.
Facebook’s move to close the offending Instagram accounts has been praised by Fine Gael TD for Dublin Mid-West Emer Higgins who branded the event “reckless”.
"Last week I called on the organisers to have a bit of cop on, to cancel the event,” she said.
"I asked people intending to go to rethink that decision, and I worked with social media platforms to alert them to the fact that this event was being promoted online,” she said.
"Facebook has now confirmed it has restricted access to the account in question as the proposed event violates government Covid-19 health guidelines.
"I do however urge all social media companies to remain vigilant for other accounts that may open up to try promote this event under a different name, or indeed other similar events that could put public health at risk,” she added.
