April Fool’s Day in Ireland: The best (and worst) pranks that fooled the nation

Heard about the Poolbeg chimneys? Or Supermac’s plan for Croke Park? Yes, it’s that day again and we’ve all been caught by the April Fool tradition that goes back centuries...

The background to April Fool’s is hotly contested. While the French say its origin stems from a 16th-century poem celebrating a prank involving a so-called April fish, the English claim it comes from one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s stories from The Canterbury Tales about a wily fox tricking a vain cockerel. 

One morning in the late spring of 2021, I awoke to devastating news.

On its Instagram feed, the popular culture site, Lovin Dublin, posted a picture of a single candy-striped tower sitting in a familiar location against a cold morning sky. The  caption read: “Overnight we said goodbye to one of the iconic red and white stacks synonymous with the Dublin skyline The other chimney is set to come down in the coming weeks.”