At around 4am on Easter Monday morning, a fire tore through Teach Pobail Mhuire, a church in Doirí Beaga, Co Donegal, part of the parish of Gaoth Dobhair.

Twelve hours later, at around 4pm on the same day, 21 April, an anonymous account on X called Radio Europe posted a dramatic claim to tens of thousands of followers: saying that the church had been set alight by a group of Afghans - a claim entirely unsupported by any evidence.

"On Easter Monday, a group of Afghans set fire to a historic church in Ireland. Christianity is under attack in Europe," the post from Radio Europe read.

An Garda Síochána has confirmed to RTÉ Prime Time that foul play has been ruled out in the Donegal fire, but the narrative pushed by the X account quickly began to spread online, amassing over a million views and launching a now-familiar cycle of blame and misinformation.

In the hours that followed the X post, mentions of the church fire spiked on social media, with hundreds of accounts echoing the false claim - pinning the blame on local asylum seekers.

Comments under Radio Europe's initial post included "Radical Afghans set fire to a historic church in Ireland deliberately - these are reasons why Islamic people and Christians cannot live together in society," and "Did you just import the Taliban in Ireland?"

Others spun broader conspiracies about a supposed pattern happening across Europe of churches burning and being replaced by mosques.

Social media spike

Analysis of X data by Prime Time using a social media listening tool showed that there were more than 1,700 mentions of the fire in the hour after the post by Radio Europe.

In the hour prior, the fire was mentioned just 40 times.

Less than a week later on 29 April, gardaí ruled out any foul play. But by then, the damage had been done - not just by the fire but by the misinformation that spread around it.

In local Facebook groups, some commenters rejected the official account, suggesting that the true cause of the fire was "being covered up."

That local suspicion did not arise in a vacuum. It was amplified by a network of anonymous social media accounts that specialise in stoking outrage - often by hijacking local tragedies in Ireland and across Europe.

Radio Europe, one of the most prolific of such accounts, was at the centre of this particular surge.

Its posts blend slick design with inflammatory claims, regularly pushing the idea that western civilisation is under threat from migrants and Muslims.

Irish focus

While the account’s main focus is generally on the UK, Ireland has increasingly become a target too.

In the week or so since 1 May for example, the account has posted about Ireland on four separate occasions to its 109,000 followers - each time linking the country to migration or the perceived threat it poses.

In total, Radio Europe has referenced "Ireland" or "Irish" 49 times since 9 February - despite never having done so before then in its current guise.

The sudden surge in attention suggests a strategic pivot, likely driven by increased engagement around Irish migration debates online, according to researchers that spoke to Prime Time.

"Once something gets traction, it creates a snowball effect. They post more of what gets engagement, and that engagement draws more attention - until the cycle exhausts itself," Sohan Dsouza, an open-source intelligence researcher told Prime Time.

Now a consultant, Mr Dsouza previously worked with Massachusetts Institute of the Technology in the US, and is currently a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany.

Behind the nationalistic branding of accounts like Radio Europe is a murky network of monetised outrage, according to Mr Dsouza, whose work focuses on inauthentic social media networks that push disinformation across Europe.

He has previously traced the history of the Radio Europe account, linking it to a Turkish-language profile that previously posted sexually explicit content and personal solicitations.

"It was a Turkish-language 'thirst’ account - inviting sexual attention," Mr Dsouza said.

Archived posts show that the account once operated under the name "Zelişş" and described itself as a married couple seeking casual encounters.

"There were responses in Turkish, lewd comments, even images. Then it was scrubbed and flipped to become Radio Europe," Mr Dsouza said.

"It's part of a general economy where there's a farming operation to create accounts and pump them up with fake authenticity - crypto information, adult content, inspirational pabulum. And then when time comes these accounts - which have been farmed in that way to give it a history which looks authentic - will be flipped over," he added.

Radio Europe is part of a growing ecosystem of online accounts with names like Radio Genoa, Inevitable West, and Europe First which similarly spread anti-migrant content by stoking outrage.

All of these accounts display similar traits and use near-identical formats and strategies - anonymous operators, high-volumes of posts, alarmist headlines, and recycled video clips.

Radio Europe’s growth and reach have been bolstered by regular reposts from prominent far-right influencers - and, in some cases, engagement from high-profile figures.

Elon Musk follows the account, and has amplified some of its posts. Since taking control of Twitter he has altered the website’s algorithm to ensure posts he makes are seen by tens of millions of Twitter users.

Yet the motivations of those who control accounts like Radio Europe aren’t always political - it appears they are often driven by profit.

"Many of these accounts have tip jars activated. They have platform monetisation features activated. People can directly subscribe to them and pay them a little bit every now and then," Mr Dsouza said.

Others display clear signs of inauthentic behaviour, including sudden identity changes and coordinated reposting of the same viral clips across multiple accounts.

Researchers like Mr Dsouza have also documented their use of AI-generated imagery and paid cross-boosting networks designed to amplify specific posts into trending topics.

"Often, it’s just two or three accounts cross-boosting each other. One exists just to push another. They repost the same content with slightly different captions. Some even embed their own posts in replies to bigger accounts to farm engagement," Mr Dsouza said.

Port Talbot

The videos may be recycled - and the tactics too - but so are the narratives.

Within days of its false post about the Donegal fire, Radio Europe was using the same playbook in Port Talbot in Wales - posting another baseless claim blaming Pakistani migrants for a church blaze on 27 April.

As in Donegal, the claim was false.

South Wales Police later confirmed that two local teenagers were responsible. But by then, the narrative had already taken hold.

The unfounded rumour amassed over 3.6 million views, and was picked up and shared by far-right figures including Alex Jones from the conspiracy platform InfoWars, who said in his post that the incident showed that Christianity was "under attack."

"They're very good at very quickly creating a narrative that goes viral at the time where we don't have the full story about something happening," said disinformation researcher Marc Owen Jones, Associate Professor of Media Analytics at Northwestern University in Qatar, who analysed the Welsh case.

"The thing is with Radio Europe and these accounts, they game engagement. They get a lot of retweets and a lot of reposts very quickly, possibly through bots. By doing that, they're outpacing and beating the official narrative."

Mr Jones says Radio Europe’s role in spreading the false claim was part of a wider pattern of anonymous accounts pushing divisive narratives across Europe.

"There is definitely people using anonymous social media accounts to disseminate at scale the information that's designed to inflame tensions between immigrants and non-immigrants in Europe," he told Prime Time.

Like Mr Dsouza, Mr Jones believes that many of these accounts are motivated by money, but he adds that ideology and political influence are often also central to their operation.

"My theory is there is actually a whole network of political interests who are using social media, especially in the post-Musk age where there’s fewer limits, that promote a very right-wing agenda," he added.

In a statement to RTÉ, An Garda Síochána confirmed that foul play has been ruled out in the Donegal fire.

It described the wave of social media speculation that followed as an example of misinformation and disinformation "amplified by multiple accounts in order to spread fear and concern in peaceful communities with incorrect and dangerous misconceptions, particularly in relation to International Protection and minority groups."

The gardaí urged the public to verify information before sharing it online, and said that any threat or incitement to violence - direct or implied - is treated as a matter of serious concern.

"An Garda Síochána is strongly committed to engaging proactively and respectfully with all members of society, and, in particular, persons from minority groups and diverse backgrounds," the statement read.

It appears the fire in Donegal wasn’t started maliciously - but the narrative that emerged online in the aftermath may have been.

"When one of these false narratives goes viral, the police might correct it later on," Mr Jones said, "but the police correction gets barely as many retweets or shares as the initial false bit of information."