Bomb Threats Empty Irish Newsrooms as Hybrid Campaign Spreads
An emailed bomb threat emptied RTÉ, the Irish Independent and Newstalk on Nov. 6. Officials see a co-ordinated campaign; no one has been named as the sender.
Featured photo: the Television Centre building on RTÉ’s Donnybrook campus in Dublin (file photo). Photo: Greentide, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
DUBLIN — An emailed bomb threat forced Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ, to evacuate its Donnybrook campus on Nov. 6, 2026, RTÉ reported. The same email reached other media outlets in Ireland and Britain.
Mediahuis, publisher of the Irish Independent, evacuated its Talbot Street offices, and Newstalk cleared its studios at Marconi House, The Irish Times reported. Virgin Media Television received the email but did not evacuate, RTÉ said.
What happened
RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst said the email arrived at about 8:33 a.m. Garda sniffer dogs searched the buildings and the campus was declared safe around lunchtime, RTÉ reported. Mediahuis staff were back at their desks by midmorning, The Irish Times said.
RTÉ Radio 1 briefly went off the air during Morning Ireland, and presenter David McCullagh later broadcast from an outside-broadcast van, The Irish Times reported.
Part of a wider pattern
The threats followed hoax bomb threats against at least 27 flights across Europe the day before, RTÉ reported. The Irish government said it was not yet known who was responsible, but that “it seems likely that this is a co-ordinated campaign of disruption,” according to RTÉ.
Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Rossa Mulcahy said Ireland is not immune to hybrid threats, and that it was too early to say whether the threats and a cyberattack on refrigeration systems across Europe were connected, RTÉ reported.
Who is behind it
No government has publicly attributed the threats. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said on RTÉ’s Late Late Show that there is a general view that rising hybrid attacks have a “Russian connection,” but that he could not say that specifically about the RTÉ threat, The Irish Times reported. He said he believed the threats to flights and media and the refrigeration cyberattack were “co-ordinated.”
Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews told The Irish Times the threats resembled what Denmark faced before it hosted the European Political Community summit. Dublin hosts the same summit starting Thursday, Nov. 12.
What it means
Analysis: Emailed hoaxes are cheap, deniable and force costly responses, which matches how European officials describe hybrid pressure. The useful indicators now are whether the same email text or sender infrastructure appears again before the Dublin summit, and whether Irish or European police publish any technical attribution.
Sources
- The Irish Times: Bomb threats at RTÉ, Irish Independent and Newstalk linked to pattern of ‘hybrid attacks’
- RTÉ: Gardaí sweep RTÉ headquarters in Dublin after bomb threat
Related coverage
- Bomb Hoaxes Hit European Flights a Third Day: What Officials Say
- CISA and FBI Warn of Attacks on Refrigeration Controllers
- Information War Nov 7, 2026: Unproven MQ-9 Claims
