Online abusers feel 'emboldened,' says Limerick mayor

Limerick Mayor John Moran has spoken of abusive comments and death threats he has received on social media and said he feels like he is "living in parallel universes".

Mr Moran told a meeting of the Metropolitan District of Limerick yesterday that abuse had been directed towards him following proposed road closures for a six-week period to accommodate Christmas markets in the heart of Limerick city.

Some of the comments posted online suggested that he should be shot, or assassinated, and others were of a homophobic and explicit nature.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme, Mr Moran - who was elected mayor in June 2024 - said that people feel "emboldened" by events outside of Limerick to abuse people in public life.

"What's worrying me now is that it's like people are feeling emboldened by maybe events happening outside of Limerick and the way comments are happening in other countries, indeed in our own, and they're coming out of the shadows and they're no longer just faceless accounts," Mr Moran said.

He added: "There are days, and indeed this week, when I feel somewhat like I'm living in parallel universes. You go out the street, you go down to an event and you're being filled with positivity.

"You've got people looking for selfies ... and that's really stimulating, I suppose. It encourages you to keep going and fighting on.

"The famous expression I've learned down here in Limerick is 'feck the begrudgers'.

"And if I had a tenner for every one of those times, I'd have financed the next election campaign.

"But then there's this darker side, this darker universe, that I know is not just anything about Limerick," he said.

"It's kind of the way political discourse is going and society. It used to operate, in a way, in the shadows."

Mr Moran said that his family are concerned about his safety, adding that it is tough on him to know that they are worried.

He said that he now thinks twice about how he gets to and from events "because you don't know what crazies are out there for you".

"It's not just about John Moran; it's about the Office of the Mayor.

"It's about making sure that nothing happens that discourages other people from entering public life and public service.

"I spent quite a long time not actually doing anything on this because you just don't want to make a bigger issue out of something," Mr Moran said.

However, the mayor has since met with gardaí about the issue and they have been "hugely supportive".

"They asked me to come down to the station. We looked over some of them and now we're engaged in an exercise of trying to collect them all.

"It does seem to be an emboldened group of people. Many of them are on the same sort of pages.

"They're not Russian bots by any stretch. It's not just general comments. It's very specific," Mr Moran said.