THIS MORNING, THE Equality Minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin tweeted his own take on the video of Chelsea fans preventing a black man from getting on the Paris metro.
The incident, in which the Chelsea fans sang ‘we’re racist and that’s the way we like it’, has caused a storm of controversy with the football club strongly condemning it.
Here’s what the Labour TD and soccer fan had to say about it:
That generated plenty of responses, but not all of them were complimentary. Nor did they appear to get it…
In case you missed the point, the minister was being entirely ironic as his follow up tweets pointed out.
He wasn’t at all happy with how some news outlets picked up on his tweet:
He then tweeted this helpful definition of the word ‘irony’:
Then the Dublin North-Central TD retweeted some of those who actually got the point of his original tweet:
Contacted for further comment this afternoon, Ó Ríordáin said the whole controversy about his comments and reporting of them elsewhere is ”absolutely ridiculous”.
“It’s quite clear and blatantly obvious that my comment this morning is purely to point out the idiocy of these [Chelsea] fans who don’t seem to understand the nature of their team reflects the nature of the society in which the live,” he told TheJournal.ie
“For them to come out with racist taunting and shouting is incredibly ironic and my tweet purely pointed to that fact. For somebody to genuinely think I am actually suggesting that this really take place is really poor journalism on behalf of the Irish Examiner.
He added: “People wonder why politicians don’t always say things in public. If this is how people’s opinions are going to be misconstrued it’s remarkable. It’s just remarkable.
“I have a fairly strong record in relation to racism and to advancing positive integration and sport being a mechanism for doing that.
Asked if the controversy would make him rethink his tweeting style, the minister added: “If people don’t get irony they probably shouldn’t follow me.”
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