RTE Liveline listeners were left fuming by a crossword clue in this Sunday's New York Times.
The crossword insensitively referenced the conflict in Northern Ireland with the phrase “car bomb” being an answer to a question in reference to a cocktail.
The clue for the answer was “Irish” followed by a blank space and “cocktail served on St Paddy’s Day”.
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Alice O’Brien had lost her sister, brother-in-law and two nieces in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan Bombings.
She rang Joe Duffy to complain: “I think it’s a disgrace. It’s hard enough to take but then when you’re reading through a crossword and they put in this drink called a car bomb, it’s an absolute disgrace.”
An Irish Car Bomb cocktail is a drink usually ordered in the United States on Paddy's Day.
The drink consists of half a pint of Guinness, with a shot glass with Jameson and Baileys dropped in.
But many bar staff refuse to serve the drink as it’s a direct reference to the Troubles in Ireland.
Frank Gillespie, a pub owner in Boston said: “I was a bit taken aback by it.
“I never served it but I’m very aware of it…It’s a thing with a lot of the young crowd and I suppose a lot of the younger crowd that I see here doing it are probably not aware of the situation.”
Duffy himself weighed in on this controversial name and said: “Calling it the Irish Car Bomb reminds people that the car bomb was almost unique to the Irish conflict, used initially by the IRA then used by the UVF/British collaborators or whatever.
“You don’t have to go a week when there's not a family, including Alice’s family there, remembering somebody who was killed in a car bomb but did no one ever say why is it called an Irish Car Bomb?”
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