One well-known hotel in the city said they had ‘double-booked’
12:38, 25 Apr 2026Updated 12:39, 25 Apr 2026
Event has now been cancelled
A high-profile event that was to have seen two of the main organisers of the recent nationwide fuel protests, a Cork TD and a controversial Dublin City councillor, talk about the next steps for the campaign has been cancelled at the last minute.
The event, organised by a Dublin-based group, was to have gone ahead in Cork City tomorrow (Sunday) and a room had been booked in a well-known Cork City Hotel.
Billed as “Fuel Protests: What Next?” the speakers were to have included Ken O’Flynn, TD for Cork North Central, fuel protest figureheads James Geoghegan and John Dallon and Dublin city councillor Gavin Pepper, whose strong anti-immigration views and methods have been seen him labelled ‘divisive’ and a ‘far-right agitator’ by political opponents like Solidarity-People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy.
(Image: © 2026 PA Media, All Rights Reserved)
However, earlier in the week, it was understood that the hotel’s booking staff reached out to the event organisers to inform them that the room they required had been double-booked in an unfortunate oversight and could not be used this Sunday.
The organisers, who had already sold tickets for their event, said they would find a new venue. However, that search appears to have been unsuccessful and at lunchtime today, the organisers have announced that the event has been cancelled.
The group behind the event said they had taken the decision to ‘reschedule’ their Cork city meeting “in order to be able to accommodate this increase in demand.”
“For this reason, we are postponing our event to a later date. All ticket holders will be refunded in full over the coming week,” they added.
Separately and as reported by CorkBeo earlier in the week, there have been posts on social media in Cork and on Facebook and Instagram accounts linked to a number of groups about an unrelated ‘cost of living rally’ to take place in Cork city today.
There have been claims that ‘tractors and lorries’ will be used to repeat the kind of traffic closure that affected much of the city during a similar rally on Sunday April 12th, which saw five arrests in the hours after a crowd of over 100 people gathered on the Grand Parade. There were angry scenes at that rally as Sinn Fein TD Thomas Gould was not allowed to speak by some people in the crowd who effectively shouted him down. The crowd was then addressed by a prominent anti-immigration figure who has stood unsuccessfully for election in Cork on multiple occasions.
Crowd gathering on Grand Parade in support of fuel protests(Image: CorkBeo)
A tractor and a large recovery truck drove slowly around the city centre on that Sunday afternoon and Gardai had to close streets and roads in Cork City centre. It is not known if a similar protest will actually materialise today as there are constant rumours and shared AI-generated posters promising protests in various parts of Cork and Munster on an almost daily basis now.
These are being shared widely on social media – but in many cases – nothing happens in real life. As always, CorkBeo will be reporting on events in the city centre today and over the days to come.