A debate is taking place on Facebook after Doyles Corner in Dublin 7 received a complaint about a poster on the wall of their pub.

The complaint stated:

“Myself and some friends were in your bar on Friday night, we did have a nice time and the staff were great but we found the posters displayed offensive with outdated sexist, homophobic and misogynistic language and not humorous at all!”

Doyles created a Facebook poll to ask their followers if they thought it was offensive or just funny.

The D7 pub said that they have “checked with our gays”, saying the poster was “ripped off the wall” on Friday night:

“So we have checked with our gays and been assured the poster that was ripped off the wall on Friday night is not homophobic and is in fact funny.

“We will happily take down poster permanently if the consensus is that it is homophobic.”

The poll received over 840 votes with 16% of voters thinking the poster was ‘homophobic’ with the remaining 84% saying that it is ‘funny’.

The complainant told us that their original grievance was in relation to the general ‘discriminatory’ nature of a number of posters in the pub.

“My friends and I found the posters sexist and felt they were discriminatory towards women. There is a subtext in them suggesting women are less equal than men.

“They are basically sexualising and objectifying women. In light of the recent #metoo movement, I think it’s important to draw attention to posters like these that devalue women. The posters are out of touch with the recent developments in Ireland(women’s rights/marriage equality).”

Speaking of the recent poll conducted by Doyles, they have deemed it “invalid”:

“I think their poll was also invalid, they have done the poll on the lesbian poster. Shouldn’t the poll have been done with the group it may offend? The poster in question is also stereotyping lesbians.”

Speaking in response to the many who are commenting about people being snowflakes and overly sensitive:

“That was them trying to trivialize the issue and categorise me into a group that ‘oversensitive’ the term ‘snowflake’ is insulting, unfortunately, I am not part of that generation.”

The complainant says that they are disappointed to see how the pub has dealt with what was a genuine complaint.

“I am curious and disappointed at the way they have responded to a genuine comment. Oversensitive/no sense of humour or not. My friends and I feel posters like these do not belong in society.”

Doyle’s Corner responded to our ask for a statement:

“Doyles Corner is a part of the Refresh Group. We are a gay owned group with strongly ties to the LGBTQ+ community.

“We have hosted dozens of gay societies, weddings and events  not only in Doyles Corner but also in Oscars Smithfield, Oscars Christchurch and The Barbers Bar in Grangegorman.  We have been a proud sponsor of the Gay Pride Festival for the past three years and we look forward to continuing this relationship for many years to come.

“To assert we as a business are homophobic is absolutely ludicrous. The  vintage poster in question is part our our gay history and   is reflective of another era. It is meant to be old skool  tongue in cheek and  85% of voters agreed.  To suggest that you can’t ask a heterosexual if a poster is homophobic is an affront to the 75% of the Dublin population who voted yes in the 2015 referendum.  Obviously we don;t know what proportion of the 85% are gay or straight . To this end we would fully support another poll on the GCN Facebook page and let the gay community decide if the poster is homophobic or not.”