Conspiracy theorist Dolores Cahill has claimed she helped a number of people escape from hotel quarantine in Ireland last year. The former University College Dublin (UCD) professor says she made contact with people authorities had placed under restrictions after their arrival in the country. And as a result of her “legal” advice they absconded, violating Ireland’s then COVID-19 quarantine laws. During the same livestream Cahill declared that a warrant is out for her arrest for failing to appear in a Dublin court in January.
In other interviews published online in recent weeks, Cahill continues to dispute the seriousness of the pandemic and argues that it’s part of a wider agenda to rollback democracy. She also announced her intention to again run for election.
Encouraging escape
Cahill made the revelation during a livestream with Australian anti-vax group Health Alliance Australia (HAA) last month. The former chair of the Irish Freedom Party (IFP) said that at some stage last year she was put in touch with a woman who was threatening to kill herself after authorities had placed the woman in hotel quarantine. According to Cahill, within an hour of hearing about the woman she was speaking to her on the phone. She then told viewers of the livestream that she asked the woman to put her on the phone to whomever was there which Cahill says was a lieutenant colonel in the Defence Forces.
The failed political candidate said she asked for his name. But he refused to give it as people like him “know that they’re doing something unlawful and criminal”. Cahill then related that she argued with him that by keeping the woman in quarantine he was engaging in “criminal behaviour”. And, what’s more, “he was liable in his private and personal capacity and that she [the woman] would ring the police to charge him with a crime if he didn’t let her go”. As a result, Cahill stated the woman was then allowed to leave quarantine.
But Cahill went on to reveal that another 28 people contacted her. With assistance from the original woman, “they all walked out” of quarantine because of Cahill’s advice. She also noted that one of the 28 went back to a hotel near Dublin Airport and “knocked on the door of 70 people”. He allegedly told them “‘You can all go free because these police and the army are liable for the crime of kidnap or unlawful detention and they can be prosecuted’”.
It’s not known when the individuals Cahill mentioned left quarantine nor the precise hotel or hotels in question. But in June last year the Times reported that the department of health had been made aware of 75 incidents of people leaving mandatory quarantine without permission since its introduction in late March. The article also highlighted that “more than a dozen people left hotels without authorisation” in the week leading up to its publication.
Cahill was last year also allegedly involved in helping Joe McCarron leave hospital even though he was seriously ill with COVID-19 at the time. McCarron was being treated in Letterkenny University Hospital (LUH) when far-right agitator and Freeman of the Land advocate Antonio Mureddu filmed himself encouraging McCarron to leave hospital against the advice of medical personnel. In the footage Mureddu could he heard saying Cahill had been “on the phone all day” trying to “sort out” the issue. McCarron was readmitted to hospital the following day, eventually dying from the virus. His widow Una has since told the Independent that she spoke to Cahill on the phone in the days before her husband left hospital. Cahill reportedly insisted to her that “You have to get him out of the hospital, they will kill him”.
Conspiracies and elections
In the same livestream Cahill said authorities had issued a bench warrant for her arrest for failing to appear in court the previous month. Her court appearance relates to an incident in Dublin Airport in September 2020 when security briefly detained her after she refused to complete a track and trace form. The conspiracy theorist asserted that whenever she uses her card to make purchases “police vans turn up about five minutes later”. Given this, she said she’s “currently in a remote location” and “trying to not get arrested”.
Cahill has made several appearances online in the last two months in which she continues to promote conspiracy theories about the pandemic. During one such interview she revealed she’s never worn a mask and asserted there’s never been a reason to do so. She went on to say that “zero children in the world have died because of SARS-CoV-2”. Cahill also attacked the lockdown and mask-wearing measures world governments introduced. She claimed that “prevention and treatment” were both available in the form of vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine, and zinc. And, with this in mind, “there was never any need for flu-like symptoms to lock down the world and have any of these masks or social distancing”.
In another interview from February with conspiracy theorist group Irish Enquiry, Cahill argued there was no need for babies and toddlers to be vaccinated. She told the interviewer Sara Haboubi that they “don’t have an immune system” and that the vaccines contain “some of the most toxic ingredients in the world”. Cahill went on to say that vaccinations were linked to autoimmune diseases, “cognitive impairment”, as well as deaths. She also discussed her failed election campaign in the Dublin Bay South by-election of 2021, disclosing that she intends on running for election again.
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