Irish dance video was posted months before Queen Elizabeth’s death

CLAIM: Video shows an Irish dance group performing a routine to the Queen song “Another One Bites the Dust” outside Buckingham Palace on Thursday following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The group, known as Cairde, posted this video on Twitter and TikTok in January, months before Elizabeth’s death. “Dancing to ‘Queen’ for the Queen,” the group wrote alongside the video, referring to the British rock band, which released “Another One Bites the Dust” in 1980.

THE FACTS: Crowds gathered to mourn outside Buckingham Palace in London after the queen died at 96 on Thursday, marking the end of her historic 70-year reign.

As videos and images of the scene spread online, so did the old video of five Irish dancers performing a routine to “Another One Bites the Dust” outside the palace. Social media users on Twitter and Telegram misrepresented it as a new and insensitive reaction to the queen’s death.

“The queen died and the Irish are already on it lol,” one Twitter user wrote with the video. “Irish people doing a jig to Queen in celebration of the death of the queen,” another user wrote.

The video spread quickly online, with one version amassing more than 1.4 million views in three hours.

However, the clip was not posted on Thursday, but months ago, on Jan. 18. The video was posted on Cairde’s TikTok account as a reply to another user, who had commented on a video of the group dancing in Trafalgar Square with: “Could you pls go outside Buckingham palace that would actually be brilliant.”

The group has posted many videos dancing in front of international landmarks, including Times Square, the White House and the Eiffel Tower.

Cairde did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The queen died at Balmoral Castle, her summer residence in Scotland, according to the palace.

___

This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.