AS THE APRIL Fools’ gags are flying around the internet this morning, some have been welcomed with open arms – but there’s an Irish one that’s caused some controversy.
Local news website Kildare Now’s joke story is about a jihadist annexing a Kildare landmark, and it hasn’t gone down well at all.
The opening paragraph reads:
Irish security forces have placed a ring of steel around the Allen area and road diversions are in place until further notice after an anonymous phone call by a male calling himself Paddy Jihaddy said he had rigged the area with explosives and that he was renaming the the locality the Hill of Allah.
Almost immediately, Huffington Post wrote an opinion piece denouncing it
Christopher York, writing for the UK branch of HuffPo says that it’s no laughing matter:
It’s a time for good-natured japes and outlandish stories in such quantities you can’t trust anything you read.
But it is not a time to claim a man called ‘Paddy Jihadi’ has annexed a small part of Ireland, renamed it ‘Hill of Allah’ and raised an Islamic State flag atop an old stone tower.
Because, y’know, terrorism isn’t a laughing matter.
And here in Ireland, the story has caused eyes to roll
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And demands to take it down immediately have come
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It’s been deemed “amazingly racist”
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The article has since been pulled from the site
Kildare Now issued a clarification and an apology saying that “the story was completely unauthorised and was not posted by a member of the editorial team.”
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