A Facebook post by the Kells Tourism group portraying the towns annual St Stephen’s day hunt as a major tourist attraction has been slammed by anti hunt posters.

Alongside photos of the hunt the group posted, ‘Beautiful weather and a great turn-out for the St Stephen’s Day hunt earlier today.’

But the seemingly innocuous message sparked a furious response with one angry poster writing, ‘If you hunt you’re a c**t’

Another compared the hunt to the worst excesses of landlords during the Famine, declaring, ‘Surely Kells Tourism could report on something better than an outdated anglicised blood sport…. There was a lovely little gathering at the Spire yesterday to remember all the poor souls that died in workhouses and fever hospitals because the same Anglo thugs hoarded food for themselves during the genocide we call the famine … and the same so called knocking bundles of sticks from the arms of mother’s gathering on their lands to warm their homes and to feed their children . Really nothing to glorify here .’

There were over sixty replies along the same line, one of which appeared to think the hunters should become the hunted when they wrote, ‘What a sickening sight to see , why don’t a few of them head off on foot and let the dogs and the riders hunt them down and then pull them to bits and all their so called hunter friends watch on and maybe take a piece of them home for a keep sake from their great blood 🩸 thirsty day out . NO. Didn’t think SO.’

Kells Tourism have been contacted for comment