Sounds to me as if the silly beggar has gobbed off without knowing what irony really means.
irony, .....discrepancy between the actual and the expected state of affairs; a contradictory or ill-timed outcome of events as if in mockery of the fitness of things.
(New Shorter OED)
"Sometimes it is better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt"
(Mark Twain)