Hundreds of people gathered in Dublin city centre on Thursday night for a Halloween parade which turned out to be a hoax.

It’s understood a rumour circulated online that a parade was due to take place on O’Connell Street.

Pictures on social media show crowds lining the road waiting for the parade to begin.

Gardaí (Irish police) released a statement saying that no Halloween parade was scheduled asking for those who turned out to “disperse safely”.

The size of the crowds caused a brief disruption to the Luas tram network, with parts of the Red and Green line services out of operation for about half an hour.