'Feckin eejit' cloud row just an elaborate hoax
A STORY on an Irish council meeting that appeared on the Daily Telegraph website has been removed after it became clear it was a hoax.
The story, which claimed to come from a local council meeting in Galway, stated that a councillor in the area believed that cloud computing was dependent on the weather.
It claimed that a Cllr Seamus Tiernan believed the Connemara area would be perfect for cloud computing because it has dense cloud for nine months of the year. It went on to give a detailed account of a council meeting which descended into farce, breaking up to shouts of "feckin' eejit".
While the story was quickly unmasked as a fraud and none of the councillors named in it exist, it somehow made it's way onto the Telegraph website.
Lazy
The English broadsheet this week published the article 'Councillor thought cloud computing depended on rainy weather' on its popular Technology section of the online paper. From there it went viral and spread around the world.
Now a genuine Connemara councillor is calling for an apology from the paper. "You would have to ask editorially how did it actually get through," said Cllr Thomas Welby.
"The Telegraph must issue an apology for this. It's very lazy journalism and it's giving a terrible perception out there about Connemara," he added.
A spokesperson for the Telegraph would not comment on the matter today.
hnews@herald.ie
- Caroline Crawford
