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This t-shirt, depicting people celebrating at the grave of Margaret Thatcher, has been withdrawn from sale at the Sinn Féin Bookshop.

Sinn Féin pulls 'Thatcher's grave' t-shirt from online store

A t-shirt showing silhouettes dancing at the Iron Lady’s grave is withdrawn, after being slammed by Unionist politicians.

Updated, 15.05

SINN FÉIN has withdrawn from sale a t-shirt depicting people celebrating at the grave of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, after coming under fire from unionist politicians condemning the shirt.

The Irish News (subscription required) reports that the t-shirt, which shows a group of silhouetted figures throwing a party beside Thatcher’s headstone, was taken down from the Sinn Féin Online Store last night.

The t-shirt, pictured, includes a headstone  reading ‘Margaret Thatcher: Tyrant and Murderer’, while the group partying are behind a sign which reads: ‘Dancers please form an orderly queue’.

Unionist politicians told the newspaper’s Marie Louise McCrory that the t-shirt was “grossly offensive” and “disgusting”.

Though all references to the t-shirt have been removed from the website, a cached version still available through Google shows that the t-shirt was accompanied by the caption:

It can’t be long now! Get ready for the big day

Thatcher is known to be ill and has withdrawn from many public appearances in recent years. Her daughter has spoken about how her memory has failed due to a series of small strokes.

The ‘Iron Lady’, now 85, is a hate figure among republican circles since her handling of the IRA hunger strikers of 1981, when Thatcher refused to offer political concessions to republican inmates at Long Kesh prison in Belfast.

A Sinn Féin spokesperson told the Irish News that the bookshop was “separate” from the main party, but when TheJournal.ie called the shop this morning for comment it was referred to the party headquarters.

The party this afternoon confirmed it had removed the t-shirt from its online store, and from its physical shop on Parnell Square in Dublin, “following a complaint”.

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34 Comments
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    Mute IrishGravyTrain
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    Oct 10th 2015, 10:11 AM

    More educational and practical then bible studies.

    170
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    Mute Uncle Denise
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    Oct 10th 2015, 10:12 AM

    I wonder if they’ll find any of the giraffe inside the lion and they can re-dissect it all over again?

    101
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    Mute Saul Goodman
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    Oct 10th 2015, 10:34 AM

    Denmark has over 10 million people in a country nearly half the size of Ireland. One day there might be too many Danish living in Denmark, are they going to kill them to maintain the same population, once you have no more space to build?

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    Mute IrishGravyTrain
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    Oct 10th 2015, 10:49 AM

    FFS. Get a grip.

    52
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    Mute Mark Andrew Salmon
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    Oct 10th 2015, 11:27 AM

    5.614 million you plonker!

    45
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    Mute Paul Fahey
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    Oct 10th 2015, 10:19 AM

    I would be happy for my two eldest children to attend, very educational.

    86
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    Mute Vocal Outrage
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    Oct 10th 2015, 10:37 AM

    There are TV programmes showing the dissection of various animals and how they have evolved and adapted to their environment. I think it’s very educational. Children need to learn about the natural world and this is one of the best ways

    76
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    Mute Little Diddy No
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    Oct 10th 2015, 11:46 AM

    A reminder, as if one were needed, that no matter how much they pretend, zoos do NOT exist for the conservation of animals – only a tiny percentage of the animals in most zoos are threatened in the wild – and the same goes for Dublin Zoo. They are places where you can go and see animals in captivity, robbed of their natural environment, living empty and stressful lives.

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    Mute Jake Race
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    Oct 10th 2015, 11:23 AM

    It’s called science, if you were educated in Catholic Ireland you wouldn’t understand.

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    Mute Ciaran OHalloran
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    Oct 10th 2015, 11:30 AM

    Sci-ence? was he one of the apostles?

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Oct 11th 2015, 3:32 AM

    No, it is called publicity…

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    Mute Conor Mac Manus
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    Oct 10th 2015, 10:22 AM

    It takes guts.

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    Mute Karen
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    Oct 10th 2015, 1:30 PM

    Disgusting. So instead of putting said lion in a place like safari park somewhere which i am sure loads of places would have loved to have received such a beautiful animal they killed it. Denmark has been doing alot of animal murders of late. Dont believe i will ever venture to that country.

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    Mute Jamsey
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    Oct 10th 2015, 1:35 PM

    If you thought about what you were saying for a second you might realise that “the wild” is not all its cracked up to be.The chances of injury,starvation or becoming something else’s lunch are pretty high out there. I’ve had to put down injured animals in the wild to stop the big cats treating them apart.

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    Mute Jamsey
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    Oct 10th 2015, 1:41 PM

    Sorry Karen that was ment for someone else, not you..

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    Mute Anita OGalligan
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    Oct 10th 2015, 2:09 PM

    Absolutely agree with Karen. How barbaric can a country get. I’m sure that somewhere like Longleat or similar
    Could have taken these poor animals. Now I know the mentality of one man who threatened to poison any
    Cat whom he saw wandering a certain estate where I spend a lot of my time in another country, This guy was
    Danish. I NEVER wish to go to Denmark.

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    Mute Dennis Collins
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    Oct 10th 2015, 3:54 PM

    One Danish guy willing to poison cats and you suddenly never want to visit that country, and in the process have branded 5.6 million people. There are farmers the length and breadth of this island who would shoot rabbits and crows, and poison the few eagles we have, yet you live here.

    There are arseholes everywhere. You’ll live a very isolated life if you decide to avoid the countries that they live in.

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    Mute Paul Wallace
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    Oct 10th 2015, 2:02 PM

    Can we do this to some of our TD’s

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    Mute Davy Boy
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    Oct 10th 2015, 11:01 AM

    Not much in it for the lion

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    Mute North Korean General
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    Oct 10th 2015, 11:40 AM

    Animals

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    Mute Ally Sommer
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    Oct 11th 2015, 6:57 AM

    Very educational, the kids are not bothered by it at all. They ask loads of questions, lifecycle is explained and they’re informed that the meat is given to the other animals in the zoo. Makes them understand too that the meat in the butchers and supermarkets is not handed down by the fairies :-)

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Oct 11th 2015, 3:31 AM

    One way to make headlines, Zoos killing animals to make money… That is what this is, really…
    They might get more of a crowd if they did that to those who run the zoo?

    2
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