Tale of Irish prisoners’ stomach footballs is judged off side

Tens of thousands of US children have been exposed to the bizarre claim that footballs were once produced from the stomach tissue of executed Irish prisoners.

The claim, which has circulated on the internet, where it even includes a date that the practice ended in 1908, was one of the “soccer facts” contained on a bookmark distributed by one of the country’s largest suppliers of children’s books and educational materials.

New York-based Scholastic, which had revenues last year of $1.7bn (€1.4bn) and is the sole distributor in the US of the Harry Potter books, appears to have lifted “facts” initially posted on the internet as a joke, then proceeded to produce and distribute them via the bookmarks. The company has stopped distributing the bookmarks, but said an estimated 20,000 were sent out over three months.