Dublin Fire Brigade has reported its busiest Halloween night in over a decade, with 558 calls by midnight. Social media would have you believe Dublin was in chaos, yet RTÉ reports that both Dublin Fire Brigade and the Gardaí said there was no disturbance of serious concern despite the rise in calls.
It makes me wonder about the disconnect between reality and Reddit, and social media in general. Perhaps nothing embodies that better than reports that Toots, Malahide’s road train, was stolen. This came off the back of a video showing Toots coming through a roundabout at a speed some deemed fairly lively, enough to spark speculation that the road train had been nicked. These stories gather their own train-like momentum, and fact-checking unfortunately goes out the window.
At the time of writing, if you Google “Toots Malahide”, the first thing you see is a video on Reddit claiming it was stolen.
I reached out to Michael Place, operator of Toots, to get to the truth. Michael confirmed that Toots was not stolen, and said he had “tried to quell the media posts as much as I could”. Toots had been out at the annual Halloween festivals run by Limelight Communications and Dublin City Council Events, including Dockers & Demons in Ringsend Park and the Big Scream Parade in North Docklands, along with short loops of the Royal Canal at Sheriff Street.
On the way home, Michael brought Toots up the bus lane on the Malahide Road and through the Darndale Roundabout, which is where the video was filmed. As he put it: “Our 40ft long train needs a good run through there not upsetting the traffic flow so we were foot to the floor at 24kmph, which looked prompt!”
So, contrary to speculation, Toots was not stolen. Michael was out making a living and Toots slept soundly in its yard in Malahide. Michael did say himself that “some took a swipe at Darndale [in social media comments] which I don’t like”, again highlighting the dangers of presumptions on social media.
Thankfully, as Toots is safe and sound, Michael said “we look forward to our service operating weekends at best from here on in to Christmas”. You can follow Toots’ journey and programme on Instagram.
Note: The featured image for this article was upscaled from a social media post using AI but has not been otherwise edited.
