A depiction of Queen Medb from Mark Joyce's "Mythical Irish Wonders."Mark Joyce / Currach Books

Currach Books, the publisher of Mark Joyce's "Mythical Irish Wonders," was the subject of a "misinformed attack" this month by YouTuber Simon Webb.

In his video entitled "How Ireland’s St Brigid metamorphosed from a slender white maiden, into a morbidly obese African," Webb erroneously claimed that Currach Books tweeted a Black depiction of St. Brigid last year.

Currach Books says the picture, tweeted for St. Brigid's Day 2022, was a depiction of Queen Medb from Mark Joyce's "Mythical Irish Wonders" and not St. Brigid.

In the description of his video, which has some 20,000 views as of Monday night, Webb wrote: "The most recent depiction of St Brigid sees her transformed from a young Irishwoman into something reminiscent of what was known, in the nineteenth century, as a ‘Hottentot Venus’. The reason for this change is not entirely clear."

In his video, Webb questions: "Why would a commercial company feel that they wish to make idiots of themselves in this way and expose themselves to the contempt of right-thinking people?"

The YouTuber, who has an audience of 184,000 on the video platform, guessed that Currach Books used the Black depiction to "curry favor" with wider audiences, especially Irish Americans.

Webb added: "The Irish are currently scrabbling around for Black people who they can force into their history, and it will take them a little time to get the hang of it."

He further said: "I cannot for the life of me imagine why they portrayed her as being clinically obese."

Webb's video received more than 1,110 comments, many of them supporting his take on the matter.

On Monday, the Irish Times reported how Currach Books was "targeted by trolls" after Webb's video. 

Webb told the Irish Times: "I was not at all sure who the figure was supposed to be, although I did mention that it might have been Queen Medb in the video. I did not think this possible because she is explicitly described in all sources as fair haired. I am happy to make clear in a subsequent video that the publishers intended this to be Medb.”

Indeed, Webb posted a follow-up video on Monday with an apology of sorts, explaining how he came to the misinformed conclusion that the picture was of St. Brigid.

He added, however: "We are still left with the puzzle of why Currach Books have chosen to show Queen Medb as a grotesquely fat Black woman. Is there a legend that Medb was from Africa or the Caribbean?"

Garry O’Sullivan, the managing editor at Currach Books, told IrishCentral on Monday evening: "We of course welcome Mr. Webb’s apology for mixing up his St. Brigid with his Queen Medb and his misinformed attack on an Irish publisher and indirectly the artist who drew the illustrations of the best-selling book in our 'Irish Myths' catalogue."

However, O’Sullivan continued: “What was at first glance an unfortunate mistake quickly revealed itself to be more about skin colour and race given some of the vicious remarks we received from Mr. Webb’s followers."

O'Sullivan provided the following email as an example of some of the recent remarks received by Currach Books:

I've just seen a tweet you have posted depicting St. Brigid as an overweight, subsaharan woman. I would like to know the purpose of this deliberate and cynical attempt to destroy Irish heritage and culture? What was your thinking? Why on earth would you do this? Subsahans have ZERO connection to our island, our people, our history, or our culture. 

This is an absolute disgrace, and I think you can see that reflected in the replies to your cynical tweet. Irish people are sick to the stomach of the continued erosion and destruction of our unique heritage.

If you have a shred of dignity you will remove that abomination.

O'Sullivan continued: “Mr. Webb describes the depiction of Queen Medb as a ‘morbidly obese African.’ One of his followers calls it an ‘abomination.’

“Why is the image of a Black woman’s body so repulsive to these (mostly) men and Mr. Webb? Early Irish settlers were believed to have been dark-skinned and blue-eyed, so Queen Medb could well be depicted as colored.

“However we are dealing in mythology, not fact, but what is a fact is the language used by Mr. Webb and his followers is body shaming and has very strong racist tones. And that’s what he and they should apologize for. 

“There’s no need to apologize to me; we Irish who live, work, and pay taxes in Ireland are well used to a tiny minority of Irish Americans who feel it is their right to tell us how Irish we are or are not and be self-appointed arbiters of Irishness. 

“Ireland is not a culture of male white supremacy and Mr. Webb and his followers need to understand that Ireland is the land of a cead mile failte to everyone regardless of skin colour or sex.”