REGIONAL NEWS OUTLET KildareNow has issued a clarification and apology after coming under fire for what appeared to be an April Fools’ Day joke.
Earlier today it published an article under the headline ‘Jihadist annexes Kildare landmark’.
The article came in for a barrage of criticism on social media and was picked up by international media before being taken down earlier this afternoon.
In the article it was claimed that a man calling himself ‘Paddy Jihaddy’ had annexed the Hill of Allen and renamed the locality the ‘Hill of Allah’.
In its clarification, KildareNow has said that it would like to:
Immediately distance ourselves from this posting and point out that the story was completely unauthorised and was not posted by a member of our editorial team.
It went on to say that it would like to: “apologise unreservedly to everybody who was rightly offended by the article which was extremely insensitive especially in light of the recent tragic events in Brussels and elsewhere.”
It has also said that a “full internal investigation” would take place to find out how an “unauthorised person” was able to post something to their website.
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