Immigration officials at Dublin Airport have thwarted a plan by African immigrants to enter Ireland illegally by posing as guests of an upcoming arts festival in Donegal.
The Charles Macklin Autumn School, based in Culdaff, Co Donegal, was the proposed destination of the immigrants calling themselves the All Arts Centre, with an address in the Cameroon capital, Yaounde.
The festival secretary, Ms Anne Doherty, told the Derry Journal she received a long-distance phone call on September 14th from a man representing the All Arts Centre, Yaounde, who would like to participate in the festival running from October 12th to 14th.
Ms Doherty suggested the caller try the festival website for more details and received an e-mail from the group the following day requesting information on how to participate in the school.
"Our association All Arts Centre is made up of groups of artists in various fields of arts, music, crafts, theatre, poetry, etc.," the e-mail said.
"We shall be grateful to have some of our members attend this automn (sic) school in order for us to learn and share experiences in these noble domains," it continued.
A second e-mail with a different domain name address arrived the following day informing Ms Doherty that the group's e-mail address had technical problems and asked her to re-send information to the new address.
Both e-mails were signed by a man claiming to be the secretary general of the All Arts Centre.
Ms Doherty said she sent an e-mail on September 21st, telling the group it was too late for its participation this year as the programme was already fully booked.
But on September 30th, she received a phone call from the immigration department at Dublin airport telling her officials were questioning a man carrying a letter of invitation from the festival.
She confirmed to officials she had been in contact with a group in Cameroon but said their request had been refused as the programme was fully booked.
Later that evening she was informed that the man had been deported.
"This bogus letter had my name, address and phone number. The man the officials were holding said he was an artist participating in our paint-effects workshop.
"It was all planned and totally false. When they contacted me at first, I was really chuffed that news of the festival had carried so far," she said. "We are always open to groups from abroad as it makes for a very interesting programme."
"But then I started to worry about how this group got my home phone number because very few people have that," she said.
The Charles Macklin Autumn School has been running for the past 12 years.
This year's guest list includes singer/writer Mickey MacConnell, Gordon Fulton, Billy Keane, and John Othick of Ireland's Centre for Canadian Studies.
The festival also includes art exhibitions, an AIB-sponsored poetry competition, the aforementioned paint-effects workshop and a drama workshop.