SINN FÉIN HAS said it will not take “history lessons from Fine Gael” after one of its youth branches compared the government party to the Nazis. 

In a post on Facebook, Ógra Shinn Féin Dublin, highlighted “5 examples of successful rebranding”. The meme suggested that Fine Gael is a rebranded version of the Nazi party. 

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Responding to the post on social media network, Young Fine Gael President Killian Foley-Walsh said: 

Shared on the 79th anniversary of the overrunning of Poland by Nazi Germany, these tasteless posts demonstrate a sad willingness on the part of Sinn Féin and its youth wing to make light of the atrocities of Nazism in order to deliver an obscene political insult. 

In a statement to TheJournal.ie a Sinn Féin spokesperson said the party had asked that the posts shared on a number of Ógra Shinn Féin accounts be taken down. When asked if the meme had been ill-advised the spokesperson agreed: 

The image was inappropriate. As soon as it came to our attention we arranged for it to be taken down. But we will not take any history lessons from Young Fine Gael.

Young Fine Gael has acknowledged the deletion of the posts, but has asked for a full retraction and that Ógra Shinn Féin “better educate those responsible for it (the posts) and to apologise to the victims of the Nazi regime and the holocaust, whose suffering Ógra Shinn Féin have so tragically seen fi to mock”.