'Puppy farms, ratholes like Rathkeale, drug mule celebs' - British magazine to lose advertisers after bizarre anti-Irish article

The overall point of the piece for Country Squire Magazine, headlined 'Get Stuffed, Eire', is that Brexit could have "devastating effects" for Ireland because Britain is our biggest trading partner.

But the bizarre tone of Jim Browne's piece has stunned readers, with some dismissing it as "racist bile" while others classed it as very poorly-delivered satire.

Among the passages in the article are:

"Eire is the land of puppy farms, rain-soaked holidays, dingy bars, drugs mule celebs, verbal diarrhoea and squeaky fiddles – that fool Bob Geldof comes from there.

"A 'country' where the burglars from Britain with surnames like Kettle and Rafferty – return to build eyesore 'palaces' in ratholes like Rathkeale (a small Irish town swollen by the proceeds of crime). Eire is bankrupt yet replete with EU white elephants (many unfinished as the money dried up to complete motorways and other infrastructure) – the destination for lots of British money via the EU unelected overlords in recent decades.

"The country’s banking history is a joke – wasted away on a property boom and buying in furniture restoring old British castles for narcissistic Irish 'entrepreneurs'."

Mr Browne jumps between calling the country Ireland and Eire throughout the piece, and claims: "Eire’s history is basically British – before that it was a bunch of warring families and a corrupt church involved in an incessant spiral of gobshiteing and slaying – certainly not a nation."

And he aims a few digs at the Taoiseach also.

"If Britain wants to it can run Eire into the ground where there are no consolations – its spotty youths will brain drain again to the US and Britain and its economy will crumble. In a decade, after some bumps in the road, Britain and the North of Ireland will flourish.

"Varadkar will be on the political scrapheap like Sturgeon.

"Maybe then prodigal Eire will seek membership of the UK. Unlikely. Unless they somehow – miraculously – developed loyalty, we’d not actually want them or their hurdy-gurdy," Mr Browne adds.

However, RTE journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes has contacted a number of firms advertising on Country Squire Magazine's website - and big names such as Land Rover and Balfour have indicated that they are pulling their advertising.

Irish journalist Ken Murray also told LMFM radio that he had contacted the British Metropolitan Police about the article, and also made a complaint to gardai in Ashbourne about the "shocking racist bile against all Irish people".