Old Dublin image doesn’t show queue for New York Trump rally

An image of crowds queueing down a street is being shared widely on social media with false claims it shows people waiting to get into a Donald Trump rally in New York.

The photo, which has been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, depicts hundreds of people filling one half of a road up to a barrier, many of whom are wearing red hats.

Captions posted with the photo included “Here’s another photo of people waiting to get into Madison Square Garden to see Trump” and “This pic was 9 am. It starts at 5 pm.  Trump-  Madison Square Garden. They are now chanting USA [sic]”.

It comes as Donald Trump, who is the Republican candidate for the US presidential election on 5 November, held a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on 27 October. 

But the image is actually unrelated to the rally, or Mr Trump’s campaign.

A reverse image search shows that the same picture was uploaded to Getty Images in May 2011, with a caption stating it was taken in Dublin, Ireland, and shows “people [lining] up for a security check before a concert at which US President Obama will appear”. 

The then-US President was visiting Ireland as part of a six day tour of Europe, where he also visited Moneygall, a village where his great-great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side was born.

We often see misinformation in the form of miscaptioned images and videos circulating online, and have previously fact checked false claims about the US election including an old photo of Donald Trump used to claim the assassination attempt on him was ‘fake’ and a video supposedly of Jamie Lee Curtis endorsing Kamala Harris which was unrelated.

It’s important to consider whether what you’re seeing is genuine before sharing, and our guides to verifying videos and images online can help with this.