Dublin, April 19 (IANS): A woman hurled racist abuse at passengers on a train in Ireland, telling one of them to "f*** off back to India", in a row over a bag being placed on a seat.
A video of the incident on the train travelling from Limerick Colbert to Limerick Junction on Sunday was uploaded to YouTube and described as "shocking and disgraceful" by the rail operator.
The video was recorded by another female commuter on the train who warned her of online shaming after the incident.
Police in Ireland were investigating, reported the Irish Independent on Tuesday.
The incident started when the woman objected to an Asian passenger for placing a bag on an empty seat of the train.
In the footage the woman was seen furiously ranting at a group of people -- and at one point told a man to "f*** off back to India" in response to him referring to her as an old lady.
She began ranting that they "hadn't paid for four seats" and said she had paid for her seat.
The woman then yelled: "Respect my f***ing country and get off the seats."
Another passenger tried to quieten her down but she replied: "Look at the ugly head of that fella. That's the only reason he's backing you up is because he's ugly."
The passengers who were abused eventually moved to another carriage after 16 minutes, the woman who shot the video told the daily.
She later said: "You don't really get the full effect of what happened from the video."
"She was literally sitting beside them, screaming bloody murder in their faces. It went on for almost the whole train ride."
The Irish rail operator, Iarnród Éireann, said: "It is a shocking and disgraceful incident. Any form of abuse of customers is intolerable, particularly discriminatory abuse."
"The incident will have been deeply upsetting to those who were subject to abuse and those who witnessed it, and we are grateful to the customer who reported it to us and raised awareness of it."
The operator said it had contacted Ireland's National Police Service Garda Siochana, who were investigating the incident.