Oh dear.
An ill-advised tweet that was sent out by financial adviser Eddie Hobbs on Sunday, has since been deleted due to claims that it was "misogynistic".
The tweet – which was posted on Saturday morning, some 30 hours before
the Stand4Truth solidarity rally was set to kick off from the Garden of Remembrance – made reference to the location's name and made a quip as to why it was named as such.
The tweet read: "#Pope Garden of Remembrance, so called because of its proximity to the Rotunda Maternity Hospital and all the generations of Irish women who walked around it...wondering who the feck the father is."
https://twitter.com/finnegan339/status/1034009037627686918
The rally had been organised for victims of clerical or institutional abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church. Hobbs' tweet sparked an immediate backlash online, causing a number of social media users to hail the post as misogynistic and insensitive.
https://twitter.com/AineDempsey/status/1034481070899703809
https://twitter.com/tvcritics/status/1033852921044234240
https://twitter.com/tvcritics/status/1033828342557040642
Such was the backlash that the Kildare native resorted to deleting the tweet and sending out a second one apologising for his actions. He also claimed that a "thimble" had been turned "into a reservoir".
"Early yesterday, came out hands up, deleted humour once grasped poor timing, so sorry about that," Hobbs wrote.
"But not for RTs beyond followers by non-follower mob determined to turn thimble into a reservoir."
https://twitter.com/RealEddieHobbs/status/1033967126489559045
Speaking to the
Irish Independent, 55-year-old Hobbs described the response to the tweet as "a storm in a tea-cup" and said people should "get a grip" about it.
"Firstly, it was humour and not fact. I don't want to add any more to what I've already said, it's not my belief, it's humour.
"People would want to get a grip, I'm not... anti-lone parent. I'm a social liberal person," he said.
Hobbs was once an active member of Renua, having set up the political party with Lucinda Creighton and Offally councillor John Leahy back in March 2015.
He recently featured in
the main questions people Google about Ireland's political parties.
Main image via Eddie Hobbs Twitter
