A young mother, who was subjected to a barrage of racist comments, and threats, after disinformation was spread following an appearance on an RTÉ programme, has spoken out about the impact of becoming the target of a hateful online campaign.

Shawna Hennessy was an audience member on the Monday 11 November edition of Upfront with Katie Hannon that focused on housing issues in the country, ahead of the recent general election.

During the broadcast, Ms Hennessy, who is West Indian and originally from Jamaica, shared her experience as a mother who found herself in homeless hubs with her child, who is Irish, before eventually renting an apartment through an approved housing body in 2023.

Upfront presenter Katie Hannon then spoke to another audience member, a white Irish mother, who has been homeless with her child since June. Chloe Coffey spoke about her life living in a homeless hub, trying to access housing, and how her son Jackson has complex medical needs.

Shortly after the programme aired on television and the RTÉ Player, an edited clip of both women’s contributions was posted to a number of social media accounts in which the sequence of events had been altered and their testimony heavily edited.

The altered video made it appear as though Ms Hennessy had shared her story about her relief about escaping homelessness in response to Ms Coffey speaking of how she was currently living in a homeless hub.

Ms Hennessy says the manipulation of the broadcast was done purposefully to falsely cast her as lacking empathy and compassion, and as accessing something she was not entitled to.

"The narrative, the way that the video has been edited, makes me look like the worst person ever," she said.

"Here is Chloe who tells of her horrific experience of not only being in homeless accommodation, but having a young child who has a cardiac procedure required soon, and I'm just like [saying] how great it's been [to finally have a home]."

"And that's the narrative, 'RTÉ sits homeless Irish mother next to African gloating about getting a council house.’ And it has taken off, to say the least," she added.

The content was shared widely and circulated among far-right and ethno-nationalist groups in Ireland, as well as by prominent anti-immigration accounts.

One account where the edited clip has been viewed 1.4 million times posted it alongside the caption, "A homeless mother describes the awful circumstances of her and her four year old sons life in a shelter. Meanwhile an African migrant woman sat next to her explains how she was awarded a council house."

The account, which has over 28,000 followers, regularly posts anti-immigration content, primarily about the UK, but occasionally also about Ireland.

On seeing the misleading portrayal of her appearance circulating on the Wednesday after the original broadcast, Ms Hennessy says her "heart sank."

She soon found herself the subject of hundreds of abusive and racist social media posts.

Comments directed at Ms Hennessy on X included: "Could the black girl have shown any less class or guilt. The glee and entitlement reached epic proportions," and "look at the glee on her fucking face."

"I was literally bawling, in tears. I was like ‘this can’t be happening,’" Ms Hennessy said on seeing the flood of posts.

By Friday, 15 November, Ms Hennessy says "it was on every platform. There were UK podcasters discussing it. YouTube had it. Facebook had it. Instagram had it. Somebody put it on LinkedIn."

"I'm like, ‘wow,’ people are asking where to find me, telling me to go back to Africa, and I’m like, ‘I’ve never been to Africa,’" Ms Hennessy said.

Other comments on social media relating to the edited video included; "Did she have to look quite so smug, grinning with unjust satisfaction bragging about jumping the queue," "The lack of empathy from that immigrant is disgusting," "I am so fucking angry watching this" and "This makes me physically sick. This country is disgusting."

Ms Hennessy came to Ireland in 2015 with her Irish husband, who is also the father of her daughter. She has Irish residency under a visa scheme granted to people who wish to join their Irish spouse, civil partner, or de-facto partner, or who have a child who is an Irish citizen.

The visa also entitles holders to access State services for the same reasons.

She moved in and out of private rented accommodation paid for in part by housing assistance, and local B&B-style homeless accommodation, before she moved into a two-bed apartment in Wicklow in 2023.

Ms Hennessy accessed the apartment through Co-operative Housing Ireland (CHI) after a referral from Wicklow County Council. CHI provides affordable, community-focused housing through a co-operative model.

Rent for the apartment is paid monthly by Shawna and is calculated as a percentage of her household income.

Despite of her nationality, and that of her Irish child, she was labelled as "an African" across social media after appearing on TV and subjected to racist abuse.

The reach of the posts was such that Ms Hennessy's sister, who lives in Jamaica, contacted her after the edited video appeared in her social media feed.

"My family have gotten wind of it, they're concerned. They're seeing these racially-charged comments or people wanting to find me, so they're terrified because they're thinking, 'what happens if you're walking down the street, and somebody recognises you? Are you at risk?’"

Several messages and posts have sparked particular concern with Ms Hennessy, and she has filed a report at her local garda station about them.

"There is one person on YouTube, and the comment was, 'burning it [her apartment] down when its empty...’ so this is what I’m dealing with," she said.

While she has contacted Instagram, YouTube and X in the hopes of getting some of the misleading posts removed, many remain visible, including one from a registered political party.

The Irish Freedom Party, which ran multiple unsuccessful candidates in last Friday’s general election, posted misleadingly about the segment the day after it was broadcast.

On their official X account, they posted an image of Ms Hennessy with the label ‘African woman’ alongside a caption which said, "I was given a house by the State."

The image was posted beside an image of Ms Coffey with the label ‘Irish woman’ alongside another caption that said, "I was f**ked in a homeless shelter."

On seeing the post sent to the party’s 45,000 followers on X, Ms Hennessy said she wanted to "vomit."

"To even assume based on my appearance that I’m African, that has some racial undertones," she said.

"Even if these are taken off social media, it's in people's phones. You're even seeing it in the comments where people are like, 'I got this on my WhatsApp today," Ms Hennessy added.

In a response to questions about the post, the Irish Freedom Party defended sharing the image before adding that, "The language in the meme is not up to our normal high standards but resentment at the discrimination against the Irish person stands."

The statement continued saying, "RTÉ discriminated against Irish Freedom Party candidates during the election by refusing to have them on broadcast debates, so we know what to suffer discrimination at the hands of a state-funded body is like."

Speaking to RTÉ in recent days, Chloe Coffey, who also featured in the Upfront segment, said she feels sympathy for Ms Hennessy, adding "I don't think she deserved any of the hate she got."

Ms Coffey was also subjected to social media abuse after the programme, with people taking to Facebook to criticise her family because her and her son are living in homeless accommodation.

"My family got abused over it as well. If I wanted to go home, I could go home but it doesn’t suit Jackson’s medical needs," Ms Coffey said.

Jackson has undergone two heart surgeries in his life to date, and is currently waiting on a third operation.

Ms Coffey says she appeared on the programme in the hope of bringing attention to her and her son’s situation, but she no one has reached out to her yet. Ms Coffey and her four-year-old son remain homeless.

Prior to her appearance on Upfront with Katie Hannon, Ms Hennessy had experienced some racism in Ireland, including when someone called her the n-word on a night out, but that ultimately, she was settled and happy living here.

However, her experience in recent weeks has made her question her future in Ireland.

"I cannot wait for my daughter to be educated and grown so I can leave. It does not feel like a safe space. I feel so unwanted. I feel like the most hated person in Ireland," Ms Hennessy said.

"When I'm out in public, I'm literally in fight or flight mode for the whole time until I come into my place, and I close the door behind me. Then I can breathe a sigh of relief."

The type of content that targeted Ms Hennessy has become more common in recent years according to online privacy and safety consultant Liz Carolan from thebriefing.ie who says it’s part of a "worrying trend of videos of people of colour being taken out of context and weaponised against individuals."

"The goal of spreading this type of content is two-fold. One is to harass and discredit particular communities and to reinforce tropes or untruths about that community," Ms Carolan said.

"It is also about silencing people, making it so deeply unpleasant to be a part of the conversation that people end up self-censoring and not putting themselves forward or not accepting invitations to be a part of the discussion. That's deeply worrying for democracy and for the quality of our public discourse," Ms Carolan added.

Despite becoming the centre of a social media and misinformation storm, Ms Hennessy is determined to set the record straight and says she believes people should be more careful about what they read and post on social media.

"Do not be so quick to consume everything you are fed on social media. It would just take one Google search of the programme and watch it for yourself. How you interpret that is fine, but at least you're seeing for yourself what happened," Ms Hennessy said.

"It's not OK the way my face has been taken and twisted, and my character is basically being assaulted."

Details of organisations that may assist in relation to issues raised in this article can be found at rte.ie/helplines .