Irish state broadcaster RTE refuses to comment on why it ran less than 130 words online about Dublin anti-immigration demonstration

That story about the protest late on Monday afternoon was also buried beneath scores of others as of midday this afternoon – something RTE says was down to it publishing "approximately 60 stories a day", pushing older stories down the ranking.

Its report did not mention the chants of "Sinn Fein are traitors" at the protest, noting only that there had been "criticism of opposition political parties".

This somewhat mimics RTE's treatment of a similar protest in Dublin on February 5, which was also met with scant coverage from RTE (see the link below):

• Rally against mass immigration takes place in central Dublin where protestors sing rebel ballad 'A Nation Once Again'

Many protestors on Monday afternoon carried Irish tricolour flags, while some had banners or flags of The National Party and the Irish Freedom Party (two fringe right wing parties).

Two of the former’s banners said: “House the Irish, not the world” and “Ireland belongs to the Irish”.

Gardai would only say there had been no arrests, and would not give an estimate of the size of the protest – something which is notoriously difficult to do (as a guesstimate, the footage appears to show a crowd which is deep into four figures, at a minimum).

Having watched news of the protests emerge via Twitter on Monday night and Tuesday morning, the News Letter had turned to RTE – headquartered in south Dublin – to find out more.

News of the protest literally did not appear at all on the RTE News homepage (rte.ie/news) as of about 3pm on Tuesday – a page which contains some 36 articles.

The overall RTE homepage (rte.ie) did contain a mention of it... right down at the very bottom, the 45th item out of a total of 52.

However, the only reason it even appeared there was because it was in a section about RTE's most-read stories (despite burying the article, it was still the third most-read one on the RTE online chart).

When the story was opened up, it amounted to a mere 129 words (not including headline and captions). There was no video of the protest.

In contrast, a more prominent RTE article about a 1970s office building being refitted to reduce its carbon footprint ran to 626 words, accompanied by an over two-minute-long video.

Here is the article in full:

"A large crowd has taken part in an anti-immigration march in Dublin city centre this afternoon.

"Shortly before 3pm, the protesters walked from the Garden of Remembrance and along O'Connell Street, where there was a strong garda presence, including a row of officers from the Public Order Unit.

"At the GPO, the marchers passed a smaller pro-Palestine group, during which chants were exchanged as gardaí stood in between both groups.

"The anti-immigration march then moved to Customs House Quay, where they gathered for a rally which lasted until close to 5pm.

"The rally heard repeated anti-Government calls of 'get them out, get them out', as well as criticism of opposition political parties.

"The crowd heard from a number of speakers, including candidates in the upcoming local and European elections."

Asked about its coverage, RTE has told the News Letter tonight that the online article above "is still available on the current news index" adding: "The march was also covered on the RTE flagship Six One News and Nine O'Clock News television programmes.

"For reference, any story on the RTE.ie homepage is always available in the respective content section.

"In regards to the content of our reports of the event, RTÉ does not comment on editorial decisions."