Facebook wipes small Irish village off the map because it deems name of Effin in Co Limerick obscene

Facebook may have its European headquarters in Dublin but the social networking site has wiped a small Irish village off the map because its name is deemed obscene.

Effin in County Limerick has been branded "offensive" by Facebook and is blocked from the site.

A native of the village has now started an online battle to get Effin recognised by the site.

Anne Marie Kennedy, who works at the University of Limerick, said yesterday that she, along with several more friends, have been trying to insert the village name into the "home" section of their Facebook profiles in recent months. But they have not been successful.

Kennedy also tried to set up a Facebook page entitled, "Please get my hometown Effin recognised". But it too was blocked by the social networking site.

"It came back with an error message saying 'offensive'," she said.

"I would like to be able to put Effin on my profile page and so would many other Effin people around the world to proudly say that they are from Effin, Co Limerick, but it won't recognise that," she said.

"It keeps coming up as Effingham, Illinois; Effingham, New Hampshire; and it gives suggestions of other places.

"It will recognise Limerick but I'm not from Limerick city, I'm from Effin. I'm a proud Effin woman. And I always will be an Effin woman."

A spokesperson for Facebook said they would correct the problem so Effin could end up on the site. "From time to time we are alerted to oversights such as this in our mapping system. We will look to correct it to ensure places like Effin can be 'liked' on Facebook."