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Gerry Adams tweeted a racial slur while watching ‘Django Unchained’, then defended it as “irony”

Published 10:20 2 May 2016 BST

Carl Kinsella

Gerry Adams tweeted a racial slur while watching ‘Django Unchained’, then defended it as “irony”

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Gerry Adams tweeted a racial slur while discussing the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained on Sunday night.

The Sinn Fein president quickly deleted the message, which mentioned Ballymurphy, a significant location in the history of the Troubles, with 11 civilians having been massacred there in August of 1971. Screen Shot 2016-05-01 at 23.44.05

Django Unchained is the mega-violent 2012 Oscar winning film starring Jamie Foxx as an escaped slave in the American South, who embarks on a mission to liberate his wife (Kerry Washington) from a sadistic plantation owner (Leonardo di Caprio). The N-word is used liberally throughout, which in itself caused a lot of debate upon the movie's release.

Gerry Adams followed up the deleted tweet with this message, in which he compared slavery in the US to the plight of nationalists in Northern Ireland. https://twitter.com/GerryAdamsSF/status/726945071631884289 He later put out a statement, reading:

“My tweets about the film Django have triggered a lot of interest. “Anyone who has seen the film, as I did last evening, and who is familiar with the plight of nationalists in the north until recently, would know that my tweets about the film and the use of the N-word were ironic and not intended to cause any offence whatsoever. “Attempts to suggest that I am a racist are without credibility. I am opposed to racism and have been all my life. “The fact is that nationalists in the north, including those from Ballymurphy, were treated in much the same way as African Americans until we stood up for ourselves. “If anyone is genuinely offended by my use of the N-word they misunderstand or misrepresent the context in which it was used. For this reason I deleted the tweets.”

https://twitter.com/sinnfeinireland/status/726943728288542720 Those explanations haven't been enough to quell the angry, brutal response on social media, however: https://twitter.com/WashTimes/status/726923687639810048 https://twitter.com/michaelbd/status/726903107809087491 https://twitter.com/michaelbd/status/726904974463143936 https://twitter.com/GarethSoye/status/726907901584019456 https://twitter.com/DRDaleRoberts/status/727041730860732416 https://twitter.com/_mattuna/status/726903381739102212 https://twitter.com/tMean/status/726901326190403585 https://twitter.com/WelshGasDoc/status/727038425317183488

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Gerry Adams tweeted a racial slur while discussing the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained on Sunday night.

“My tweets about the film Django have triggered a lot of interest. “Anyone who has seen the film, as I did last evening, and who is familiar with the plight of nationalists in the north until recently, would know that my tweets about the film and the use of the N-word were ironic and not intended to cause any offence whatsoever. “Attempts to suggest that I am a racist are without credibility. I am opposed to racism and have been all my life. “The fact is that nationalists in the north, including those from Ballymurphy, were treated in much the same way as African Americans until we stood up for ourselves. “If anyone is genuinely offended by my use of the N-word they misunderstand or misrepresent the context in which it was used. For this reason I deleted the tweets.”