As the BBC Trending report notes
As unfortunate typos go it could have hardly been worse.
The Republic of Ireland is currently a few days into a general election campaign that is taking place amid the backdrop of the hundredth anniversary of the Easter 1916 rising.
In one campaign leaflet, Mary Lou McDonald, the deputy leader of Sinn Fein – the fourth-biggest party in the last Irish parliament – wanted to be quoted invoking the spirit of one of the figureheads of the Irish Republican movement, Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who starved himself to death in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in 1981.
However, somewhere along the way Bobby became Booby and nobody noticed until the leaflets were printed and were starting to be distributed. Not surprisingly the error has caused some amusement and awful punning on social media. [added emphasis]
Interestingly though, the Irish News this morning reported Sinn Féin’s initial reaction to Mary Lou McDonald’s “Booby Sands” leaflet. And it wasn’t an apology for the typo…
A spokesman for Sinn Féin claimed on Sunday that the the images of the leaflet were “totally false” and had been altered by opponents of the party.
But by the time the BBC Trending report was written the party’s position had changed been clarified…
A Sinn Fein spokesperson told BBC Trending: “The leaflet was commissioned and printed by a local area [printers]. It contained a typo that should never have been printed or distributed. The leaflet has been withdrawn.“
That “printers” may be a BBC invention. The Sinn Féin spokesperson could have been referring to a local area party organisation having commissioned and printed the leaflet rather than the party centrally. ANYhoo…
Meanwhile, on Twitter, the laughter [of our children? – Ed] continues.
This explains why so many Sinn Fein activists really like the Basque region. #BoobySands
— Paddy Duffy (@PaddyDuffy) February 7, 2016
Adds Today’s Irish News [9th Feb] has the uncorrected quote from the Sinn Féin spokesman
“The leaflet was commissioned and printed by a local area, rather than centrally,” he said.
“It contained a typo that should have prevented it from being printed or distributed. The leaflet has since been withdrawn.”
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