Bertiegate - the Problem is the Media!

by Frank Zappa Fri Jun 29, 2007 17:37

"In conclusion, the IPR Group is putting forward a different analysis on Bertiegate than is to be found elsewhere. The debate would go better if the focus was on the topic and not on the origins and history of the IPR group. The choice in this controversy is between government by politics as represented by Fianna Fail and government by media as represented by the Irish Times. We support the primacy of politics".
That's a valid point, but we would like to know more about this interesting and controversial organisation.

by Frank Zappa Fri Jun 29, 2007 17:32

I know this is a thread about Bertie's persecution by the the IT, but can John or Jack give us some information
about themselves? Or maybe a short biography of the enigmatic Brendan Clifford, who seems almost as elusive and controversial as Major McDowell?

by yello Fri Jun 29, 2007 16:40

Poor Alvey! Poor Clifford! Poor John! People dare to criticise them, with detailed quotations from both their past and present hate-sheets!

I admit this is not the best place for a discussion of B&ICO/Aubane. I would much prefer to post it on the "From Peking to Aubane" thread, but Indymedia is no longer accepting comments on it. I can't speak for the other posters, but I have a personal reason for desiring anonymity in regard to Northern matters, given that one of my mother's friends was beaten up by the Official IRA in the early eighties (NOTE:I'm NOT saying B&ICO and the Stickies were linked, although I stand by my earlier comments about Harris and Clifford being authoritarian
Marxists who have embraced reactionary positions).

The comments about Peter Hain,(homophobia) Omagh ( conspiracy theories) the annexation of Poland (admiring Hitler and Stalin’s genocidal policies) and Nuremburg (saying the democrats were worse than the Axis) were made in the last few years, either by Clifford or as editoral articles. I take it they are representative of the attitudes of majority of the magazine’s staff.It may seem trivial, but the B&ICO/Aubane group once attacked Catholics in such vicious terms (the article quoted said that “Michael Longeley, a guilt-ridden Protestant sidekick of the forceful
Catholic-Nationalist Bigot Seamus Heaney”-a vicious attack on two great writers) that Mcaleese sued them.

Now it is defending Sinn fein/IRA,as well as the Private Property of Rich White Fianna Failers. We have yet to get an explanation why.
“I think it is surprising that a conservative free market newspaper should take such a moralistic position in relation to donations from capitalists”. I thought a “left-wing” paper like IPR should by even more critical of such “donations”.Sneering at critics of Fianna Fail may be popular and profitable among some quarters, but it does nothing to create a more free and equal Ireland. I don’t know if Bertie is corrupt, but we need a fair investigation. Why is that a "danger"?
And Miriam was right-both Alvey and Clifford are breathtakingly arrogant.
And people do not write detailed critiques of apologists for corruption in the public lavatories.

(I see the last edition of the IPR slagged off former B&ICO-er turned Blairite Kate Hoey, describing her as “ the unspeakable Kate Hoey”.Don’t annoy Brendan, John, or you’ll get slagged off too!).

by John Martin - Irish Politcal Review Fri Jun 29, 2007 08:07

Poor “Yello”! Poor “Spocks Ears”! Poor “Cats outta-de-bag”! They have to hide behind anonymity because the big bad B&ICO will get them. Maybe it will burn down their universities as well, despite those universities being warned in advance by “Cats outta-de-bag”.

Why not deal with everything these anonymous contributors raise? The answer is because as soon as one misrepresentation is dealt with another misrepresentation is raised and never an acknowledgement that there has been a misrepresentation. Life is too short.

To give just one example: “Cats outta-de-bag” says that Brendan Clifford wrote in the pamphlet Queen’s: A comment on a University and a reply to its politics professor” (1987):

“Nationalism has intellectual sophists in plenty. When there was crude work to be done its intellectuals applied themselves to it (It produced these subtleties out of its own resources, as well as harnessing remnants of Ascendancy Protestants, such as Brian Inglis and Douglas Gageby, editors of the Irish Times until recently).”

But that is a misrepresentation of what Clifford wrote. What he actually wrote was as follows:

“Nationalism has intellectual sophisticates in plenty. When there was crude intellectual work to be done its most gifted intellectuals applied themselves to it. Over the decades it acquired lots of spare capacity for applying to subtleties, or confusions, while the crudities of propaganda were tended to as a routine matter. (It produced these subtleties out of its own resources, as well as by harnessing remnants of Ascendancy Protestantism, such as Brian Inglis and Douglas Gageby, editor of the Irish Times until recently.)”

The whole thrust of this is the opposite of what “Cats outta-de-bag” is presenting it as. It is saying that nationalism had the capacity to influence people beyond its main constituency. No where is it suggested that Douglas Gageby was a “sophist” or did “crude work”.

A trawl through 20 years of pamphlets, magazines and books and that’s the best “Cats outta-de-bag” can come up with!

Now, could we get back to the point?

by yello Thu Jun 28, 2007 23:32

If you can bear his smugness, here's a link to John Lloyd discussing his time in B&ICO:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200705070035

by yello Thu Jun 28, 2007 23:08

The accusations against the Irish Political review group are:

1-The publication attacks people because of their religion and ethnicity (Mansergh, etc.)

2-The magazine publishes Brendan Clifford, a man who once insulted Douglas Gageby as an "intellectual sophist" who does "crude work", and said Catholic presecution in the North was their own fault. Clifford also sneered at the Norwegian and Polish victims of totalitarianism-(and note, the other posters took care to quote Clifford's own writings).
“Spock’s ears” and “pat c” have both made legitimate critiques of Clifford’s attitude. Alvey says Clifford rebutted all the accusations against him, but only quotes an adolescent dig about toilets.
If John, Jack or David disagree with any of Clifford's ideas, go ahead and say it here, (unless the IPR Group really is the political cult its opponents accuse it of being).

3- “But if we took what some of our critics in this thread were saying seriously we would be in danger of thinking that making the Irish Political Review accountable for everything it has written in the last 20 years…”But why not? Why is that a "danger"? Why the change from one extreme position to another, without any satisfactory explanation? Surely the B&ICO was partly responsible for the anti-nationalist revisionist culture its current incarnation is always denouncing? Weren’t people like Paul Bew, Eoghan Harris and John Lloyd (the pro-Unionist Brit hack) influenced by some of B&ICO’s ideas when the latter were anti-nationalist?

3-The magazine tries to level any criticism of FF political corruption as being "un-Irish". I wasn't aware any left-wing magazine was supposed to protect the Private Property of Rich White Men.

4-Other objectionable content, such as the April Editorial blaming Omagh on the British government.

5-The magazine's complaints about its "anonymous" critics. But considering the magazine's abusive tone-can you blame them? Nobody wants to have 30 pamphlets published denouncing them (look at what happened to Roy Foster!). Besides, most of these anonymous critics have not published libellous comments, only fair criticism. These were far from “infantile”.
This started as a thread about an influential publication accused of unfairly bullying a politician. We can see that the B&ICO/Aubane group are past masters at the art of using the media to unfairly bully people.
(We would like some answers please, instead of the six billionth mention of the “white nigger” letter…).

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Thu Jun 28, 2007 19:31

I thought Dave Alvey’s comments quoting Brendan Clifford were fair enough. In this thread there have been some quite infantile comments re: the latter. (Mansergh stole his girlfriend etc. etc). And all have them been from anonymous sources.

I didn’t think Irish Political Review Group members were arrogant. But if we took what some of our critics in this thread were saying seriously we would be in danger of thinking that making the Irish Political Review accountable for everything it has written in the last 20 years (and more) was more important than The Irish Times.

I am intrigued at the accusation that we have been “dictating”. My understanding of that word is that it relates to an unequal relationship. (e.g. A boss dictates to his secretary and the secretary doesn’t have any say in what eventually appears on the document). I didn’t think IPR group members were in a position to “dictate” how people arrived at their opinions. I thought we were stating a position and defending it against our critics. But I can’t account for how other people feel.

I thought I had taken on board most of the serious points that have been made. I found myself in agreement with a lot of what Miriam Cotton has to say. In particular, I accept that the PD’s influence in The Irish Times is out of proportion to its popular support. But the overriding objective of The Irish Times in the recent election was to get Fianna Fail. If the PDs were adversely affected (and they were) that was too bad from the Irish Times point of view.

I even agree with her when she says: “that the British Government will have made all sorts of efforts at influencing our media is hardly a surprising possibility”. But that is not the point that the IPR group is trying to bring to people’s attention. What we DO find worthy of note is that the most influential person in The Irish Times in the last 40 years INVITED the British state to exercise that influence.

Miriam thinks in an earlier comment that we should have hung our thesis on some issue other than Bertiegate. Well that is a matter of opinion on tactics. In a general election situation people’s minds are focussed on politics. I think it is surprising that a conservative free market newspaper should take such a moralistic position in relation to donations from capitalists. Geraldine Kennedy in her interview with Eamon Dunphy last Saturday said that the Irish Times was an “anti-establishment” newspaper. If it is not a socialist paper, who or what establishment is it representing?

Finally, I notice that in the long interview with Fintan O’ Toole on Mediabite there is no mention of the “white nigger” letter or British influence on The Irish Times despite the fact that you were aware of the “white nigger” letter long before Bertiegate. As I have indicated already Media Bite seems to be aware of corporate influence on the media, but has a blind spot in relation to other influences.

by ribbid Thu Jun 28, 2007 19:03

30 years ago toilet walls especially those in England were scrawled with a very different kind of graffitti.
for the sexual benefit and homophobic insult of men of all intellectual capacities.

I don't think Mr Elvey really gets the significance of latrinalia either then or now or would even stop to ponder why the word was coined in 1966 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrinalia The stonewall riots 28 years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Riots today are generally seen as the starting point for the LGBT movement & so yesterday at the European celebration of that movement in Madrid ("eurogaypride") there was much reflection by a wider and tolerant society facing its first statewide compulsary usage of a new "civics" education module on the progress made. A state which has seen over 3,000 equal rights civil marriages celebrated in the last 2 years & is moving to an end of furtive slang or latrinalia.

30 years ago, men met in toilets to engage in what were then universally illegal sexual acts. Prosecutions in England for "gross indecency" were often based on nothing more than trawling through address & telephone books & placing groups of suspects in the dock together accused of being a "ring". Thus cottaging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottaging in the 20th century developed means of maintaining anonymity which still have certain codewords in gay and other sexual subcultural slangs or argot especially in those states such as Poland (which forced a "morality clause" in its recent EU negotiations to allow its homophobia free reign) or Latvia (where indymedia ireland contributor Paula G went http://indymedia.ie/article/83136 ).

If Mr Elvey really meant what he wrote - then he has utter contempt for the men be they intellectuals or not who suffered marginalisation and no uncertain oppression in England as elsewhere 30 years ago. (a brief recap from the English Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,2109785,00....html )

Shame on Mr Elvey for that! You could potentially be a disappointment to any mammy who gave birth to you rather than sending you straight to heaven. (the mythical state not the effing big gay night club built on the site of a former cottage in central london). If I had your journal in a public loo - I'd wipe my virgin ass with it.

by yello Thu Jun 28, 2007 18:37

So you and your buddies can dish out criticism by the bucketload (in magazines,books and websites)
but you can't take it, eh?

by An Observer Thu Jun 28, 2007 15:45

Let's see-the anonymous blogger found a pamphlet written by Brendan Clifford in which he sneers at Douglas Gageby for his nationalist sympathies, attacks Seamus Heaney in sectarian terms,blames Northern Catholics for their own plight, and denounces Michael Longeley
for liking Heaney. He also points out that Clifford (who seems appalingly egoistical) and his associates changed from extreme Unionists to extreme Nationalists without a convincing explanation-or an apology to Catholics for their previous behaviour.
Mr. Alvey responds with a juvenile insult. He doesn't quote anything-by himself or Clifford- to rebut the charges made by the blogger.
What would the nationalist audience the IPR is trying to gain make of Clifford's opinions-in 1987 or 2007?
Miriam is right -it's time for the IPR group to "stop dictating to us
all how we arrive at our own opinions".

by Miriam Cotton Thu Jun 28, 2007 13:15

That is just dismal. But it does explain one thing. I'd wondered what the reason was for the IPR's singular inability to recognise some very simple points made in the course of the discussion on this thread. It turns out to be arrogance - fatal to all efforts at intellectual exchange as is clear from the IPR's almost psychotic adherence to it's nutty thesis about Bertie Ahern's backhanders. We should have spotted it earlier.

PhD students sometimes suffer from this phenomenon: immersed in their theories over two or three years they lose perspective and end up viewing the world exclusively from inside their theory. What we are witnessing is the IPR's extended rapture at and obsession with their discovery.

However, and I will try to be as gentle as I can here, that the British Government will have made all sorts of efforts at influencing our media is hardly a surprising possibility. We'd all probably assumed they were up to all sorts of tricks. Well done! You found some hard evidence of what was going on at a given point in time and no doubt still continues in ways that would make our collective blood boil if we knew all about it. But it is not determining the price of fish, or how I decide what to wear in the morning, or indeed how we all feel about our Taoiseach accepting undeclared money from 'friends' who say they were not his friends. It's got **** all to do with it so please stop dictating to us all how we arrive at our own opinions.

A little advice: put the matter out of your minds for a while.

by David Alvey - Irish Political Review Group Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:06

Everything that needs to be said about the quality of criticism being levelled against the Irish Political Review (IPR) in this thread is said by Brendan Clifford in the latest (July) edition of the IPR (available in Books Upstairs in Dublin) in an article entitled ‘Ersatz Intelligentsia’. Responding to a list of points made in this thread he writes:

“This is the kind of think that used to be scrawled on the walls of English public lavatories thirty years ago. And, like that lavatory graffiti, it goes on and on and on. And I suppose that much of that lavatory graffiti too was scrawled by inadequate intellectuals.”

The blog as a new medium of communication has possibilities for democratising public debate, but judging by this thread, it will go nowhere until it eschews anonymity.

by Cat's-Outta-Debag Wed Jun 27, 2007 22:52

"The Chief Executive, Major Thomas McDowell, was unhappy with the editorial line being pushed by his editor Douglas Gageby."
The Major wasn't the only one. Someone who thought "Republicanism was
‘the malevolent insular ideology of a tatty-rag
bag crowd of altar hugging gombeen men.’-someone close to Mr. Jack Lane-shared McDowell’s sentiments.

"Nationalism has intellectual sophists in plenty.When there was crude work to be done its intellectuals applied themselves to it (It produced these subtleties out of its own resources, as well as harnessing remnants of Ascendancy Protestants, such as Brian Inglis and Douglas Gageby, editor of the Irish Times until recently)."

Brendan Clifford,quoted in
“Queen’s:A Comment on a University and a reply to its Politics Professor”(Pg. 55). Athol Books, Belfast, 1987.

On page 17, Mr. “Nuremburg was a travesty” also said that the cause of Norn Ireland’s Problems was the “self-ghettoisation chosen by the Catholic Community in the 1920s” (No B-Specials here-it rivals his gem about there being no
anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union).
On page 45, Clifford also praised the Penal Laws for stopping the Catholic Church in Britain and Ireland-the equivalent of praising the Ku Klux Klan for stopping crime in the African-American community.
And if you thought they gave poor Elizabeth Bowen a hard time…
“Michael Longeley, a guilt-ridden Protestant sidekick of the forceful Catholic-Nationalist Bigot Seamus Heaney…used his (Arts Council) power to sponsor
anti-Unionist propaganda”(pg. 51).

In my view, Mr. Clifford wanted “to demoralise Irish society and to make it more amenable to British influence”. Then suddenly, he changed his mind (perhaps he wasn’t making enough money out of his Unionism? Or he was angry at how influential his former associates like Paul Bew and John Lloyd had become while he was still obscure?) and decided to start doing “crude work” among the “altar-hugging gombeen men”. His buddies followed like the sheep they are.
The Irish Political Review gives this hysterical extremist almost a quarter of every issue to spew his venom
(He says "Before long I realised I knew more about Irish history than anyone else" on pg. 44 -even Kevin Myers doesn't go this far). This is the real reason why these extremists were not “engaged with” by the sensible Left in the 1970-80s. it is also the reason why we should oppose the efforts of "Gombeens Against Globalisation" to muzzle criticism of FF's corruption.

By the way, I warned the University librarians to watch out for B&ICO/Aubane arsonists…

by Not Sure Mon Jun 18, 2007 12:15

John's arguments are interesting, but given the aggressive attacks on the the Mahon tribunal by the Phoenix (you know, the unfunny magazine that never criticises Sinn Fein), the Sunday Independent and the Village, I think the IT's position is a minority one.
And the new FF/PD/Green/Ind. coalition is unlikely to create a fairer and more equal society in Ireland.

by John Martin - Irish Poltical Review Mon Jun 18, 2007 11:44

One of the few admissions of media bias from within the media came from Chekhov Feeney in the Village 14/6/07. Here is what he says:

"...there is some evidence to suggest that there is a notable disdain for Fianna Fáil within much of the Irish media. RTÉ published a quantative analysis of press coverage of the recent election campaign up until 21 May, which revealed that Fine Gael, Labour and the PDs received a disproportionate amount of press coverage relative to their size compared to Fianna Fáil, while Pat Rabbitte and Enda Kenny both attracted more coverage than Bertie Ahern. While the figures may have given Fianna Fáil some grounds for complaint, the bias against Sinn Féin was much more marked. They received a fraction of the coverage of both the Greens and the PDs, despite being significantly more popular than either."

The above refers to a quantitive analysis. It doesn't consider the "quality" or type of coverage each party received, which would have been even more damning.

So, how can this imbalance in media coverage be explained? The following is Feeney's view.

"Did Bertie have a point when he claimed that journalists were being ordered to denigrate Fianna Fáil? The answer is almost certainly in the negative, for the mild hostility from sections of the media can easily be explained on a political level. The journalists who staff the more respectable media organs such as the Irish Times, the Independent and RTÉ, are generally drawn from the educated, professional, metropolitan middle classes and they often have an innate suspicion of the grubby populism of Fianna Fáil. The Irish Times in particular published several editorials in relation to Bertiegate which have expressed a barely-concealed disdain for the population."

So that's okay then! The bias is not being dictated from the top. The journalists are just been allowed to be themselves: snobby middle class types with a contempt for the democratic process.

But is it not significant that the journalists are allowed to indulge themselves. And how can disdainful EDITORIALS from the Irish Times be explained by the journalists being just middle class? Do the editorials not set the tone for the reporting?

by SBP Reader Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:09

Bizarre stuff, all this history, in a thread about the corrupt activities of members of the current government.

Perhaps people will regain some interest in reality when the charade talks with "potential FF partners" are dropped and the agreed partner, Labour (strangely quiet of late), steps into the breach. Perhaps also when Brian Cowen is obliged to stand in for Bertie when the latter reaches honesty crunch-point in the tribunal hearings.

by Great Cthulhu Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:52

The Wikipedia entry on B&ICO states: "Their actions at that time (E.g.1969-1994) still cause some bitterness".
Judging by some of the comments above, their successor organisations, such as Aubane, are as polarising as ever.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:25

I am bemused at some of the criticism of the IPR. The anti-Polish accusation is bizarre given that it has carried a number of articles giving credit to the Polish resistance in deciphering Nazi codes during the Second World War. It has also published a sympathetic pamphlet on Joseph Pilsudski and his profound influence on James Connolly.

I would resent the accusation that I am anti-homosexual if the accusation was not just plain silly. We have published articles questioning the Black Diaries not because we have any problem with homosexuality. The Black Diaries are damaging to Casement’s current day reputation because they accuse him of paedophilia not because they describe homosexual activity.

Just because we support some aspects of Fianna Fail doesn’t oblige us to support everything Fianna Fail does. We oppose the use of Shannon by the US military. And it is just ridiculous to accuse us of being anti-Protestant because we have some disagreements with Mansergh who happens to be a Protestant. If we are anti Protestant how can our defence of Casement be explained? How can our advocacy of the two nations theory which is a defence of the national rights of Northern Protestants be explained?

But all of this is a distraction from the title of the thread. In answer to Sean Horgan I am not aware of any biography of Major McDowell. Very briefly, he was born in Belfast from a middle class background. He joined the British army. He also qualified as a Barrister but never practised. His business life tended to gravitate towards Dublin. As indicated he was Chief Executive of The Irish Times from 1962 to 1997. In 1974 he set up the Irish Times Trust which accorded him extraordinary powers and was Chairman of that body which has ultimate control of the newspaper until the end of 2001. He is now honoured with the title of President for Life of The Irish Times Group.

Cecil King, the former Daily Mirror proprietor, wrote in his published diaries that McDowell was in Mi5. He was also a member of the Judge Advocates department which seems to be a sensitive area of the Whitehall world involved in Military court martials.

The meeting between the British Ambassador and Major McDowell in October 1969 in which the latter made his white nigger remark was initiated by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, which indicates the high level contacts that McDowell had within the British establishment.

I have a copy of a document from the British Records Office which indicates that when McDowell made his initial contact with Downing Street in 1969 Harold Wilson thought it related to intelligence activity rather than journalism. So Cecil King wasn’t the only person who thought McDowell was in the intelligence business.

I am out of the country at present but will return next week and would be happy to furnish supporting documentation/references for the above next week.

There is no doubt that a biography of McDowell is warranted by his influence on Irish life through the Irish Times, but to judge by my experience and at least one other researcher such a biographer is not likely to obtain much cooperation from either McDowell himself or The Irish Times.

by Jack Lane Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:22

Sean Horgan’s curiosity is understandable but I don’t think he will faind any biogrpahy or profile of the Major. He won’t find any feature in the Irish Times or any other paper though we are told what underwear is worn by many lesser mortals. And the Major is alive and well so it should be quite possible for one of our investigateive journalsist to interview him – at the very least. Sean will have to read back issues of the IPR for most of the information available. He was a Major in the Britsh Army and in M15 and was a member of the Whitehall Department that dealt with Court Martials. But the important thing about him is that he became the leading force in the Irish Times. When the IrIsh body politc went into crisis in 1969 he went to the head of his body politic for help and advice and assured them that his paper would do what it was told by them. The paper had always done this faithfully for about 100 years previously but it had gotten into the head of people like Douglas Gageby that it should join the Irish body politic. The Major was having none of that nonsense. Taking the niggers seriously! Hence the significance of the ‘white nigger’ letter. McDowell won the conflict with Gageby and this was confirmed by the current editor when she ran to the defence of McDowell and not her fellow editor when the story broke.

What exists of the independent nature of the Irish body politic resides in Fianna Fail for historic reasons and there is therefore a natural conflict with the Irish Times which both recognise in their bones as well as in their brains.

As pointed out in the item that began this debate the Irish Times puts itself explicitly above the existing Constitution and claims constitutional rights of its own beyond it to justify what it does. That is their remit and their raison d’etre for commenting and judging Irish society. That is what makes them different from the rest of the Irish media who are only concerned with making money and producing various comics for our entertainment with gifted comic writers like Eoghan Harris, Ruth Dudley-Edward etc.

by yello Fri Jun 01, 2007 22:40

How exactly is the Irish Times "re-anglicising" us? I don't understand how criticism of Fianna Fail is laying us open to
turning us into Essex. Does the IT regularly demand we re-join the Commonwealth, or punish Irish-speaking kids with a slapping?
And why would Britain want to dominate the Republic anyway, given that they privately would love to withdraw from the North?
Fianna Fail aren't the only barrier between Ireland and a second Cromwellian invasion, Aubane lads!

by Spock's Ears Fri Jun 01, 2007 22:22

By the way, did Mansergh steal Clifford's girlfriend or something? I can't see any other reason for the IPR's antipathy.

by spock's ears Fri Jun 01, 2007 22:19

Okay,perhaps I was being a little aggressive. Maybe I will write to the IPR concerning some of the issues I have raised about Clifford.
Having said that, Bertie today refused to end the US military's usage of Shannon. The IPR has been strongly critical of the war in Iraq
(probably the only thing in the magazine I agreed with!). Surely this abandonment of the De Valera/Lemass tradition of neutrality,
is another scandal?

by Eamonn de Paor Fri Jun 01, 2007 21:19

Would these Hiberno fascists be the the people who voted in the Evil Ones, such as the unrepentant, unchastised Bertie? Not including me, I hasten to add; even though I was not fully aware of this crime before I stumbled into this website. But isn't it worrying that one might inadvertently fall into mortal sin and offend against the new I.T.-approved thought-police. In the bad old days before 1989 (let us never speak of them again!) mortal sin required Full Knowledge, as well as Grievous Matter and Full Consent of the Will. Maybe we were too quick in getting rid of the old parish priests, compared with the new lot. Anyway, it's too late for me to turn back now, I burned my bridges there over 40 years ago.

And here was I thinking fascists were the ones who had problems accepting democratic election results!

by SBP Reader Fri Jun 01, 2007 19:46

It is unfair to dismiss the nationalism of Hibernofascists as dheasca gealtachta, as they are representative of an international breed insecure in their own identity (be it political or sexual - as in the disturbing interest in labelling homosexuality and paedophilia above). They reject allies in their own prosperity and progress in favour of ideological alliances with their own worst enemies. They see another person's colour before anything else.

We should aspire to the highest of Standards in Public Life, viz Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership. There is pride in the aspiration and the implementation, and no loss of pride in exposing failings - such as Bertie and Charlie - wherever they occur.

Ignore all this 1939 / 1969 / Casement / Polish nonsense about the "Irish Times project of anglicisation" for the red herring it is. Let's have some decent government - even if it is just a chastised Bertie.

by SEAN HORGAN Fri Jun 01, 2007 19:15

Is there a biography of this guy? He seems to have been one of the most important people in Irish society in the past 40 years but I have never read anything about him until this debate.

Any information welcome.

by Jack Lane Fri Jun 01, 2007 18:52

Can I suggest to 'Spock ears' et al who disagree - to put it mildly - with articles in the IPR that they write to the magazine itself and refute the arguments made in the magazine. The IPR is accused of many things but not with suppressing letters and debate. I think that would be more productive than venting their spleen and creating shoals of red herrings in debates such as this about the Irish Times and what makes it tick. How about it?

by Eamonn de Paor Fri Jun 01, 2007 18:24

And, of course, I condemn - nay, denounce! - the evil Grand Master Brendan von Clifford in whatever guise he may assume!

by Spock's Ears Fri Jun 01, 2007 16:41

You respect the decision of an electorate who weren't allowed to find out the truth about Bertie because he called the election before the Tribunals could dig up any dirt on him.Is that the act of an innocent man?
When I saw the kind of people who were attacking Bertie's critics(including the IT) -a Hammer Horror gallery that includes Eoghan Harris and Brendan Clifford-alarm bells started to go off.
In both this thread and the "From Peking to Aubane" one, posters have raised legitimate questions about why the members of the B&ICO-a Stalinist organisation that for a quarter of a century attacked Catholic Nationalists in such vicious terms that one (McAleese) was able to sue them-are now supporting the ugliest forms of that same Catholic Nationalism, in the form of the Aubane Historical Society and its front publications.
We most also ask why the IPR is running a hate campaign against the unfortunate Martin Mansergh,who is a member of the political party the IPR is now championing, and a supporter of Haughey, a man who the magazine greatly admires. The sole reasons I can see for this campaign
are that Mansergh is English-born,Protestant, and defended Bowen from the anti-intellectual David
Alvey.

by Eamonn de Paor Fri Jun 01, 2007 16:08

P.S.
I have never voted FF in my life, and perhaps never will.
But I accept, honour and respect the decision of the people.

by Eamonn de Paor Fri Jun 01, 2007 15:52

But I thought the ultimate judges of all politicians gave their verdict on FF just over a week ago. What a shame we are stuck with this everso inconvenient system of democracy. Or maybe the nation still needs to be transformed until it starts to think in the manner expected of it and finally delivers the correct verdict? Perhaps the I.T. is right after all?

by Proddy Gayboy Fri Jun 01, 2007 15:40

"the nation the IPR wanted to place us under the control of" would actually be Tir Gealtachta and existed only in the imaginations of a few self-elected men (sic), even after independence.

It is very sad the petty-minded attacks on "the wrong sort of criticism" of the Irish Times, and on protestants or people whose birthplace or parentage is British, or who are homosexual. Who exactly is supporting the Irish Times anywhere in this thread? Who is attacking Ireland (other than Tir Gealtachta) anywhere in this thread? Like Miriam's quote from Chomsky, except it is fortunately a small band of Haughey worshippers denying reality, rather than a state.

Is Bertie corrupt or is he not? How long has he left in government?

by yello Fri Jun 01, 2007 14:30

A journalist from IPR started this whole tread, Eamonn!
Fortunately, the nation the IPR wanted to place us under the control of collapsed in 1989.
Fianna Fail could rape and murder a busload of children and the IPR would probably still sneer at their critics.

by Eamonn de Paor Fri Jun 01, 2007 13:35

My work takes me frequently to Poland where I have many close friends. I am aware that many Poles are embarrassed at their country's inter-war treatment of Ukrainians in the territory they captured after World War 1, and at their involvement in the share-out of other parts of Eastern European non-Polish territory with Hitler, as sanctioned by Britain before the great rupture of 1939.
I am not aware that the IPR exercises any influence on anybody. "Brendan Clifford" could be the devil incarnate. But it was the Spitfire Pilots above who urged us to get acquainted with them.
Though I have long felt that the VERY influential I.T. has an Anglicising mission, I was far from convinced (sorry, John Martin et al.!) at the outset of this debate that Bertiegate was an aspect of it. In fact it was the surprise attack of the Spitfires from three o'clock that finally swung it for me.

by Spock's ears Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:03

Eamonn,I take it then you have no problem with the opinions expressed by Clifford. Otherwise you would not dodge the issue by whinging about how anyone who opposes the "I.T. project is practically a paedophile".
*"Russia took half of Poland for itself (which it had grounds for
doing)...." Eamonn hates British imperialism (rightly so) but has no problem with a man who endores Soviet imperialism.
*"...that the Polish armies had been defeated and Warsaw refused to surrender,
although it was surrounded and was without hope of relief. The city
authorities decided on a street-by-street resistance to occupation. In
effect the city declared itself a fortress and was treated accordingly."
You also have no problem with Brendan Clifford-a former Loyalist turned
Sinn Feiner-gloating at the slaughter of Polish civilians.

On another note, why did Bertie rush to start the election with the Mary McAleese (once libelled by Brendan Clifford) visit, thus suspending the Mahon Tribunal?

by Eamonn de Paor Fri Jun 01, 2007 09:47

Wow! Anyone who opposes the I.T. project is practically a paedophile! Somebody is very upset. I wonder who?

by yello Fri Jun 01, 2007 00:03

Professor Noam Chomsky:
“In totalitarian societies, the usage is standard. In the former Soviet Union, for example, dissidents were condemned as “anti-Soviet” or “anti-Russian.” Where a democratic culture prevails, the usage would be regarded as comical. If people who criticize Irish government policies were condemned as “anti-Irish,” I suppose people would collapse in ridicule in the streets of Dublin. At least they should.”
Time to collapse in ridicule at Fianna Fail, John,Eamonn, Jack Lane and the Poland-hating Brendan Clifford.

by spock's ears Thu May 31, 2007 23:43

Eamonn, you haven't said anything about Mr. Clifford's disgusting contempt for the Polish and Norwegian victims of Totalitarianism.
Instead you go on about "Churchillian war propaganda" and the I.T. project.
I'd like to know what,say Miriam or Chekov makes of Clifford's vile sentiments, and of the magazine that gives them regular exposure.
Even if everything the IPR says about Bertie and the IT were true (which it isn't) , my criticism of Brendan Clifford would still be valid.
And Eamonn-for a man who claimed never to have heard of the IPR a week ago, you seem VERY familiar with its arguments......

by SBP Reader Thu May 31, 2007 22:54

John Martin: "I accept that Ahern received gift/loans of tens of thousands of euros. There was nothing illegal in what Ahern did"

That is like saying Charlie Haughey was never convicted of anything. It is like saying that nobody was ever found guilty of arming republican paramilitaries. It is like saying Judge Curtin has never been convicted of possession of paedophile pornography. Etc. Etc. Ad nauseam.

Hopefully this one can be resolved during the accused's lifetime.

by Eamonn de Paor Thu May 31, 2007 22:36

Re the above contribution:
The reality behind the Churchillian facade was very different from the propaganda. For instance, though it had its share of concentration and slave camps, collaboration was so complete in Occupied Britain that it was the only part of Occupied Europe in which the Wermacht could go about unarmed. And the only person in the Channel Islands to advocate resistance was the German soldier Paul Mulbach.
The above contribution perfectly demonstrates my earlier point about the link between Churchillian war-propaganda and defence of the I.T. project.

by spock's ears Thu May 31, 2007 20:06

Here’s excerpts from another sickening article by Brendan Clifford, in which his hatred of Britain and Poland warps his understanding of history. In bashing Cathal O’Shannon’s programmes on Irish Nazis (which I haven’t seen), he expresses gloating admiration for aspects of both Hitlerism and Stalinism.

This article is online (No one disputes ITS authenticity either!). At…
http://www.atholbooks.org/review/nazis_2.php

My Comments are in square brackets.

From Irish Political Review: March 2007
Cathal O'Shannon At War
Part Two of a comment on Hidden History on Nazis in Ireland

*"How did it come about that Russia was "so successful on the battlefield" in this World War launched by Britain—a war in which Russia sought to be neutral—that in the moment of victory it was the pre-eminent threat to British interests? The short answer is: because Britain left the battlefield in June 1940, but kept Europe on a war footing by use of its Navy and Air Force, and manipulated European instability with a view to bringing about a German-Russian War.
It succeeded in this object, and then left Russia to do the fighting".
[Hang on a sec-what about the Hitler-Stalin pact? I thought it was Hitler who caused that European instability by attacking the Russians].

*"Poland, urged on by the British offer of military alliance, refused to negotiate the transfer to Germany of the German city of Danzig which Poland had proved entirely unable to govern. Germany invaded Poland and the Poles were left to fight alone".
[Polish difficulty was due to the fact Danzig was a semi-autonomous, largely German state, not Clifford’s xenophobic implication that the poor Poles-Clifford’s “white niggers”- were too stupid to run it. Danzig Nazi politician Albert Forster eventually invited the Nazis to invade in 1939].

*"Russia took half of Poland for itself (which it had grounds for doing)…."
[Clifford’s admiration for Stalin’s brutal annexation is sickening, especially since the terrible Katyn massacre of thousands of Poles took place at this time ,when” Russia took half of Poland for itself”. How dare this man act the moralist towards the Irish Times!!]

*"Britain launched a European war with no serious intention of fighting it. That War was lost, as far as could be seen, by the collapse in France in 1940"
[What about the Battle of Britain?].

*"Life is not lived but in the particularity of time and place. And decisions were reasonably taken in Europe after June 1940 on the assumption that the Battle of France had set the political framework of things to come for a considerable period".
[So collaborating with the the Nazis like Quisling and Petain did was alright? He insults the brave resistance fighters like Camus and Tito].

John , you ” would consider myself to be left wing in my political outlook”. So how can you work with this man-an apologist for war and totalitarianism- with a clear conscience? The publication of such repulsive articles is far more of a scandal than anything either Fianna Fail or the Irish Times are accused of doing.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Thu May 31, 2007 19:08

For people who are by no means sympathetic to The Irish Times there is a remarkable amount of defensiveness when it is attacked. I have attempted to raise some issues about the Irish Times, which along with other media outlets, has been attacking Ahern. In most, but not all cases, the response has been an attack on the Irish Political Review. BJ under the heading “Tell the Truth” seems to think I am trying to tell lies although he doesn’t say what lies I have told. Chekov thinks the IPRG is “bonkers”.

I think it was reasonable and relevant to raise the issue of The Irish Times in a thread entitled “Bertiegate – The problem is the media” given that it has been arguably the most active in pursuing the Bertiegate story.

It would be good to know precisely what part of my argument is wrong/a lie/ “bonkers”.

In my view the so called “white nigger” letter is quite an extraordinary document. The words “white nigger” leap out at the page. They indicate a racist attitude to the native Irish and disappointment that the “Protestant” Douglas Gageby the then editor had lowered himself to having sympathy with Irish nationalism. In response to this McDowell was seeking help from the British State to guide the newspaper. The document also indicates that the British were more than willing to exploit this opportunity. And who could blame them?

No one disputes the authenticity of this document. The document was seen by Professor Ronan Fanning in the Public Records Office in London before it was published by the Irish Political Review (Why Fanning sat on it is another story which has also been covered by Indymedia).

One poster seems to think that this was something that happened a long time ago (1969) and has no relevance now. The problem with this is that Major McDowell was already the Chief Executive in 1969 and subsequent to that his powers increased. He set up a Trust in 1974, which accorded him extraordinary powers. A Sunday Times report commented that he was helped by Lord Arnold Goodman who was considered one of the most powerful men in Britain. He was described as being Prime Minister Wilson’s “Mr Fix it”.

As indicated in a previous posting he resigned as Chief Executive in 1997 and resigned as the Chairman of the powerful Trust, which has ultimate control of the Irish Times group, at the end of 2001. He is currently honoured with the title of “President for Life of the Irish Times Group”.

I find it very difficult to take the shrill calls by The Irish Times for openness and transparency seriously when I consider how it conducts its own affairs. The Oath which binds Directors of The Irish Times Ltd (which includes the Editor) and the Governors of The Irish Times Trust to secrecy is available in the companies’ office.

I have quoted from Conor Brady’s book indicating how this was implemented and how control was exercised by Major McDowell. Brady describes all this as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I beg to differ.

I suspect – but I could be wrong - that most people would have no problem with what I have said in this posting up to now. The remainder of the posting is more controversial.

I never paid too much attention to The Irish Times until I became aware of the “white nigger” letter. But I notice in the newspaper a general tendency to denounce every aspect of Irish society. Individual examples of corruption are given as evidence of a general malaise.

I would consider myself to be left wing in my political outlook and I am under the impression that many of the contributors to this thread are also of that persuasion. I can understand why such people would be sympathetic to the exposure of corruption. But I would ask such people who is benefiting from all this. It certainly isn’t the working class or the Labour movement. At present the chief beneficiary is likely to be Fine Gael.

I would also ask people why a newspaper which boasts of its high income readership and which gives the appearance of being of the establishment is so zealous in its exposure of corruption.

In my view it is to demoralise the society and to make it more amenable to British influence. If someone has another explanation I would like to hear it. I find all the editorials and opinion pieces about “reinventing ourselves” or “re-branding ourselves” to be quite extraordinary and almost totalitarian in meaning.

I appreciate that this might appear far fetched. But given the structure of the paper, the influence of McDowell, the content of the newspaper can anyone deny that it has an anti-national bias?

Probably the most controversial aspect of the IPR’s position is its defence of Bertie Ahern. I accept that Ahern received gift/loans of tens of thousands of euros. There was nothing illegal in what Ahern did although Ahern has since introduced legislation requiring all gifts of over 499 euros to be declared. No evidence of political favours for the money has been found.

All of this emerged because of an investigation by the Mahon Tribunal into allegations by a discredited witness, Joseph Gilmartin, re: the Quarryvale project. No link has been established between payments received by Ahern and the Quarryvale project.

Even Vincent Browne accepts Ahern’s assurances on this. Indeed Browne recognises that there are grave problems with the way the Mahon tribunal has been conducted. Evidence from Gilmartin which would have discredited him as a witness was not made available to the lawyers for Owen O’ Callaghan (the person who was alleged to have bribed Ahern).

Finally, I find it interesting that BJ admits (perhaps jocosely) that there might be something in the idea that Reynolds resignation was a British plot. I know that Reynolds believes it was a British plot. All of this happened in 1994 which by coincidence is the time that Ahern’s financial affairs are now being investigated. The interesting thing is that it was an Irish Times story, written by Geraldine Kennedy, which prevented Bertie Ahern from succeeding Reynolds and persuaded the Labour Party to support the Redmondite Fine Gael leader John Bruton at a crucial period in Anglo-Irish relations.

Chekhov might like to know that Vincent Browne tried to persuade Dick Spring’s advisor Fergus Finlay that this was a mistake. In his book “Snakes and Ladders” Finlay says that he found this conversation extraordinary, but doesn’t explain Browne’s action.

And in the current controversy The Irish Times has been remarkably coy about its role in Ahern’s destiny in 1994.

by SBP Reader Thu May 31, 2007 16:48

1939 and all that is fascinating. Meanwhile, back in the real world, a tribunal discusses whether the elected head of government received 80,000 or perhaps 167,000 or perhaps some other sum entirely, and whether the sums were diverted party donations, planning bribes, as-yet-untaxed gifts or as-yet-unpaid loans. One day we might discuss his daughter's one million for a book deal with publishers (Murdoch's empire) who were angling for a (successful) takeover of the Irish broadcasting monopoly, or how the same media outfit gave him publicity digouts before and after the election. Just how much is the Ahern brand worth now? 10/10 for consistent sidelining.

by wageslave Thu May 31, 2007 16:00

And while talking about the polish getting a raw deal in WWII, let us not forget the polish intelligence and their huge (but often conveniently forgotten) contribution to cracking the enigma code, which some say led to victory in WWII

http://www.avoca.ndirect.co.uk/enigma/enigma14.htm

by pat c Thu May 31, 2007 15:30

"So Clifford is sneering at the poor Poles who died bravely to save their city from the Third Reich, who were "treated accordingly", i.e. slaughtered."

Thats appalling. It could be said that the bravery of the Poles was foolish at times, incidents of cavalary charging tanks, but to sneer at the defence of Warsaw is sickening.

"And "A realistic estimate made in the realities of the time had grounds for seeing a British invasion as an immediate probability and a German invasion as a remote possibility-except as a counter to a British invasion, as in the case of Norway."
The British did send a small force to Norway to help them fight off the Nazi invasion-I think at the request of the Norwegian government, to respond to Quisling's call to the Nazis to invade Norway. It was NOT a British invasion. "

Indeed. It wasn't a British invasion. The force was sent there in support of the Norwegian Armed Forces who were resisting the German invasion. The expeditionary force was led by an Irishman, General Adrian Carton de Wiart. (no doubt some dirt on him will be uncovered now!)

If you could scan the article it might be worth while posting it here.

by Chekov Thu May 31, 2007 15:00

It's worth pointing out that any Indymedia regulars will have been aware for a long time of the "white nigger" letter and the shenanigans involving the Irish Times and Major McDowell. We ran it as a feature back in 2004: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/64231

Furthermore, it's fair to say that this place is by no means generally sympathetic to the Irish Times and a large number of pieces have appeared here very critical of the paper and its coverage of many issues. Critical as we may be, we're not so blind as to be unable to see the IPRG's theories for the bonkers nonsense that they are. The only real question is what on earth motivates these people to come up with such ridiculous counter-attacks to throw a bit of confusion around the dodgy finances of public figures.

by Miriam Cotton Thu May 31, 2007 14:36

Eamonn - your excitable post has brought us all the way to...1939?

How about this: there are several media activists and writers on this thread, none of whom have any affilliation to the Irish Times or the UK intelligence services. Quite independently from any alleged British conspiracy to programme the Irish people via the pages of the Irish Times, many of us are of the opinion that Ahern's financial affairs are a matter of legitimate public scrutiny. This conclusion arises from an awareness of the basic facts: that he was in receipt of money for which he cannot account. If anything, it is my belief that many in the media have gone remarkably easy on him - that he has had a fantastically easy ride in the circumstances. But the IPR's take on it beats all.

Please don't tell me that British intelligence implanted these idea in my head. I thunk em up all by myself, honest.

by Eamonn de Paor Thu May 31, 2007 13:51

Yes. I too would like to see this article. If only to see whether it offers some counter to the present-day Churchills who evoke knee-jerk militarism by playing the Nazi-Hitler card whenever they want to attack, invade and occupy a country, grab some oilfields, destroy a state which does not kow-tow to them, and kill thousands while they are at it. And to the hordes of Boys Own Bigglesworths who are eager to parrot the propaganda. The Irish, having been taken in by this kind of propaganda (“Poor Little Poland – sorry, Belgium”) in 1914-18, have practically forgotten the price we paid. So the Churchills and Bigglesworths reckon we are ready to be suckered yet again. We are expected by the likes of Cathal O’Shannon (veteran of Burma (!!!), the Burma which was occupied by Imperial Britain in 1886 in order to grow opium for the Chinese market which the British had fought two wars for, the Burma where O’Shannon went with the British Army to fight the Burmese freedom fighters under Aung San (father of Aung Suu Kyi) who they later bumped off even though he had by then made terms with the western imperial side), we are expected to have guilty consciences because a handful of raggle-taggle flotsam and jetsam of the defeated Nazi regime washed up on Ireland’s shores. To soften us up for present-day imperial militarism we are supposed to shut our eyes to the post 1945 relationships that the western imperial powers made with the German Nazi system, after they had got rid of the most embarrassing of them in the Nuremberg comedy.This was the German system which Britain had sponsored until early 1939, when it turned against it for imperial reasons – sacrificing the unfortunate Poles into the bargain by offering them a bogus military alliance.

And don’t try to tell me that this new torrent of Churchillian propaganda is not connected with the Irish Times’ declared project of transforming us into something other than what we are!

by spock's ears Thu May 31, 2007 11:27

I'm not sure if the article is online anywhere-I have a photocopy.However the article also includes
such gems as.. "In 1939 there was much condemnation of the bombing of Warsaw, but it did
not figure among the crimes charged against the Germans. The situation was
that the Polish armies had been defeated and Warsaw refused to surrender,
although it was surrounded and was without hope of relief. The city
authorities decided on a street-by-street resistance to occupation. In
effect the city declared itself a fortress and was treated accordingly."
So Clifford is sneering at the poor Poles who died bravely to save their city from the Third Reich,
who were "treated accordingly", i.e. slaughtered.
And "A realistic estimate made in the realities of the time had grounds for
seeing a British invasion as an immediate probability and a German
invasion as a remote possibility-except as a counter to a British
invasion, as in the case of Norway."
The British did send a small force to Norway to help them fight off the Nazi invasion-I think at the request of the Norwegian government, to respond to Quisling's call to the Nazis to invade Norway. It was NOT a British invasion.
So Clifford is saying a (flawed) democratic British government was worse than a genocidal dictatorship. We must ask serious questions about this man and his organisation.

by pat c Thu May 31, 2007 10:47

I haven't read the article you speak of of but I could understand someone calling the Nuremburg Trials a travesty of justice. The British had committed War Crimes in their Terror Bombing of German Cities. The British had also slaughtered tens of millions as they ravaged colonies all over the World as had the French. The USSR under Stalin had also the blood of millions of innocents on its hands. The US was had intervened in many Latin American States resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Over 1 million people died in the US suppression of the resistance in the Phillipines.

Therefore these Imperial States were not morally fit to try anyone. Thats not to say that the Nazis should have gotten off, they got what they deserved. Its just that their accusers, judges, juries and executioners were also mass murderers.

Is the article in question on line anywhere?

by Spock's ears Thu May 31, 2007 10:36

Every time someone raises questions about the IRP's motives, they simply repeat the story about the letter to avoid dealing with the fact they want any questions about possible FF corruption censored.
Considering Brendan Clifford wanted the Nazis acquitted("The
Nuremberg Trials were a travesty of law on many grounds."The Propaganda that never sleeps, IPR, Nov. 2005-oddly not available on the Athol Books website, probably because wanting to let off history's greatest murderers dwarfs the "white nigger" letter to nothing) he'll have no problem pardoning corrupt FF-ers!
How can Jack and John work with this repulsive man....

by bj Thu May 31, 2007 00:11

When Raphael Burke was outed we heard the same claims made -
it was a british conspiracy - the media had it in for him - etc. etc.
We heard the same story when the Reynolds govt. collapsed - ok maybe that was true - but
address the core issue and stop looking for scapegoats. The core issue, for those now distracted,
is the probity or otherwise of one B. Ahern and the media treatment of his strange financial affairs.
At the end of the day I, for one, want to be told everything.

Here's a little something worth reading. I wonder will this item raise its head again.
Go to the Ms. Shortall piece

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Wed May 30, 2007 22:58

John Martin has done us all a great service (above) in providing a glimpse of how the Irish Times operates. Readers may be interested in the following correspondence I had with Madam on 'the white nigger letter' which shows how concerned the Irish Times is with putting the record straight when itself is the subject that needs recording.

*

10th. January 2003.

Ms. Geraldine Kennedy
Editor
The Irish Times
Dublin

Dear Ms. Kennedy,

WHO DIRECTS YOUR PAPER?

I enclose a copy of a publication (Irish Political Review, January 2003) that contains an extraordinary document concerning the running of your paper, The Irish Times.

As you can see, it is a copy of a report by the British Ambassador in Dublin in which he outlines the arrangements made with the owner of your paper, Major McDowell, to have the paper’s content directed from No. 10 Downing St.

Do you accept this is a genuine document?

If you do, can you say if these arrangements are still in place and, if not, when were they rescinded?

I am sure you will understand that readers of your newspaper, as of any newspaper, are entitled to know by whom, and in whose interest, the newspaper is run.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Lane
*

She replied as follows:
15th January 2003

Dear Mr. Lane,

I can assure you that no such arrangement is in place for the running of The Irish Times. The ownership of the newspaper is vested in The Irish Times Trust since 1974.

I am unable to confirm the veracity of the letter to which you refer. We published a story that Major McDowell was prepared to act as “a link” to encourage North/South contacts on the release of the British Cabinet papers in January 2000.

Yours sincerely,

Geraldine Kennedy
Editor.
*
I replied as follows:

31st. January 2003

Dear Ms. Kennedy,

Thank you for your letter dated 15th January 2003. You are not able to tell me when the arrangements made by Major McDowell with No. 10 Downing St. were rescinded so I can hardly accept your assurance that they are no longer in place. Moreover, your reference to the Irish Times Trust being in charge of the paper would confirm that the arrangements remained in place. It is well known that the Irish Times Trust was a unique institution of its kind in that it was designed and set up to ensure that the Trust, and therefore its paper, was under the control of a single individual, Major McDowell. I understand that he remains President for life of the Trust. The Trust ensures that his writ runs and as he originated the arrangements with Downing St. it is just not credible that he used his own Trust to undo his own efforts. Au contraire, I would say.

Also, I find it amazing that you cannot confirm the authenticity or otherwise of the document concerned, or even give an opinion on it, although you and your paper were aware of it for over 3 years. You have not taken the trouble to clarify the matter in all that time! This shows an incredible lack of curiosity on your part about the running of your own paper. Your paper gave a misleading account of the relationship between Major McDowell and Downing St. in January 1971 in only reporting a reference to him as simply wishing to be a ‘link’ between the two governments. You were given an opportunity to rectify this deceit and instead you now repeat it and obviously condone it.

Your paper investigates and reports extensively on a host of issues, many of which are of considerably less significance than what is contained in the Ambassador's letter (the publications of this tiny local history group, for example). You are now shown to be very selective indeed in your investigations, reports and in the issues that seize you.

Your predecessor, Mr Gageby, the object of Major McDowell’s barrack-room abuse in the document, was clearly kept in ignorance of the paper’s direction arranged by its owner but you are clearly determined to be wilfully ignorant of the facts of the matter and their consequences. You are in denial. This must be a unique attitude for the editor of a paper that claims to be national, investigative and a journal of record. You and your paper are no longer credible in respect of any of those attributes.

This is all the more disappointing as it was generally assumed that your appointment as editor was made on the basis of your reputation for good news reporting and it was expected that you would take The Irish Times in that direction. This incident shows that you have not done so and the deceit and evasions you have practiced about it makes the high moral tone you adopt editorially on other issues appear very hypocritical indeed as your reporting clearly stops short where your own vested interests are concerned.

Yours etc.,

Jack Lane
*
23. 04. 2003
Madam Editor wrote in the letters page that:
"The contents of the letter in question were published in The Irish Times on January 27th, 2003, as soon as its existence was drawn to my attention. - Ed., IT."

How come I never saw the contents published then or at any time in the Irish Times.

Did anyone else?

Jack Lane

by bj Wed May 30, 2007 14:04

"The Irish Times has now the prerogative of the harlot throughout history: power without responsibility."

You seem to be insinuating that the IT should act as censor where the interests of FF are concerned.
Do you perhaps think that the public should not be informed of the highly irregular financial affairs of a minister for finance / taoiseach?
Should the IT first consider in whose interest or otherwise it is to publish or withhold?
You are conducting a smear campaign against the IT of the nature you accuse it of doing against the taoiseach/FF.
You are fooling no-one.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Wed May 30, 2007 11:33

I’m glad you seem to accept the significance of the “white nigger” letter, which goes beyond a racist view of Irish people, but indicates that the most powerful person in the Irish Times in the last forty years wished to place the newspaper under the guidance of the British State. I don’t know how some posters can consider this just a “private” letter. It is a document indicating that he approached representatives of the British State and those representatives (the British Ambassador and functionaries of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office) wished to assure Downing Street that they would “exploit this opportunity”.

I notice that you have an interview with Fintan O’ Toole on your website in which he refers to the importance of the Trust which controls The Irish Times. In your introduction you suggest that O’ Toole’s view of the media might be rose tinted. Whatever about the media he certainly gives a benign view of the Trust.

The Irish Times believes that transparency and openness is for other people but certainly not for itself. Each year the directors of the Irish Times Ltd and The Irish Times Trust Ltd swear an oath before a commissioner of oaths. The following is an extract from the very long oath sworn by the directors of The Irish Times Ltd.

“I will observe a strict secrecy respecting all transactions of the Company, all opinions given at meetings of the Directors and all matters which may come to my knowledge in the discharge of my duties except when required so to do by the Directors or by a Court of Law and that I will never disclose any such matters by hint, innuendo or otherwise save as aforesaid.”

The oath sworn by the Governors of the Trust is almost identical.

Conor Brady the editor of The Irish Times from 1986 to 2002 also has a benign view of the Trust but is a bit more informative than O’ Toole. In his book “Up with the Times” he writes the following on the oath:

“Once a year all Governors and directors had to affirm, on oath, their commitment to the principles of the Trust. A solicitor came with his bible and ‘swore’ each of us individually as well as witnessing our signatures.” (page 115)

Brady also comments on how the Trust exercised control:

“The Trust took its work very seriously, in my experience. It met once a month, August excepted, in McDowell’s gloomy office, around a couple of extended tables. After a private meeting that might last an hour, the Governors would be joined by the editor and, later, by the General Manager (later styled successively as ‘Managing Director’ and ‘Chief Executive’). This procedure enabled the editor and the Governors to discuss editorial matters privately.” (page 115)

So the “Trust” discussed editorial matters among themselves and when they were finished they would summon the editor to appear on his own before them. Here is an extract from Brady on Major McDowell’s role:

“As the years went by, however, I felt that McDowell came increasingly to dominate the Trust. In the early years of my editorship, he would sound me out about possible candidates for the Trust. But in later years he came up with some names that worried me. In one instance I expressed my views very strongly. That individual never joined the Trust. But McDowell did not ask me for my views again.”

Another means of control which Major McDowell exercised was through Brady’s employment contract.

“Once a year, also, my contract of employment had to be renewed. Tom (i.e. McDowell – JM) would sign the single sheet of paper to a ripple of ‘hear-hears’. I think very few people in the organisation - or outside - realised that the editor of The Irish Times had to go on the hazard, as it were, of having his employment renewed every 12 months”. (page 116)

Regarding Bertie Ahern, his private financial affairs are being subjected to the most intense scrutiny. They have been leaked to the public in advance and the onus is placed on Ahern to account for all transactions relating to a period over 10 years ago. Failure to account for them is evidence of guilt, but no obligation is placed on the Tribunal to establish a link between the payments and what they are supposed to investigate, which is allegations made by a discredited witness, Tom Gilmartin, that corrupt payments were made to Bertie Ahern in relation to the Quarryvale site.

Listening to the Vincent Browne show last night it seems that the Supreme Court has had problems with the conduct of the Mahon Tribunal and in particular the suppression of evidence that would discredit Gilmartin as a witness. Vincent Browne asked Irish Times journalist Colm Keena if he accepted that individual rights had been trampled on.

Keena accepted that this had been the case but justified it by saying that the whole era was corrupt and that the rights of the citizen had to be put aside in order to get to the bottom of it. So you start from the position that the society was corrupt. You gather evidence to prove this proposition and such concepts as “due process”, “innocent until proven guilty”, “knowing what you are accused of” etc are obstacles which must be overcome to prove the original proposition. That appears to be the approach of the Tribunal. The enormous expenses incurred in its proceedings place greater pressure to prove the proposition.

Leaked documents to the Irish Times among others were used in an attempt to affect the outcome of the General election and now revelations appear to be designed to affect the formation of a new government.

In my view The Irish Times completely lost the run of itself during the General Election. In one of its editorials (5/5/07) it even arrogated itself a “constitutional role” which placed itself above any “requests” from the Mahon Tribunal, a privilege which has not been accorded to the Taoiseach among others.

As one of the Irish Political Review’s sister publications has stated the media, and in particular The Irish Times has now the prerogative of the harlot throughout history: power without responsibility.

by Eamonn de Paor Wed May 30, 2007 11:10

What a display of Free State smugness!
The vast majority of Protestants in Ireland are British. That is why the Six Counties are sovereign British territory and will probably remain such for the foreseeable future. For most of the past 3 or 4 centuries, to be called Irish, or to declare oneself to be such, was a mark of degradation in many parts of the world. Any sensible person who wanted to get ahead in the world avoided this label. But most people born in Ireland could not avoid it, and Irish history is largely the story of how those people tried to make the best of this unfortunate condition. Francis Stuart chose to be Irish. That was his choice, to which he was entitled. Likewise Martin Mansergh. They deserve neither praise nor blame for their choice. There is a movement called Reform, supported by a former Taoiseach, to assert the Britishness of Protestants in Ireland. There is a movement headed by the Irish Times, under its figurehead Major McDowell (who from a position of power sought to promote British influence decisively at the highest levels, at a critical moment of Irish history), to transform the rest of us in a particular direction. That, fundamentally, is the driving force behind Bertiegate.

by Zen-Tao Wed May 30, 2007 00:21

John,this is what the IPR's editor David Alvey said about Bowen..." Given that she spied for a foreign power against this state, why should she be claimed as an Irish writer? Her novels were a contribution to English literature. That she is still defended by various influential Irish academics, including Dr Mansergh*, testifies to a collapse of faith in the national tradition on the part of what might be called the Irish intelligentsia. " Unpublished letter Apr. 13, 2004.
So all those people who say Bowen is an anglo-Irish writer are self-hating West Brits.Bowen is to be expelled from the Irish canon. I hope Mr. Alvey will be consistent and apply his philistinism to Francis Stuart, another great writer who worked for a "foreign power against this state".
I admire both Bowen and Stuart as great Irish writers,despite disagreeing with their political views(especially Stuart's!). In addition to apologising for FF's corruption, John's magazine has adopted the Paul Johnson school of criticism, where people's mistakes and weaknesses are seen as the key to their character.
Fortunately, Ireland is much bigger than the IPR's sectarian, xenophobic, anti-intellectual "national tradition".

*Poor Martin Mansergh.Despite working for the IRP's hero Haughey, his religion and ethnicity are all wrong. So the B&ICO/Aubane goes after him, just like they once went after John Hume and Mary McAleese.

by great cthulhu Tue May 29, 2007 19:32

What! Granny's favourite magazine praised the white-hooded thugs!
Dearie me, we can't read the IT, the IPR, the RD or the NS. We'll have to stick with Ireland's Own.

by yello Tue May 29, 2007 19:01

John said nothing about the Peter Hain comment, or the conspiracy theories about Omagh, or the article by Brendan Clifford that said the Nuremburg trials were a "travesty"(Is Clifford seriously saying all the accused Nazis should have been acquitted?).
I don't know about him, but I'd rather work for the much-maligned IT than Clifford's hate-sheet.
By the way, I'm sure Robert Service said Stalin's ideas about nationalism were to justify Soviet Imperialism in the Ukraine and Baltics.
If that's where B&ICO/Aubane got the two-nations theory, we should stay well away from it.
Brendan Clifford-from authoritarian Marxist to authoritarian Catholic...

(And just because the IT's owner made a racist remark in a private letter
almost forty years ago, doesn't affect the modern IT. Anymore than the fact that Reader's Digest published articles praising the Ku Klux Klan, or the New Statesman published articles praising Stalin matter. Although all three positions were reprehensible, they don't affect their respective modern publications,since they all happened decades ago and their contemporary staff would be ashamed of such attitudes.).

by Watcher Tue May 29, 2007 13:16

What's wrong with calling Bertie what he is; A bought and paid for liar.

by bj Tue May 29, 2007 13:03

Great list!
You got the cunning part right but left out 'devious'

by SBP Reader Tue May 29, 2007 12:53

It is nice to see that the Irish Times reads this column. Patsy McGarry seems a little touchy about criticism of his employer and colleagues in a rather egoistic piece today "For penance, say 78 Fianna Fáils and two PDs - Following the general election campaign, a penitent journalist goes to confession." In this attempt at satire he writes "Fianna Fail bring out the worst in me at election time ... like trying to dig up dirt on Bertie ... I wrote rash judgement, calumny and detraction".

I think most of the people who have posted here support the fair, balanced and comprehensive exposure of financial misconduct. I would like to see the truth about Bertie's finance, and I would like to see his "discrepancies" exposed for what they are: lies, lies and more lies. Along with his colleagues, his alliance partners in the PDs and the witnesses from the AIB. Oh, did I suggest the AIB lied to the tribunal? Perhaps I should stick with the "discrepancy" that "the bank official involved in processing the sterling transaction provided evidence to the tribunal without referring to the connection between sterling and punt transactions, and omitted contemporaneous documentation of transactions."

Or maybe I should write artifice, avoidance, casuistry, circumvention, cop-out, cunning, ditch, dodge, double-dealing, duplicity, elusion, equivocation, escaping, eschewal, evasiveness, excuse, fancy footwork, fudging, jive, (but NOT lie), obliqueness, prevarication, quibble, runaround, ruse, shiftiness, shirking, shuffling, sophistry, stalling, stonewall, subterfuge, trickery.

But no, Colm Keena and Fiona Gartland have seven separate articles spread over two pages of today's Irish Times in a display of self-puffery worthy of the most exotic zoo specimens, without stating the obvious.

by bj Tue May 29, 2007 11:44

One of the problems with the media and the political parties in general is that they overrate the
public opinion of themselves. They believe their own propaganda.
Joe Bloggs, the floating voter, just doesn't give them a great deal of thought. He's much too busy earning a crust / fishing / whatever:

- "the govt. are doing a fairly o.k. job - I have a good job, a house, a holiday - the traffic is a pain
the poor are getting a raw deal - not great but it could be a lot worse - remember the 80s -
I won't risk it yet - leave well-enough alone but ditch the ultra right-wingers - if it all goes to shit I'll need healthcare"

-" yes Bertie has questions to answer but I'm not going to waste my vote on some principle
that has no relevance to my life"

Did I leave something out?

by Miriam Tue May 29, 2007 11:21

John

There is no denying that the letter you are preoccupied with said what it said. I don't think anyone here has a problem with that. It is your attempt to link it to the media's response to Bertiegate - the IT's in particular - which is not convincing people. There are few if any IT lovers posting to this website. That doesn't stop us from having a sense of proportion and perspective about its role in the general scheme of things.

There are entirely legitimate questions being raised about Ahern's finances. If the media did any less it'd be a scandal in itself. How many of us have to go through time-consuming, complicated and humiliating means tests year in year out for meage welfare payments such as carers allowance, for example. If a single mistake is made, the full force of the state is brought down on your head. There are mini-Mahons of this sort being conducted on many of the most needy people in the country every day - at great expense to the state too. And yet you (and most FFers) behave as if it was an outrage to require a Minister for Finance/Taoiseach to make an honest account of himself in highly dubious circumstances.

I for one am enraged by Ahern's behaviour. Bad enough that he did what he did, but the attitude he presents now is as if he believes he should be accountable to noone - railing at the media etc. You will have to find some other situation to hook your theory onto - not doubt there are good examples of where that white nigger injunction was followed - but this ain't one of them. This is self afflicted, home-brewed misery.

by Marlboro Man Tue May 29, 2007 09:48

"I take it that your own juxtaposition of "homosexual .... paedophile" is an accurate representation of this virtually unread publication, that is in any case completely inconsequential to any discussion of portraying Bertie in the media."

Hear Hear, stay on topic and stop agenda setting.

by Proddy Gayboy Tue May 29, 2007 09:19

Yes, John Martin, you are absolutely correct to complain that anyone would "misrepresent a small circulation magazine such as the Irish Political Review". Although your fixation with a sentence in a letter from the mists of the last century is not enlightening the debate.

I take it that your own juxtaposition of "homosexual .... paedophile" is an accurate representation of this virtually unread publication, that is in any case completely inconsequential to any discussion of portraying Bertie in the media.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Tue May 29, 2007 08:45

"I don’t want to go off the point, but…"

You are going off the point. You are also misrepresenting the position of the Irish Political Review. We never attacked Elizabeth Bowen because she was a Protestant, but we did mention the indisputable fact, that she was a British spy during the Second World War. The only defence I have seen of Bowen was the view of Martin Mansergh that her spying activities were harmless. I find it bizarre that you accuse the Irish Political Review, a magazine associated with the “two nations theory” long before it became fashionable as being somehow anti-Protestant.

The Irish Political Review has given space in its pages to contributors who question the authenticity of the “Black Diaries” attributed to the great Protestant patriot Roger Casement. I don’t know how this makes us anti-homosexual. Incidentally, the black diaries as far as I know imply paedophile activities as well as homosexual activities. They also indicate an exploitative relationship between Casement and the boys he was alleged to have had sex with. And I haven’t accused you of being “anti-Protestant” because you seem to accept the veracity of the Black diaries.

The Irish Political Review has never attacked immigrants. However, we have been critical of a policy that encourages immigration as a means of undercutting workers wages (e.g. Irish Ferries). This legitimate concern does not seem to have been a problem because of the buoyancy of the economy and has not featured recently in the pages of the Irish Political Review.

Now to get back to the point…

I am stunned that you don’t seem to have any opinion on the “white nigger” letter which I attached in my previous posting. The Irish Times, it seems, is above criticism and yet you find the time to misrepresent a small circulation magazine such as the Irish Political Review.

by Zen-Tao Mon May 28, 2007 19:56

I don't want this to go off the point, but I must ask this:
John, don't you have a problem working for a magazine (the IPR) that attacks people because they are Protestant ( i.e.Elizabeth Bowen) homosexual (i.e. the attempt to disprove Casement's homosexuality, or the comments about Peter Hain mentioned by the other posters) or immigrants?

by Stuart Mon May 28, 2007 11:40

John Martin "Can I suggest that the thesis of the Irish Political Review has been proved correct?"

If you wait 38 years for a throwaway comment to be proved correct then there is bound to be a moment it could seem so. I don't see it myself, in the light of the routing of the PDs. The Irish Times played patsy and got smacked - their meddling had the exact opposite effect of their intent. The electorate love a good old sinner, man of the people, flawed genius. For now.

I don't think Bertie will last two more years. He has the sympathy vote now, but everyone knows he lied (whatever language Michael McDowell put on it) and he would lie to any of us, over anything. He shafted his own constituency colleagues with his Bertie No 1 stunt on the last night of the elections. He shafted his strongest allies in government. He has his celeb status that allows him to kick the print media out of his post-election media call. He would shaft and kick out any of us, over anything.

The cutest hoor of them all.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Mon May 28, 2007 11:07

Can I suggest that the thesis of the Irish Political Review has been proved correct? Can I also suggest that my posting of last Tuesday stands up quite well in terms of the outcome of the election?

It is not just a question of whether you are for or against Bertie Ahern or Fianna Fail. The Irish Times followed by most of the rest of the media misrepresented the reality of what happened during the election. It misrepresented the debate between Ahern and Kenny, which turned out to be a key determinant of the result.

It misrepresented the Fianna Fail campaign as being in disarray when in fact it fought a very well thought out intelligent campaign. (To deny this would be to say that Fianna Fail won the election despite a terrible campaign. This would be very complimentary to the outgoing government!)

This is a very serious problem. We all depend to a greater or lesser extent on the media to understand what is happening in the outside world. But it is not often that the media’s presentation of reality is tested by an objective measure. The results of the election show objectively that what the media said was happening on the doorsteps was simply wrong.

Why was the media so wrong? Are the journalists incompetent or stupid? In Bertie Ahern’s post election interview he didn’t blame individual journalists at all. According to Ahern “they were only doing what they were told to do”.

But who or what is behind the propaganda campaign of the media? I am surprised that there has been very little comment on the “white nigger” letter which I attached to an earlier posting. In the light of the results of the election I attach this letter again.

The letter is from the British Ambassador to Ireland describing a lunch he had in October 1969 with the Chief Executive of The Irish Times, Major Thomas McDowell. McDowell was the Chief Executive of The Irish Times from 1962 to 1969. He was also Chairman of the Irish Times Trust, the secretive body which controls the paper, from 1974 to 2001. He is currently honoured with the title of President for Life of The Irish Times Group.

1969 British Ambassador letter 0.12 Mb

by billy idle Sun May 27, 2007 19:59

My theory on this is that independent newspapers were smart enough to see how stories about Berties dodgy personal finances last october actually increased FF's popularity. This time it had the added benefit of distracting the electorate from the real failures of this government in the areas of health,education,environment and transport etc.

Isn't it interesting how Cowen and other senior FF people had a shady meeting with O'Reilly just a few days before the election after which both sides refused to give any details about what they discussed. That suggests that FF were not at all displeased about all those Bertie stories that the indo were running. And the subsequent result of the election shows why.

by Dagon Sun May 27, 2007 19:38

Dunno. The Indo ran a lot of anti FF stories even in the vlast week of the election campaign. Even in the Sindo there are real journalists like Gene Kerrigan, John Drennan and Alann Ruddock.

by billy idle Sun May 27, 2007 19:32

I think you'll find alot more West Brits and other nasties at the offices of Sir O'Reilly's rag-sheets. No wonder mad hatter harris and mental Myers are so at home their,

by Great Cthulhu Sun May 27, 2007 17:24

....My earlier guess was proved wrong. He won a majority after all, in spite of those nasty
Bolshevik-Freemason-West Brits at the Irish Times.

by SBP Reader Tue May 22, 2007 22:58

It didn't occur to me until you posted, but Paddy Power was very accurate on the Eurovision and on previous elections - certainly far more accurate than polls, adjusted or raw. They have some lovely tables on every question I can think of, including Bertie to win, McDowell for demotion and FF/Lab for government.
http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_type&category=S...=1653

by Odds 50/1 Tue May 22, 2007 20:45

Our cyndicate has put 100 @ 50/1 Ahern. pd 100 @ 55/1 Kenny l/p 100 @ 30/1 Rabbit l/p 100 @ 5/1 Higgins S/P

What's the odds, nothing like a good oul gamble it might just pay off ...Will we hit the jackpot?

by Great Cthulhu Tue May 22, 2007 17:35

Bertie must be in big trouble if he has only Harris and the B&ICO/Aubane gang supporting him!!

by John Boy Tue May 22, 2007 15:51

The logic is flawed since there are many people that would like to see the back of FF but see the alternatives as incapable.

A change of Taoiseach may be the catalyst for change for the better but I can't see a change of party being better.

I would lose the PDs though.

by mm Tue May 22, 2007 15:42

Its well known that, after a time, any corporation or company begins to take on
the personality and traits of the individual in charge.
This is true also for Ireland Inc. After 10 years of Bertie as taoiseach he has managed
to impose his character on Irish society; and what a character it is.
- no appreciation for the value of education
- no care for the poor and the sick
- unable to tell right from wrong
- power at any price
- F*** the environment
- our children reared by strangers.

What a man!

by John Boy Tue May 22, 2007 15:21

There's very little discernible difference between the parties.

Politics is about those who are in power trying to hold onto it and those that aren't trying to get it.

Fulfilment of any election policies is of secondary importance.

The copuntry, in it's entirety, wouldn't be any better off with a difference set of politicians at the top table and it pains me to say that.

by mm Tue May 22, 2007 15:18

If FF resume power we will see the continuation of the move to the right.
The poor and the sick can rot for all Bertie and FF care.
Ireland will soon become an american state in all but name with the same
mé-féin society and everything decided by the bottom line.
Is this what we really want?

by John Boy Tue May 22, 2007 14:34

There's no point in change for change's sake.

Sure, people would like a change but the alternative to FF being in government means that KG and Labour will be there and neither Kenny nor Rabitte have the wherewithall to run a country.

So, as unpalatable as it may be to many, FF being in power may be the lesser of two evils.

by SBP Reader Tue May 22, 2007 12:59

For sure the BIFFO will be taoiseach if FF are elected - Bertie is headed the way of Judge Naughty O'Buachalla and others who resign rather than answer the simplest of questions. I am sure the IT know with precision the nature of Bertie's offences and whether they are or are not criminal, but they are seeking control of a compromised leader. They will not get it because the questions still remain and a questionable leader is unsupportable.

But it would be far preferable to eject FF from office, or at the least wrest control from the two-headed monster of the FF-PD alliance, and rotate some offices. The only way to bring accountability back into public life is by scrutiny, which means new faces to answer to.

Whether Bertie has or hasn't broken the law is now irrelevant, he is untrustworthy, as are all those pledging uncritical support.

by John Boy Tue May 22, 2007 12:43

Whatever your views on who says what, it's blatantly obvious that the only credible conteder to be the next Taoiseach is Biff Cowen.

I'm no fan of FF but the thought of Rabitte, Kenny et al assuming the position has me break out in a cold sweat.

by spock's ears Tue May 22, 2007 12:22

Eamonn says he doesn't care where the criticisms of the IT are published -I wonder would he say that if, say "Penthouse" published a searing critique of the IT : ).

On a more serious note, Indymedia viewers, go into a library that takes the magazine and read its back issues. You'll find the magazine has some highly questionable views on immigration,
religion and the Second World War.

by yello Tue May 22, 2007 11:17

"FOR the first time in my life I am going to vote Fianna Fail. And if you care about the future of Irish democracy you will do the same. Because I believe the anti-Ahern campaign to be the most sinister, sustained and successful manipulation of the Irish media that I have seen in my lifetime".
Who wrote that? John? Eamonn? No, it was....
EOGHAN HARRIS, in the Sunday Independent, May 06 2007.
Maybe Harris should get a job at the IPR-after all, both he and Brendan Clifford were once attacking Irish nationalism from an authoritarian Marxist viewpoint, and both have
embraced reactionary positions (Harris-Anglo-American neo-conservatism,Clifford,
1950s Catholic Republicanism). And what's a little FF corruption between friends?

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Tue May 22, 2007 11:14

The idea that the Irish Times has been objective in its reporting of the General election is, in my view, eccentric. I could give numerous examples of its bias.

Despite all the column inches devoted to Bertie Ahern’s finances it looks like it has been much ado about nothing. No evidence of political corruption has been found. Indeed an allegation has been made that the Irish Times suppressed information leaked from the Mahon Tribunal which would have pointed to Ahern’s innocence (see letter by Liam Young, The Irish Times, 16/5/07). I have not seen any denials by Madame of this very serious charge.

The whole tenor of The Irish Times campaign in this election has been that Fianna Fail has been on the ropes and has been having a torrid time on the door steps (see last Saturday’s article by Kathy Sheridan in which a prediction of 62 seats for Fianna Fail was made). It was only yesterday that its own opinion polls could no longer hide the reality from itself and its readers (incidentally, The Irish Times opinion polls reduce the FF vote by 5 percentage points in their “adjusted” figures. The 5 percentage points are then distributed to the other parties. Look at the “core” vote figures and compare with the adjusted figures if you don’t believe me).

It’s current tack today is that Fianna Fail will be looking for the support of independents after the election. So a vote for Fianna Fail is a vote for instability. But if its own opinion polls are to believed a FF/PD coalition is still a likely option and a FF single party government is not beyond the bounds of possibility.

The most blatant example of The Irish Times’s bias was its coverage of the debate between Ahern and Kenny. Although most commentators believed that Ahern had won, the exception, of course, was The Irish Times.

It is not often that readers of a newspaper read about an event that they themselves have witnessed. But this was the case with the election debate.

The headline in the following day’s Irish Times (18/5/07) was: “Kenny scores on confidence and Ahern on detail”. The clear impression that any reader would get was that the outcome was a draw. But given that it was a draw (per The Irish Times) Kenny really won. This is the logic that it used:

“Given that Mr Kenny had much more to lose if he failed to demonstrate his ability to hold his own in such a crucial contest his supporters will be happier at the outcome. There was certainly no knockout punch from either man in the course of the contest.”

In the discussion of the debate many boxing metaphors have been used. But in boxing if the contender does not score more points, the champion is declared the winner.

The Irish Times report tended to be impressionistic:

“Mr Kenny looked confident and alert while the Taoiseach looked tired at times. Mr Ahern did pressurise his opponent on how he would deliver on his “contract” within budgetary constraints and he also did well on crime.”

Unlike the Irish Independent there was no reference to the most dramatic parts of the debate in which Ahern obtained an admission from Kenny that the potential partners of Labour had a tax policy that benefited the top 3% of income earners. Nor unlike the Irish Independent did it mention that Ahern demonstrated that Fine Gael’s own Justice spokesperson had got his statistics wrong.

A good proportion of The Irish Times coverage dwelled on the “issue” of Ahern’s finances which in fact consisted of only a very small part of the overall debate.

The pictures and headlines in the coverage of the debate were quite disgraceful.

At the top of page 8 (18/5/07) a small headline read: “Enda Kenny says he would bring a ‘new energy and a new motivation’ to role of Taoiseach.”

Then in a much bigger headline there was the rather defensive quote from Ahern: “My energy levels as good as ever”. Underneath this headline there was a matrix of nine pictures taken during the debate: four of Kenny and four of Ahern with a picture of Miriam O’ Callaghan in the centre. The top picture is of Ahern with his eyes closed.

Underneath the pictures is a box entitled “Kenny v Ahern: what they said”.

It might be wondered why Kenny’s name was first in the above title. As the outgoing Taoiseach and leader of the largest party should it not have been Ahern? Then under the heading there are four quotes each from Kenny and Ahern. Kenny’s quotes are confident and aggressive while Ahern’s are defensive.

About the only concession to reality came with an insert at the very end of page 8 in which five floating voters were asked for their opinions. Three out of the five said Ahern was a convincing winner and the remaining two thought it was pretty even but that Ahern had come out on top.

In my view The Irish Times coverage of the debate was a complete misrepresentation of what happened. The people responsible would have been aware that unlike in most reports their readers would have witnessed for themselves what was being reported on. One can only imagine how this event would have dealt with if The Irish Times had been freed from such a constraining factor.

by Spock's ears Tue May 22, 2007 10:45

The Irish Times has criticised (rightly) Bertie, but it also gave him a chance to defend himself.
There was no Sunday Independent-style bullying of Ahern.
The Irish Times, whatever its flaws, has always been hated by those who dream of an Ireland populated entirely by white Catholic Republicans (see the newsagent in Angela's Ashes, for instance).
And while I disagree with many of Geraldine Kennedy's views, I admire her standing up to the Haughey government over the phone-tapping scandal-something the "volkish" element of Ireland still hates her for.

by Eamonn de Paor Tue May 22, 2007 09:52

Curiouser and curiouser!
I had assumed the IPR was just another little self-referential club of navel-gazers, of no lasting interest to anyone but themselves.
But if they have got the arrogant Irish media and their apologists worried, then maybe there is more to them after all.
Good work, IPR! Well done, Indymedia!

by spock's ears Mon May 21, 2007 22:57

Last Week the IT published TWO full pages
of Bertie's statement defending himself. Strange behaviour from a publication determined to "hound" St. Bertie and "re-anglicise" Ireland.

We're unlikely to see that reported in the IPR, a magazine whose contributors appear to be Irish verisions of Lyndon LaRouche.

Remember "The New Frontiersman" in "Watchmen", a, paranoid
right-wing magazine? The Irish Political Review is the
real-world "New Frontiersman"!

by SBP Reader Mon May 21, 2007 22:30

"Curious, isn't it, that when a serious criticism surfaces of a very powerful institution, a storm of irrelevances suddenly arises"

Indeed. The Independent by way of Jody Corocoran (who in my humble opinion is too thick to plot) and the Irish Times (who are too clever to succeed) are the only media of note in forming this election, and have played a strange game. But effective, one assumes, as neither seem dissapointed by re-electing Bertie and his cronies. This election is nothing but red herrings. Every constitutional crisis, fundamental employment right, taxation policy or other electoral issue has been quietly dropped.

I sincerely hope that the populist monstrosity that is McDowell and the PDs will be ousted, at the very least. A change of leadership would certainly open the civil service books to inspection, whoever the new regime.

by Eamonn de Paor Mon May 21, 2007 22:10

"When the IPR does it, nobody seems to notice."

I expect because practically nobody reads it. Why else would nobody notice?

Curious, isn't it, that when a serious criticism surfaces of a very powerful institution, a storm of irrelevances suddenly arises to cloud and conceal the major issue. Now, I wonder why would that be?

by spock's ears Mon May 21, 2007 21:29

I agree there are problems with the Irish Times, but I have read the IPR
regularly in a local library (I've seen it in libraries and bookshops in Cork,Galway, and Dublin) and I find its views highly offensive.
It basically seems to advocate an 1950s idea of Irishness where only white, nationalist Catholics have an right to be Irish, dressed up with a dollop of Leninism and anti-globalisation.
Remember, John expressed disapproval of an IT editiorial advocating multi-culturalism and friendship with-NOT submission to-Britain. Respecting the French or American national anthems is not advocating our annexation by those nations.

Worse still, its articles on WWII resemble a cross between AJP Taylor and Pat Buchanan-the evil British forced the friendly Germans into war.
When Gerry McGeough publishes these kind of opinions, there is outrage. When the IPR does it, nobody seems to notice.

The IPR are in no position to sling mud at anyone, even the Irish Times.

by SBP Reader Mon May 21, 2007 20:55

"The Irish Times, on the other hand, is far from irrelevant"

And likewise Vincent Browne who appears to have played a quite underhand role in massaging pro-PD, pro-FF messages throughout the campaign, the latest being his vindictive attack on Pat Rabbitte today.

by Eamonn de Paor Mon May 21, 2007 20:47

The IPR is a complete irrelevance. I for one never heard of it and neither know nor care who or what it espouses, - left, right or centre. (Frankly, it irritates me that in the course of important discussion in an election campaign, that people should insult the intelligence of the participants and start running after hares.) The Irish Times, on the other hand, is far from irrelevant - it is a major player in Irish affairs; and in view of its conduct, close scrutiny and questioning are warranted. I don't care who asks the questions so long as we get to the bottom of what the I.T. is up to.

by yello Sun May 20, 2007 17:31

I agree with the above poster. The Irish Political Review has published dozens of offensive comments over the years,(loads of them as bad as "white nigger") all far worse than one
(admitted nasty) comment in a private letter.
Perhaps Brendan Clifford is Justin Barrett in disguise ; ).

by spock's ears Sun May 20, 2007 14:19

Their Haughey-worship isn't the worst thing about the IPR.
Here are some other objectionable articles from the magazine.

*An article in February 2007 attacked legistation for gay rights in Northern Ireland, claiming that
"Peter Hain … is determined to impose social norms against the grain of society in the North." Editoral Comment,Feb 2007

*Another Editoral Comment, in April 2007, implied the Omagh bombing might be the work of the British secret services.

* Yet Another article in Nov. 2005, "the Propaganda that never sleeps" sailed dangerously close to David Irving territory by claiming "The Nuremberg Trials were a travesty of law on many grounds.". Does the IPR seriously think the murderous Nazis were the helpless vicitms of English Imperialism?
The Nazi butchers were tried according to the principles of international law and given lawyers to defend them.

The Aubane gang have nothing to offer the Irish left.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Tue May 15, 2007 09:20

Miriam,

Perhaps the differences between us are not as significant as first appeared.

I am more forgiving of Ahern. In fairness it was not a case of undeclared income it was undeclared gifts. It is not uncommon for people to receive gifts of money from other people. People get into financial trouble for various reasons and friends help them out.

Most people in that situation are grateful, but it does not follow that the receipients feel they have to do the donors any favours in return. There are some areas of human life that are not dictated by the law of contract.

Also, there would be very few people whose first thought on receiving a gift would be to declare it to the Tax authorities.

Okay I admit that the receivng of money as minister for Finance wasn't great. He claims he didn't ask for it, but that someone knew his situation and thought he would do something about it. There was a feeling that a likely Taoiseach shouldn't be living over a shop and shouldn't have to be worried about personal financial problems. (Incidentally, it was an Irish Times story that prevented Ahern from succeeding Reynolds in 1994. It has been remarkably coy about its role in Ahern's destiny).

In my view all of this was dealt with last year. The Irish people or at least most Irish people can't think of Ahern as being corrupt (maybe they and I are naive). I have never met Ahern, but I do know of people who have been helped out by Ahern (in terms of his time and energy) in resolving disputes and have tried to pay Ahern and he has refused. Rightly or wrongly people think Ahern is a decent man.

In my view Ahern has been hounded by the media in this election. Story after story has appeared but nothing of substance has emerged.

I am not a professional journalist myself, but I can see that there may be cases where journalists hound a politician over a small story in order to keep a bigger story on the boil. It's a dodgy ethical area, but if there is some substance to the bigger story the hounding in retrospect can be justified. But in this case the big story has not emerged and as far as I can see is not there.

Also, when I hear the shrill moralising of the Irish Times in particular and then I look at how it behaves when it itself is put under scrutiny, I want to vomit.

The website is www.atholbooks.org. On the left hand side of the home page (fourth line down) you will be able to access some free back issues of the Irish Poltical Review.

In particular I would recommend you read the December 2004 issue which deals with how the Irish Times dealt with "the white nigger" letter.

Thank you for your interest.

Best regards

John

by Miriam Cotton - MediaBite Mon May 14, 2007 20:33 mcotton at mediabite dot org

John

I think we've arrived at a stalemate. I acknowledge the significance of what you have revealed - except as you are insisting on relating it to this issue. We are accusing each other of myopia on key points and it seems are unlikely to agree.

You seem to imply that improper and dishonest behaviour only matters if it involves huge sums of money. It is a fact that Ahern received significant income which he did not declare or pay tax on until it was made public 12 years later. That's dishonesty and you are applying a different standard to Ahern than is consistent even with the law of the land - and certainly as it is applied to ordinary people. How you can say, given the known facts, that there has never been any suggestion of impropriety is bizarre. You can only argue that if you choose to disregard all that we now know.

I'm not 'defending' the Irish Times - they may well have a hundred different motives in this, but Ahern has brought this on himself by his own improper behaviour and the IT is right in that narower regard.

With regard to Terry Prone - the fact I agree with one thing she says doesn't signify any more than that. She had an 'advice' column for Enda and Bertie in the Sunday Tribune yesterday headed 'OK boys - now sell yourselves' - long on the sort of puffery that management and PR consultants make so much money out of but entirely devoid of substance or meaning were the real issues are concerned. That's the sort of media commentary this country needs like a hole in the head.

Does the IPR have a website?

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Mon May 14, 2007 19:53

Miriam,
I have just referred to your website and frankly I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It opens with a stunning quote from Geraldine Kennedy regarding the role of the media: “To lead and shape public opinion”. You rightly criticise her for this statement and there are a lot of other comments in the website with which I agree.

And yet here I am raising the issue of media bias in this election and you rush to the defence of the media and quote approvingly from Terry Prone who is also dismissive of the allegation of media bias. (Interestingly you have some less approving views of the same Terry Prone in your website).

I am genuinely perplexed. I can only think that the only media bias you are capable of seeing is a capitalist media bias. You are incapable of seeing an anti-national media bias even when the evidence is presented in front of your nose. The British Major who controlled the paper for so long, who was deciding its editorial line with a foreign state and who is currently the President of The Irish Times Group is invisible to you.

You say that you are aware of the so called “white nigger” letter and have been aware of it long before Bertiegate ever erupted. But you still haven’t offered any opinions on it in this discussion even though you have given plenty of opinions on other matters.

Do you have any opinions, as a media commentator, on how The Irish Times and the rest of the media handled the revelation of the “white nigger” letter: It is now accepted that although the IPR was the first to publish the details of the letter in January 2003, it was known about long before then, probably December 1999.
You might be interested to know (or then again maybe not) that a list of questions was submitted by the IPR to both the board of directors of The Irish Times Ltd and The Irish Times Trust Ltd. The gist of the reply was that what McDowell did was nothing to do with them even though he is currently honoured with the title President for Life of The Irish Times Group. The Irish Times doesn’t believe in delving into its own past, but is more than eager to look at the past of our Taoiseach even though the events occurred between 10 and 13 years ago.

It is no accident that you quote Geraldine Kennedy in the first sentence of your website to illustrate media arrogance. Any media commentator, even one as myopic as you appear to be, could not avoid noticing the arrogance of The Irish Times and its arrogance goes way beyond the mere advancement of corporate interests.

Its stated position is that the Irish are essentially childish, corrupt and sleeveens. Every so often we redeem ourselves like when we were silent during the playing of God Save the Queen in Croke Park, but then we quickly slide back into our old ways.

In my view the editorials last year in the Irish Times around the time of “Bertiegate 1” were quite extraordinary. The theme was that “we had disgraced ourselves yet again” by forgiving Bertie. But of course, the “we” doesn’t refer to The Irish Times, the “we” is the Irish people. The “we” is said in the manner of a nurse trying to coax a senile geriatric or a very young child.

When The Irish Times exposes corruption it is not to prevent it, but to show how corrupt “we” are. This, of course, has an attraction for people on the left, but The Irish Times agenda is not a socialist agenda it is an anti-national one.

Regarding your quotes from Harry McGee, my reaction is: so what. Ahern is entitled to organise his financial affairs in the way he sees fit. He received money from Irish businessmen based in Britain so why is it surprising that there was both sterling and Irish pounds included in the lodgement.

Ahern has admitted last year that he was wrong to accept the money all those years ago. The Irish people have forgiven him because of the circumstances of his marital relationship. No evidence of political favours being given has emerged despite all the digging. Nothing new has emerged during this election campaign despite all the column inches devoted to the story.

The conclusion of the IPR remains: Bertie is not the problem; it is the media.

by SBP Reader Mon May 14, 2007 13:56

"If you tell the truth, it always comes out the same, no matter how you tell it".

The various versions, currency conversions, gifts, digouts and now tax liabilities most probably arise from creative story telling that suited the facts known to be public at the time - possibly without involving an accountant in the creative process. It is sad that only a tabloid will state that "Bertie Lied", while everyone else is protecting him from such unparliamentary language. Without mitigating factors, of two contradictory stories explaining the facts, (at least) one is a lie.

by Miriam Cotton Mon May 14, 2007 13:32

John

I'm aware of that letter and the associated history - long before Bertiegate ever erupted. You haven't shown any correlation between that and the events you are trying to link it to - at least nothing remotely credible, in my opinion. Terry Prone has a good article in today's Irish Examiner which boils down to this: the idea of an orchestrated media response to Bertiegate is really the deluded wail of a party that is casting around for people to blame for its woes. Bertie Ahern should have resigned when all of this first came to light. Look at the trasncripts of Leaders Questions for Sept 22-30 - Ahern's explanations are excruciatingly bad. Mortifying, in fact. Nobody with an ounce of curiosity, let alone a journalist, could fail to have had their interest whetted by his performance. The media are in competition with one another - they have their own tribal loyalites - especially at election time. The statement to end all statements does not actually draw a line under anything. The story about his house is as murky as ever.

As Harry McGee puts it in the Examiner today:

But there are other [questions] that remain hanging. Why was that lodgment a mixture of sterling and punts? And that lodgment went through two accounts before going back into his safe in St Luke's a month or so later. And then it was converted back into sterling for the purposes of paying back Mr Wall but then that didn't happen and then may or may not have been kept in his safe in sterling.

Has there ever been such brass-necked baloney talked by anyone as by Ahern? And here we have the Irish Political Review, of all things, apparently impervious to what the facts reveal: While Minister for Finance, and the person with ultimate responsibility for the management of the country's finances, Ahern was in receipt of undeclared income for which he did not pay income tax until the payments were exposed 12 years later. There is a moral vacuum at the heart of your arguments which you fail to address.

And now we learn, despite assurances to the contrary last September, that there are issues of tax liability on the payments he had from Manchester businessmen, after all. Since then, he has made an ex post facto payment to the Revenue - which they have decided to accept. Did you ever hear the like? If that were you or I, we would have been fined for defrauding the revenue of taxes on undeclared income.

by jasper Mon May 14, 2007 12:44

The saddest thing about this election is that even if current government was ousted, the scenario would be akin to Animal Farm where the animals looking in at the pigs (Napoleon et al) thought they were seeing humans.

As it is, it's starting to resemble the last American Presidential election where John Kerry's main selling point was that he wasn't GW Bush. The same is starting to happen here.

"Oh...look at Bertie! Look what he's been at. We wouldn't do that. No siree."

It's becoming farcical to the point where all I've had on my doorstep is yes-men (and women).

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Mon May 14, 2007 12:43

Miriam,

I notice you haven't made any comments on the British Ambassador's letter which I attached in my previous posting.

Do you have any views on it?

by SBP Reader Mon May 14, 2007 12:41

I don't think that Vincent Browne's other interests remotely answer the inconsistency between the attack on Bertie in the SBP and at a press conference last week, and the poodling support for him this week http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=VINCE...1.asp - Bertie hasn't remotely provided a sensible response to Browne's questions, at least not any that Browne publishes. And where is the commentary about the sinister influence of CJH's mentor and handler PJ Mara? There is an element of self-promotion that is most blatant in Jody Corcoran's "exclusives", and in general the media are stirring without attempting to resolve the truth or to report the full facts known to them. It is like watching a teenager pick acne spots while Clearasil lies unused in the cupboard.

One might assume these journalists wish to ensure the continuation in power of flawed leaders upon whom they hold dirt, and hence exert control and influence, rather than fostering accountability in public life. Of course some newspapers have their own difficulties with accountability (John Water's sacking, Liam Lawlor's death, Liz Allen's bullying award, Irish Ferries co-directorships, newspaper editor / director salaries and conflicts of interest).

by Slim Jim Mon May 14, 2007 12:27

Re the BICO, the intellectual forerunners of the Irish Political Review; 'BICO regarded the union as more important than working class union, believed uncritically in the benefits of British rule in Ireland and elsewhere; justified, or denied discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland; and called for hard line measures against the IRA but not against Loyalist paramilitaries. Its Orangeism was evident in its retrospective support for Williamite settlement in ireland, which it regarded as unqualifiedly progressive.'
J. McGarry and B. O'Leary, Understanding Northern Ireland, (oxford, 1995) p. 139.

This is the organisation which was transformed magically into the IPRG and the Aubane Historical Society in the mid 1990s and is now trying to provide some sort of left wing cover for Fianna Fail. A joke then, a joke now.

by Miriam Cotton Mon May 14, 2007 12:00

John

The last thing I believe about the Irish Times is that it is above suspicion:

http://mc.babna.com/about_us.html

I just think that you are reading a connection between the history of the IT and Bertiegate that simply isn't there - and in the proces are conducting a little revisionism of your own where Ahern and his party's conduct are concerned.

by Bored SBP Reader Mon May 14, 2007 11:40

To answer your question with Vincent Browne - well, he's got a magazine to run, and it's in debt. So that explains all the posturing. He's also a man not averse to looking for dig-outs himself (in the purely legal sense, of course).

On the media, it's clear there is an agenda against Bertie. However, let's take a wider look at bias - the way that Richard Boyd Barrett's personal life is being trawled though the newspapers yesterday and today is a disgrace.

So what if he lives in a 1.5m pile in Killiney and his "birth" mother is Sinead Cusack. That's his business.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Mon May 14, 2007 08:58

Miriam, you seem to suspect the worst of our politicians and even the Irish people, who should "grow up" but The Irish Times is above suspicion.

I would be interested to know what you and others think of the attached file.

It is a copy of a letter from the British Ambassador to Ireland to a colleague in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office describing a lunch he had with Major McDowell.

Major McDowell you will recall was the Chief Executive of The Irish Times from 1962 to 1997. He was Chairman of the Trust, the secretive institution which controls The Irish Times from 1974 to 2001 and he is currently honoured with the title President for Life of The Irish Times Group.

The letter was written in 1969 at a particularly tense time in Anglo-Irish relations as a result of events in Northern Ireland. This was when McDowell went running to the "mother country" England and asked for guidance as to how he would deal with his Editor who despite being a Protestant was behaving no better than a "white nigger" (i.e. like the native Irish).

Do you still think the Irish Times is just another capitalist media outlet?

1969 British Ambassador Letter 0.12 Mb

by Eamonn de Paor Sun May 13, 2007 22:26

If I understand the original IPR posting correctly, it does not seem to propose that the issue is between the media on the one hand and the government on the other hand. Nor that the issue is particularly about whether either one of these two is more or less capitalist or globalist than the other. In fact, many aspects of globalist capitalism have the more or less enthusiastic consent of the majority of Irish people, whether we like it or not. (I don't particularly like it.)

As far as I understand it, the posting argues that the issue is between the Irish Times (and the various elements, many of them in the media, to which it gives leadership) on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Irish society as constituted by the independence movement. The point is made that the reference points, standards and objectives of the Irish Times are external to the society and generally quite hostile to it. That is why it is insistent that we must re-make ourselves. The "white nigger" episode described in one of the earlier postings exemplifies the problem, as does its Bertiegate campaign which attracts the interest of many people who would not subscribe to the actual and underhand objectives of the Irish Times.

by Seán Ryan Sun May 13, 2007 21:20

Whilst I've consistantly agreed on the point made - that the media do have an agenda to subvert the populace - I still fail to see the point of this article or indeed the follow-up comments of either Eamonn de Paor or John Martin. In fairness if this article were just about saying that the media were corrupt it would have been hidden, as there are literally hundreds of examples of this viewpoint already on this site.

This article and the follow-up comments by the two above named posters has another purpose altogether. The attack on the media is but a diversion, with the real agenda thrown in seemingly as just a logical consequence of the fact that the media is corrupt. This 'logical' consequence is that the Government are really the good guys and are the victims of the naughty media.

To add to this eccentric viewpoint, it is also being alleged that the left are the stooges of the media and hence that they are 'bad' guys too.

I'm reminded of the tactical ploy in the US (and also to a lesser degree in Britain) of the spin masters to label the media as the 'liberal media' any time a story is printed that is injurious to the authorities.

Of course, the real and obvious facts are never examined, and indeed they are bypassed here too.

The media are both corporate entities and are owned by corporate entities. They consistantly push capitalist agendas. The Government and their opposition consistantly push capitalist agendas. Spats between these purveyors and pushers of capitalism are flagged as being liberal and leftist and ensure that the blamehounds remain a silenced group and ensure the continued existence of either capitalist mouthpiece.

John Martin and Eamonn de Paor have arrived on Indymedia to push this same tactic. Whilst they claim that those on the left are furthering the agenda of one of the Capitalist pushers (the Times), it is they, who without a shred of self consciousness, are pushing the agenda for both parties.

Proof of the pudding is in the eating, what alternative to John Martin and Eamonn de Paor envisage or offer to replace the media?

by SBP Reader Sun May 13, 2007 18:04

What is with Vincent Browne? This week he is saying "These foolish things shouldn't scupper Ahern" in the Sunday Business Post, dismissing the cash, digouts and other gifts / loans as just "a few foolish things 13 years ago". Last week (http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2007/05/06/story233...8.asp) he was concerned about "Preposterous tale of Bertie’s home improvements", with questions that Bertie cannot consistently answer.

Are all journalists now despotic opinion-makers rather than observers and correspondents?

by poster cost Sun May 13, 2007 16:30

The P.D. Slogan says Don't throw it all away. Can anyone tell us how much is one of those Large posters.I'd be very interested to know.
We have not had an increase in our heating allowance

by Miriam Cotton Sun May 13, 2007 13:12

The current election campagin is a shambles, not because of anything innate in the Irish people or its political class but because of the agenda being pursued by the Irish Times, which has been followed by other media.

The current election campaign is a shambles as a direct consequence of the economic and social policies that have been pursued and lauded by the government and the mainstream media (The Irish Times included) respectively over the past two decades -at least. It is increasingly obvious that exclusively capitalist policies have failed the country and yet all of the main political parties are falling overthemselves to prove their more-capitalist-than-thou credentials - the Greens included. (You should see what some of the GP people have been posing on Politics.ie) Irish men and women have canibalised their own country through cronyism, greed and corruption at every level of society. There is no British imperialist scheme masterminding any of that. Huge injections of EU money have precipitated a glutton fest among those who were already wealthy with a few others managing to get their faces in at the trough too. The gap between rich and poor, the wrecked infrastructure, the failed privatisations etc etc - it's all our own doing - because we go on voting for the people who are doing this to us. The attitude of the IPR and others above is so fundamentally patronising about the Irish electorate - as if we were incapapble of either fucking up -or succeeding under our own steam. There is a strong tendency among Irish people - a legacy of colonialism arguably - to dismiss civic or collective responsibility - the cute hoor as exemplified by Bertie Ahern and everything that Fianna Fail stands for, still appeals to too many people. It's as if people imaging that they are still 'getting one over on them' by turning a blind eye and/or emulating what they see going on. In that respect the Irish Times is right - there is an urgent need for Irish people to take a cold look at what they have become - and its time too for us to grow up and stop projecting ourselves as the victims of self-inflicted crimes. A good place to start would be by not voting for Fianna Fail or the PDs.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Sun May 13, 2007 09:53

Yes, I agree with Eamonn de Paor. Very well put.

I also agree with "yello". The big weakness of the revisionist movement is that Britain has really nothing to offer this country. However, the revisionist movement is having a very destructive effect on political culture in this country in pursueing their agenda. The effect is to retard political development in this country. The current election campagin is a shambles, not because of anything innate in the Irish people or its political class but because of the agenda being pursued by the Irish Times, which has been followed by other media.

by Eamonn de Paor Sat May 12, 2007 20:38

Response to Sean Ryan from Eamonn de Paor:
(The postings by "Eamonn" above are not from me.)
I apologise if I have not made myself clear, it was not my intention to be vague.
I disagree with the revisionist, re-anglicising project of the Irish Times, which is designed not for reform but for subversion, or "counter-revolution", against the independent Irish state.
My argument is that a simple-minded element in the Irish left, in pursuing a valuable and necessary social agenda, allows its often valid critique of the exercise of power in the Irish state to be used to promote the very different agenda of the Irish Times and its accomplices.

by Seán Ryan Sat May 12, 2007 20:34

I have often referred to the Irish Times as a piece of toilet paper. Indeed I have not been kind to it in this thread. If this makes me a pawn of the Times, I have no answer.

The fact that I've neither respect nor trust for the government does not make me a pawn of either British imperialism or the Irish Times. In fact if I had to rate both the media and the Government, I'd say that I think that overall, I dislike the media more. The media should be a voice for the people and should investigate the likes of the police, the judiciary and the Government. But it doesn't and because of this it has fundamentally betrayed its mandate.

By the way, I think the tribunals are rubbish too. And I'd like to point out that they were not set up by the Irish Times.

To suggest that the Times speaks on behalf of the left is at best misguided. I don't speak on behalf of the left either (before the troll jumps back in). I most certainly do not call for a merger with Britain and never have. More to the point, I never will.

So rather than focus on the rants of some other body (in this case the Times) and using this malarky to tar my views, why not focus on what I have said. Afterall, if I'm so wrong or badly informed, this should be quite easy to do. It is my contention, that the only tie that can be shown between my views and that of the Times, is that I believe that the Government is corrupt and should answer for it. I say that I'd have and express this opinion regardless to the existence of the corporate owned and inspired media.

by yello Sat May 12, 2007 20:19

Considering Scotland may be about to break away from the UK, it may take more than "denigrating the national revolution" (i.e. disagreeing with the IPR), to return Ireland to Britain!

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Sat May 12, 2007 20:12

Sean, I can’t say if the left is trying to align us with Britain. I don’t know what goes on inside people’s heads. But by its support of the destructive activities of The Irish Times and the Tribunals it is objectively laying the groundwork for such an alignment. (Fortunately it has limited influence).

It’s amazing that not a single state department (now or ever) was “fully functional” according to you and yet by any reasonable objective analysis the state has been a success or maybe the tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans are masochists who come here to suffer.

I have already conceded that this country is not a socialist paradise. And of course the shortcomings can’t be blamed on the left. The Irish people haven’t trusted them enough to put them in power for any length of time.

The success of this economy has been based on purposeful activity by the state. The groundwork was laid by the Haughey government in 1987. We reduced our dependence on Britain and developed our relationship with continental Europe. We then used our tax laws to encourage American capital to locate here. The state was not passive; it picked and chose what it wanted from the US. And at present it is trying to encourage only the creation of high value jobs. In recent years I have noticed that it is encouraging the development of native capital. Again it is doing this in a very coherent and thoughtful way through Enterprise Ireland. Stability has been provided by social partnership.

Do I agree with everything that has been done? Of course not! The sale of Telecom Eireann was a disaster. Massive investment was put into it by the Haughey government when we didn’t have much money. This showed great foresight. And then a subsequent FF/PD government privatised it. That error can’t be laid at the door of Haughey.

Eamonn is absolutely right. The logic of your position is to lay us open to British cultural, political and economic hegemony. If we are so incompetent and corrupt may be we should get others to run our country for us. No wonder The Irish Times finds such leftism so useful.

by John's mother Sat May 12, 2007 19:50

"No, I think Sinn Fein will do better than I predicted some months ago. This is because they've largely abandoned their crazy economic policies, as many posters on Indymedia have pointed out. In the past few weeks they've dumped their plans to increase corporation tax, they've dumped their plans to increase capital gains tax. Virtually every day since the campaign started, Gerry Adams has been on the radio announcing the abandonment of their previous policy of raising this or that tax. I'm probably the only poster on this site who welcomes this. "

Son, son, son, what do they say? "When you're in a hole, stop digging!" Sinn Fein are on more or less the same score in the opinion polls they have been on for the last year, give or take a point or two. Their change of policy on corporation tax hasn't made any difference to their popularity, it was just to make sure they could go into government with FF if the numbers added up after the election. You're desperately trying to erase the memory of your spectacularly daft prediction by claiming that it was valid at the time, but is no longer valid because SF have changed policy. Anyone with the tiniest bit of knowledge of Irish politics will know how utterly laughable this is and laugh at your comical attempts to justify your consistently ludicrous, hysterical and downright preposterous comments on Indymedia.

And to think of the money your father and I spent on your education!

by Fred Johnston Sat May 12, 2007 19:15 sylfredcar at iolfree dot ie

The problem is not the media. The problem is when skeletons come popping out of politicians' cupboards. It is important to make it look as if good people are being maligned by a vicious, sensationalist and, best of all, Dublin-based media. There is never any question of morals, ethics, or simply doing the right thing being discussed; no, the bad news mongers caused it all. It's an old ploy, belovéd of political parties desperate for scapegoats and who are aware that a rural-urban divide can be exploited, always.

by Seán Ryan Sat May 12, 2007 18:59

I do not support Noel O Gara and have never met the man.

You are a liar.

by Eamonn Sat May 12, 2007 18:53

I think you are the one who is in urgent need of a bowel movement. You would indeed fit into the category of bogus left. What other explanation is there for you supporting Noel O'Gara? Perhaps its his Constitutional Rights you worry about. Poor Mr O'Gara is being cruelly treated by the State. All Landlords should be free to trample on the serfs!

by Seán Ryan Sat May 12, 2007 18:49

Revolution?

You suggest that the left is trying to allign us with Britain. I take offense at that, or at least I would if it were not so obviously misguided.

It is not the left who are implementing changes to the justice system that bring us into line with the British and American model. For example, the inferrance of guilt from silence is an assumption of guilt before trial and is fundamentally opposed to the assumption of innocence.

The privatisation of everything is an American and British methodology and can hardly be blamed on the left.

Page iii of the little blue book, commonly mistaken for the Irish Constitution, admits that the Constitution has been altered without recourse to a referendum, to bring it into line with modern thought (American and British). This act of blatant treason cannot be blamed on the left.

Mandatory sentencing introduced (multiple times), despite all competent study showing that mandatory sentencing should be abolished, is not down to the left either.

There is no facet to the Irish government or their rule that is down to either Irish tradition or Irish thinking and this too is not the fault of the left.

Despite the possibility of Ireland having both the capacity and the ability for self sufficiency, we are utterly dependent on the success of foreign markets and 'investment,' especially British and American. Sovereignty demands self sufficiency and self dependence. The left did not give Irish sovereignty away.

The Irish Government, despite only being stewards of Irish national resources have given Shell a present of Irish gas, despite them not being in a position to claim ownership and in defiance of UN law. Again not the fault of the left.

It's easy via argument to blame the left for every ill that the right have brought upon us. However, considering that the left have never been in power, to do so is totally dishonest and ignorant.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Sat May 12, 2007 18:26

We are getting slightly off the subject and I'm not sure from what perspective Eamonn de Paor is coming from, but I have to agree with his analysis.

The Left in this country, or at least the Irish Times and media left, supports the counter revolution. It is ashamed of the national revolution. The logic of its denigration of the national revolution is indeed a return to Britain.

Unfortunately for these ideologues the Irish people refuse to remake themselves into the model prescribed for them. This is why the left is doomed to irrelevance.

Ever since I have been eligible to vote I have supported the left. In this election I will be voting Fianna Fail for the first time. I don't consider this an abandonment of my socialist principles. My position is that at least Fianna Fail supports the State. No political development, never mind left wing political development can take place other than within a stable state structure.

by Seán Ryan Sat May 12, 2007 17:59

Allow me to express that I am confused as to what point Eamonn is trying to make in the above comment. He still will not say that he disagrees with the Irish Times viewpoint.

The argument that Chekov made is not a complex one. It largely comes down to viewpoint. For example the early leaders of the Irish nation may not have been misguided, they may have been as corrupt as the shower that succeeded them (which is the way I look at it).

The overall point is that Irish society is not where we want it. Not a singular department of the government can now, nor could it ever have been, described as fully functional.

To say that this is the fault of the Irish public is akin to laying the blame on an abused child for being abused.

Successive governments have been given a position of power and trust and the result is that the Irish people have been abused. This is neither a tactical position espoused by the left nor is it bogus; it's reality.

One can look back to incidents in our history all one wants to and come up with arguments that suit one's standpoint. However if one focuses on the present, it's much harder to find excuses. In all fairness to Eamonn and with respect, I suggest that he either shits or that he gets off the pot.

by Eamonn de Paor Sat May 12, 2007 16:37

Sean Ryan says, above:

"The call by the Irish Times for the general populace to re-brand or re-invent itself, due to the mismanagement of successive governments, is a totally corrupt examination of the issue.

As is Eamonn de Paor's call for the same action, in agreement with those he's trying to besmirch, in order to attempt to score a point against Chekov, this is at best childish, and it is I believe, focussing on a point that Chekov hasn't made."

If we accept the left argument, expressed by Chekov and others, that political developments brought about by the Irish independence movement, were in the first instance fundamentally mistaken, and latterly fundamentally corrupt, then the argument of the Anglicisers and revisionists (expressed by the Irish Times and others) that the Irish people as such are fundamentally flawed, is a not unreasonable deduction. Leading inevitably to the ludricous, fundamentalist, destructive demand that the Irish should, in disgrace, remake their identity and turn themselves into something else. (And guess what our new identity should be ... Remembrance, Somme (but don't mention Iraq!!)).

This tactic of bogus left posturing is not new. In the 1880's some landlords resisted the tenant movement by attempting unsuccessfully to organise the farm labourers against the tenant farmers. ("Trust us, we're British!") In fact the labourers movement worked hand in hand with the tenants' movement, and both made massive gains as a result.

by John Sat May 12, 2007 15:51

"You have obviously got absolutely no idea how ridiculuous your assertions are."

You are an incredibly vague man. Why do you never specify which of my claims or assertions are ridiculous?

My last post doesn't contain any assertions pertaining to the matters under discussion. It simply contains a set of statistics, which
obviously have greatly upset you. If you think any of them are wrong, please say so and give (what you think) is the correct one.

While we're on a roll, here's a few more: the median age of death of CF sufferers in Ireland.

1994 19.0
1995 17.0
1997 15.5
1998 20.0
1999 16.5
2000 17.0
2001 23.0
2002 19.0
2003 23.5
2004 25.0

available on web site: www3.nbnet.nb.ca/normap/cfstats.htm

no claims, no assertions, but the figures speak for themselves.

by R. Isible Sat May 12, 2007 15:15

This is all rather disappointing and trivial. However your claim to have written two statistics textbooks enables me to place you squarely into the category of complete and utter liar. There is no earthly way that anyone with the most trivial introduction to the subject would make the claims you have made. You have obviously got absolutely no idea how ridiculuous your assertions are. It's impossible for me to enlighten you before you've done a couple of months of hard work. Come back when you've done that if you still need help, but I think you'll realise how silly what you've been claiming is before then.

by John Sat May 12, 2007 15:03

Not only have I read numerous statistics textbooks, I've written two, probably before you were born. Perhaps you've read them. Although, if you have, they don't seem to have done you much good. Which of the points I stated in my last post are you in disagreement with? You don't specify. Since you consider yourself an expert on time series, here's another for you to digest: Ireland's infant mortality rate. Before you ask, the figures come from the CSO Vital statistics reports:

infant mortality rate in Ireland since 1989:

1989 8.5
1990 8.2
1991 7.6
1992 6.5
1993 6.1
1994 5.7
1995 6.4
1996 6.0
1997 6.1
1998 5.9
1999 5.9
2000 6.2
2001 5.7
2002 5.0
2003 5.3
2004 4.6
2005 4.0

You will observe that if fell sharply between 1989 and 1992 when guess who was in power, rose between 1994 and 1997 when guess who was in power, but since 1997 has fallen sharply when guess who has been in power. Any conclusions?

by R. Isible Sat May 12, 2007 14:25

I didn't mean to talk above your head. I thought you were being a disingenuous troll and was sincerely unaware that you're completely ignorant of basic statistics. My apologies for wasting your time. I'd suggest that before you attempt to discuss this further that you spend some time reading an introductory textbook paying particular attention to the sections on correlation and time-series. Best of luck.

by John Sat May 12, 2007 10:47

Mr. Ryan,

"Ireland has the highest percentage of young people killed in road accidents in the EU"

That doesn't mean the road deaths rate for young people is the highest in the EU. Actually, we're about mid-table. It means that of
those killed in road accidents, the percentage of them who were young was the highest in the EU. By the laws of statistics, it follows
that the percentage of them who were not young was the lowest in the EU (which again doesn't mean that the road deaths rate
for them was the lowest).

by John Sat May 12, 2007 10:39

Mr. Isible,

May I point out that it is now 2007.

If you don't believe me, look at the time it gives for your own post (Sat May 12, 2007 04:37).

That means figures are now available for years beyond 2005. You only give figures up to 2005

The road deaths rate fell back again in 2006 by almost 10 per cent and, so far in 2007, its down again by about 15 per cent.

The facts are quite simple:

The road deaths rate in Ireland rose each year during the period of the Rainbow Government - it rose in 1995, 1996 and 1997. The
graph you kindly supplied shows that clearly. So, that's 0 out of 3 years when the Rainbow Government reduced the road deaths
rate and 3 out of 3 years when they increased it.

Under the FF/PD government since 1997, the road deaths rate fell in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006 and almost
certainly in 2007. That's 8 years out of 10 when it fell and 2 years out of 10 when it rose. Again your graph shows that up to 2005.

While reducing the road deaths rate in 8 years out of 10 is not as good as 10 out of 10 would have been, its still better than
reducing it in 0 years out of 3, which is what the Rainbow Coalition achieved.

by Seán Ryan Sat May 12, 2007 06:52

I suppose I ought to point out to John and his buddies, that on the above graph, that travelling by bus is by far the safest mode of transport.

It makes me wonder. I wonder how much money is spent on the penalty points system, the Gardaí who enforce traffic laws, the courts and the hospitals etc. who deal with traffic accidents.

I look at the state and cost of road maintenance and the millions of man hours squandered in frustrating traffic jams.

What if the Government actually cared?

Surely a good way to decrease traffic accidents to a minimum, would be to expand the public transport system so that it was adequate and to make it a free service. How many would waste money driving their cars if they could hop on a bus for free?

Less oil would be wasted. Traffic flow would become more efficient. Less money would be spent criminalising, prosecuting and burying folks. The gardaí could be redeployed for the most part to crime prevention, as opposed to acting as meter maids. The Courts would become more efficient having to try less traffic offences. Millions of man hours could be spent more productively and lucratively. Hell, it would even tend to make folks happier.

There are many more benefits. Why won't this happen?

Because our government or indeed the 'opposition' don't have the beginnings of a clue between them.

by Seán Ryan Sat May 12, 2007 06:13

I wonder why John didn't use a much clearer representation of the statistics for road deaths in Ireland, considering that he misused this particular site earlier with regard to his attempt to suggest that Mr. Ahern has made Ireland a happy place. I got the graph I'm posting from a pdf file at: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/roadsafety_library/care/d...n.pdf

The rest of the file makes interesting reading too.

The page where I got the link to this pdf file also makes interesting reading: "26 April 2007 - New European Commission figures out tomorrow morning (Friday 27 April) show that Ireland has the highest percentage of young people killed in road accidents in the EU.":
http://ec.europa.eu/ireland/press_office/news_of_the_da...n.htm

A clearer idea of what's going on

by R. Isible Sat May 12, 2007 04:37

John, by your own data and logic the years 2003 - 2005 are a damning indictment of whatever government was in power then. Similarly if you look at the tiny rise (which is in the nature of a random fluctuation) which I agree occured from 1994-1997 you'll see several rises of comparable or much greater magnitude if you make even the sincerest effort to look at the graph.

2003 - 2005: The Wonder Years Starring ?????

2003 8.384
2004 9.193
2005 9.521

Anyway, your shoddy reasoning has been exposed and there are none so blind as those who will not see.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Fri May 11, 2007 22:44

Thanks for your comments. At least you are prepared to engage with the issues raised rather than remain stuck in some left wing sectarian dispute of more than 30 years ago.

The figures you quote seem to be indisputable. However as a socialist I am not a fan of Mary Harney. In particular, the location of private hospitals adjacent to public hospital land does not seem a good idea. I favour a national health service, but maybe we can agree to disagree.

I think you are absolutely right to focus on news management in The Irish Times. This is far more important than what is said in editorial and opinion columns. It is the raw material of the latter. My impression is that in general the newspaper is very sympathetic in its news coverage of Mary Harney as Minister for Health. I noticed this, in particular during the controversy over BUPA and its demand to end risk equalisation a few months ago. The general tenor of the news coverage was supportive of BUPA and competition in the health insurance market.

Fortunately, I haven’t much direct experience of our health service. Anecdotal evidence would suggest it is not in a good state. But I digress. I’m not an expert on this topic.

To get back to news management, the problem is that you would have to know what is left out as much as what is put in. This is very difficult to know unless you have direct knowledge of the story. Not everyone can keep abreast of the latest CSO statistics.

I have no inside knowledge of The Irish Times. However, a friend of mine who contributes to the Irish Political Review discovered some remarkable documents in the Public Records Office in London, which were released under the 30 year rule. In one of them the British Ambassador reported in October 1969 that the Chief Executive of The Irish Times wished the paper to be placed under the guidance of the British State. The Chief Executive, Major Thomas McDowell, was unhappy with the editorial line being pushed by his editor Douglas Gageby. The British Ambassador reported that McDowell referred to his editor as “a renegade or white nigger on Northern matters”.

All of this was first revealed in the January 2003 issue of the Irish Political Review. By any standards this was a sensational document, but the renowned investigative skills of Irish Times journalists seemed to have deserted them. The details of the document were only revealed in The Irish Times after they were published in the previous day’s Sunday Independent. And The Irish Times report reads more like a rebuttal of the Sunday Independent than a news item.

There was no follow up investigative work except by the Irish Political Review. We discovered other documents in the British Records Office to support the general thrust of the “white nigger” letter as well as some interesting details about the British Army Major, Thomas McDowell.

This is not some old story going back to 1969. Major McDowell was Chief Executive of The Irish Times Ltd from 1962 to 1997. He was Chairman of The Irish Times Trust which controls the newspaper from 1974 to 2001 and he is currently honoured with the title President for Life of The Irish Times Group.

When I hear The Irish Times talking about their right to publish the details of stolen documents from the Mahon tribunal in order to undermine our Taoiseach, I treat its moral indignation with the contempt it deserves.

by John Fri May 11, 2007 22:16

The figures are simply the numbers of road deaths given in the Garda Siochanna web site divided by the population of Ireland (i.e. R. Ireland). Your graph matches exactly what my figures show. Road deaths ROSE between 1994 and 1997 during the period of the last FG/Lab government. Your graph clearly shows that. They actually rose each year between 1994 and 1997. If you can't see that in your graph, I'll send you a microscope. Road deaths then fell after 1997, which again your graph clearly shows. The only difference between your graph and my figures is that my figures go up to 2006, while your graph stops at 2004. Try and get up to date.

No, I think Sinn Fein will do better than I predicted some months ago. This is because they've largely abandoned their crazy economic policies, as many posters on Indymedia have pointed out. In the past few weeks they've dumped their plans to increase corporation tax, they've dumped their plans to increase capital gains tax. Virtually every day since the campaign started, Gerry Adams has been on the radio announcing the abandonment of their previous policy of raising this or that tax. I'm probably the only poster on this site who welcomes this.

by Pro Dev - Irish Political Review Group Fri May 11, 2007 22:07

There is a recurring theme in this discussion that the IPR group is bizarre and that the development of the group is laughably inconsistent. Actually the IPR is an established publication with a record of coherent political analysis. What some people seem to have difficulty with is that we are prepared to engage in independent thinking.

In the seventies we upset sections of the Left by pointing out that the Ulster Protestant community had come through a separate national development and that no amount of political pressure would cause it to acquiesce in a 32 county unified state. If we had been engaged with at that time instead of vilified, thinking on the Left nationalist side might have been made deeper. As things have turned out all shades of political opinion, whether openly or not, now accept that Protestant Ulster has the right to opt out of a 32 county unitary state. We continue to publish and sell copies of The Economics of Partition, the work on which the so-called two nations theory was based.

Having opposed the attempt to disregard the actual history of Ulster unionism we discovered that belief in Irish nationalism had collapsed in the establishment down South sometime in the early nineties. In tandem with this collapse a revisionist, anti national element began pushing an agenda to change the way Irish history was taught. Part of that agenda may be to bring back the Republic into the fold of British cultural influence. These elements have been pushing an open door.

By chance we discovered correspondence between the owner of the Irish Times, Major Thomas McDowell and the British Foreign Office, released in the British state papers office. This correspondence contained a clear invitation to Downing Street issued in 1969 to assist in controlling the Irish Times.

This campaign to neuter the Irish national tradition is being conducted in disregard of history in the same way that the campaign to break unionist resistance to a united Ireland was conducted. We think that this project to wean Ireland away from its cultural roots will have a demoralising effect and will open the society up for ever increasing waves of globalisation.

Unfortunately the effort to roll back the national tradition, traditional culture, call it what you will, has been running very smoothly indeed. So smoothly that the revisionists or anglicisers are becoming rather ambitious. Hence we have Bertiegate.

The one formula that has worked a treat for doing in traditional nationalist culture is to run media campaigns against corruption. This was spectacularly successful in the campaign against Haughey and now it is being used against Ahern. Frankly I don’t buy the argument that corruption was a major problem in the Irish political elite. There are societies like the Ukraine or some societies in Africa where corruption acts as a major block to development. Ireland was never like that. Its economic development could not follow text book lines; a business class had to be created; the State had to play a role in awarding contracts to favoured businesses; but development was never impeded by corruption.

In conclusion, the IPR Group is putting forward a different analysis on Bertiegate than is to be found elsewhere. The debate would go better if the focus was on the topic and not on the origins and history of the IPR group. The choice in this controversy is between government by politics as represented by Fianna Fail and government by media as represented by the Irish Times. We support the primacy of politics

by Seán Ryan Fri May 11, 2007 21:24

It seems to be an act of blatant hypocrissy to constantly focus on the media and moan about them not focussing on the 'issues.'

The mainstream media are crap and that's a given. But to have a go at them for this and then, not to recognise that the political parties, especially Fianna Fail, only pay lip service to the issues themselves come election time, is either overt stupidity or covert dishonesty. The rest of the time, these so-called leaders spend focussing on what the media are now blathering on about, in this case the only thing the media are guilty of is lag. For example, whatever happened to Mr. Ahern's promise to end waiting lists in hospitals, on his last effort to con the general public?

If you wish to have a go at the media, by all means do so, they deserve it. But, do not do so for the express purpose of elevating those who possess not a shred of decency or morality. That's having an agenda and is just as dishonest as the maintream sewerage.

The call by the Irish Times for the general populace to re-brand or re-invent itself, due to the mismanagement of successive governments, is a totally corrupt examination of the issue.

As is Eamonn de Paor's call for the same action, in agreement with those he's trying to besmirch, in order to attempt to score a point againsr Chekov, this is at best childish, and it is I believe, focussing on a point that Chekov hasn't made.

The general public are not the problem. The system and those who exploit it are the problem.

Every topic under the sun seems to be cropping up in this thread. Even the 'Celtic Tiger,' has made an appearence. The Celtic tiger itself is a blatant act of propaganda. There's nothing Celtic about this beast. It's all got to do with that other propaganda word, 'investment.' A much more honest description of this beast would be a 'Trojan Tiger.'

by R. Isible Fri May 11, 2007 21:18

As always on Indymedia.ie (or anywhere else for that matter) one of the surest signs of someone trying to mislead or misdirect is when they fail to provide a citation in support of their contentions. Citations are great. They let anyone else go and check whether or not there's: 1) what they'd consider a reputable source; 2) the "facts" have been interpreted correctly; 3) there are other facts which provide a different picture.

In this case John has omitted to provide a source for his data. Luckily there's a government body (which despite all sorts of problems with their proposals and recommendations) which provides some sort of information. In this case it's the National Roads Authority

http://nra.ie/PublicationsResources/ListofPublications/...fety/

and they have a very nice graph available here on page 11 of this publication:

http://nra.ie/PublicationsResources/DownloadableDocumen...n.pdf

which shows that road deaths have been falling steadily pretty much without any regard for which local chieftans (Labour, FG, FF or PD) have been in power. It's probably something to do with better braking systems and airbags. What's left out of the picture is what the actual death rate might be, if instead of hundreds of thousands of morons motoring around at high speeds there was a comprehensive public transport system. I'm betting it'd be a lot lower.

Thanks to the extremist policies of IBEC (and it's mouthpieces in Labour, FG, FF, PD) Ireland has squandered its boom euros on giving every boy racer a new motor and a crowded corridor at the local hospital to die in.

Irish Road Deaths 1972-2004

by John's mother Fri May 11, 2007 21:03

Lordie me son, you've really exceeded yourself. Ranting about the "anti-national" agenda of Geraldine Kennedy and the IT is enough to place you in the category of prize fruit loops. You've made an eejit of yourself many times before on this site but this really takes the biscuit.

Speaking of your silliness, are you still standing by your prediction of a few months ago that Sinn Fein will lose all their seats in the election? If not, why not?

by John Fri May 11, 2007 20:07

Chekov:

I dare you or your boss, Vincent Browne, to put these figures in Village magazine:

these are for the road deaths rate in Ireland since 1994:

1994 11.252
1995 12.109
1996 12.454
1997 12.846
1998 12.335
1999 10.999
2000 10.906
2001 10.630
2002 9.563
2003 8.384
2004 9.193
2005 9.521
2006 8.622

between 1994 and 1997: increase of 14 per cent

between 1997 and 2004: decrease of 33 per cent

What are the chances the Irish Times will print these before the election? Pigs will fly sooner.

by John Fri May 11, 2007 19:55

Is it actually important what the motivation of the Irish Times is? The key point is that they are providing hysterical and biased coverage of this election and indulging in a witchhunt against one particular party. If this was limited to opinion columns in the paper, alongside accurate news columns, it would be tolerable. But, it isn't. Every news story in the paper is being doctored to fit in with their overall viewpoint and any news which doesn't support their view that the country is going to the dogs under the present Government is simply not reported. It could well be because they are anti-national, as the Irish Political Review Group say. Its quite possible that its a mixture of motives on the part of different people in the Irish Times. Some in the Irish Times may have both an anti-national motivation and a socialist motivation, e.g. Fintan O'Toole. Others, eg. Vincent Browne, may have a socialist motivation, without being anti-national. While Geraldine Kennedy, I now realise from reading the posts here, probably has only an anti-national motivation. But, the point is, they all hate Fianna Fail and want to see this Government defeated. Fair enough, all are entitled to their view, which can be expressed in the opinion columns of the paper. But, its an assault on democracy when all the news reporting is as biased and inaccurate as it has been in the Irish Times since the election campaign began. It reminds me of the Sun in the 1992 UK general election. Chekov, if you ever want to be an ace reporter, you should grab a scoop when its handed to you on a plate.

by Eamonn de Paor Fri May 11, 2007 19:09

The earlier Irish leadership was "fundamentally mistaken" (see Chekov above). The current leadership is fundamentally corrupt. If this is true then the Irish people who have generated and authorised such leadership from among their own must itself be fundamentally flawed in accordance with the recent denunciation of us by the Irish Times, and its demand that we must re-brand or re-invent ourselves is well-founded.

by Miriam Cotton Fri May 11, 2007 18:57

It is bizarre. What comes over is an irrational anti-Irish Times agenda on the part of IPR. God knows the IT is far from perfect and deserving of criticism, but reading a pro-British/US agenda into their motives and coverage of 'Bertiegate' is perverse. It really only serves to demonstrate a sort of obsessive chippiness about the paper's historical role in Irish journalism. While there is much justifiable criticism to be made on that account, IPR, because of their determiation to put their dislike of the IT ahead of every other consideration, are anxious to show a causal link between two issues which are quite separate - hence the necessity to re-interpret Fianna Fail's record on corruption. There is a serious loss of perspective apparent in their article. Perhaps the kindest thing we can do is to look away discreetly - and give them time to realise what chumps they have made of themselves.

by chekov Fri May 11, 2007 18:40

"one might think that the news that we're now moving towards the top of the EU league table for life expectancy would merit a mention in the Irish Times. But, alas no. Perhaps Chekov will print it in his Village magazine and have a scoop."

I'm afraid I've already filed my copy for the next issue. It's entitled "The lack of fawning coverage of the British monarchy in the Irish Media is symptomatic of our base and ignoble race. The British Empire was really rather good. Us peasants are a darned ungrateful bunch of gombeens."

my OBE is in the post.

by Serge Fri May 11, 2007 18:28

Its completely bizzare cos the tiny sect ( BICO/IPR/Cliffordistas) making the argument are as bizarre as it gets: unionist-stalinists turned nationalist-social democrats/old labourists. Now there are many exampleson the left of people making spectacular ideological journies but this is one of the freakiest.

Nothing wrong, you might say, with people changing their minds but the problem is that when this happens in a left-sect they usually pretend they never held their old views at all, thinking we're all stupid and wont notice the 100% u-turn. The SWP have done this repeatedly in the past but hardly on this scale: after all their intention is to hide the u-turn from impressionable young recruits not the world and its mother. The Post-BICO group just flipped sometime in the early nineties and carried on as if nothing had happened. Its as if your local parish priest appeared at the pulpit one sunday in heavy metal gear and urged the congregation in his usual patronising tones to indulge in a spot of human sacrifice. In this case they got away with it because hardly anyone noticed and no one gave a damn what a sect of half a dozen nuts does or says, but boy are they fun to follow, if you have like to indulge in a bit of nerdish sect-watching. But not too much, it makes you forget about the real world. Have to go now, a whole world to win!

by Chekov Fri May 11, 2007 17:39

"If the above exhibition of national self-hatred is anything to go on, then the Irish Times has already won, and we should just apologise to Queen Elizabeth and ask her to overlook the past 90 years of Irish history."

That's just staggeringly dishonest. The article's argument essentially boils down to the claim that the scrutiny into the finances of Bertie Ahern represents an attack on traditional Irish culture. From this one can only assume that you consider receiving gifts (or interest free, non-repayable loans) of tens of thousands from wealthy business people to be a part of traditional Irish culture. I am willing to bet vast sums of money that 99% of the Irish population has never experienced this particular manifestation of our supposed culture.

I can hardly think of a more intellectually threadbare, dishonest approach than to claim that anybody who criticises such relations between the business and political elite is guilty of "national self-hatred". Such gombeenism is not a part of our national culture, it's a part of the culture of our political elite, and it's not at all confined to Fianna Fail. Sure, the IT is guilty of focusing overwhelmingly on one particular figure, who does not appear to be the most compromised by any means, and I'm sure they have their reasons for that, but it doesn't mean that it's alright. Just because they're out to get him, doesn't mean he isn't guilty.

It's also completely false to claim that such payments are a traditional part of Irish culture. The early years of the state were marked by a political elite who were generally scrupulously honest when it came to public service as there was a widespread belief in the newly born state. Their politics and their ideas may have been fundamentally mistaken, authoritarian and oppressive, but they weren't generally personally compromised by money.

And if anybody thinks that such payments have no influence on decision making, they're just denying reality. It is impossible to prove that any particular decision was influenced by any particular payment, but it's a fact that's as well proven as any in the social sciences, that decisions tend to be influenced by favours. If you have a system where key decision makers routinely accept payments from wealthy individuals, their decisions will, on balance, tend to favour those individuals - that's irrefutable and it operates in all walks of life, even in areas such as science and medicine where the decision makers take personal ethics way more seriously than politicians do.

To be honest, I find this whole train of argument to be completely and utterly bizzare. Do ye think we're all complete idiots?

by John Fri May 11, 2007 17:27

To John Martin - Irish Political Review:

Excellent stuff. Clearly the Irish Times is running a hysterical anti-Fianna Fail campaign. I will now take your word for it that it is not primarily motivated by a socialist agenda but by an anti-national agenda. You almost certainly have far more 'inside' knowledge of what motivates the bigwigs in the Irish Times than I do. My knowledge is limited merely to reading the paper and I assumed they had a socialist agenda because of the vituperative daily anti-Fianna Fail outpourings on that paper of people I have always considered to be socialists, such as Vincent Browne, Fintan O' Toole and Mary Raftery. But, if you say these people are simply being given a run and that the real agenda of the Irish Times is primarily anti-national rather than socialist, I will take your word for it without question.

As well as concentrating on Bertiegate, might I suggest you also look at the news management being carried out by the Irish Times as part
of their anti-Fianna Fail campaign, particularily in relation to the economy and health. For the past month the Irish Times has been trying to portray the Celtic Tiger as on its last legs. But just today the CSO published statistics showing manufacturing output in Ireland increasing by 13.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 as compared with the first quarter of 2006. This is the sort of growth we had in the late 90s. Clearly such growth makes nonsense of claims that the Irish economy's performance is deteriorating or that a crash is coming. It will be interesting to see how the Irish Times treats this news tomorrow. Allready today, the well-known economist Dan McLaughlin has rubbished claims that the Irish economy is slowing down and is predicting growth of 6 per cent this year. In other words, the CELTIC TIGER ROARS ON. Another example of Irish Times news management is their failure to report CSO statistics that came out on Monday week last (in the latest edition of Monitoring Ireland's Progress) showing Iife expectancy in Ireland increasing to 7th highest (out of 27) in the EU and overtaking most of our neighbouring countries. As health is the number one issue for voters and as historically Ireland has had for decades one of the lowest life expectancies in Europe, one might think that the news that we're now moving towards the top of the EU league table for life expectancy would merit a mention in the Irish Times. But, alas no. Perhaps Chekov will print it in his Village magazine and have a scoop.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Fri May 11, 2007 16:39

As it happens I left school in the early 1980s as well. And there was a lot of reason to be “bitter and twisted” then: emigration (was it 30,000 a year?) and unemployment close to 20%. I remember the joke at the time was “we should return the country to Britain and apologise to Queen Elizabeth for the way we left it”.

But what reason have we to be “bitter and twisted” now? We have immigration and almost full employment. Could all those Eastern Europeans really be so wrong about our country? No one is cracking that Queen Elizabeth joke now. Indeed other countries are looking at our achievements. Scotland is wondering about her relationship with England. The leader of the SNP quite often points to Ireland as an example of what can be achieved with independence.

Okay so it’s not a socialist paradise and I suppose it’s the prerogative of the left to whinge and moan. But the whinging and moaning is not confined to the left. The Irish Times is to the forefront of this despite, never tiring of boasting about its high income readers. “John” of the interesting statistics, suspects that newspaper has a socialist agenda. But it certainly does not have a “socialist agenda” it has an anti-national one. Various so called left wingers are given a run, but most of what they write has nothing to do with socialism. It consists of a moral denunciation of the native capitalist class and native politicians. But the problem for The Irish Times is not capitalism; it’s the Irish and their decision to be independent of Britain. That is the political agenda behind all the moral denunciation and alleged “gombeenism”. And Fianna Fail is the party most closely associated with the State.

I could go on at length about the hysterical anti Fianna Fail campaign now being waged by The Irish Times. I would recommend people read last Saturday’s editorial which was just the most extreme example of that paper’s coverage. Also, take a look at the opinion polls of that newspaper. Look at the core vote in today’s front page and then try and figure out how it arrives at the “adjusted” vote. Just look at the picture on the front page. McDowell and Ahern are huddled together and Rabbitte and Kenny are striding forward confidently. “John” might call this “socialist realist art” but in my view it is something else entirely.

by Miriam Cotton Fri May 11, 2007 16:28

"...but there has never has been the faintest whiff of suspicion in the highly sensitive world of politics that he has acted for particular business interests or whatever.

'I didn't appoint them because they gave me money, I appointed them because they were my friends'
Bertie Ahern.

by P.K Lynch Fri May 11, 2007 13:56

Ray McSharry was an outstanding minister and did an enourmous amount of work for Sligo. I think if you cross the Shannon you'll find your grossly inaccurate opinion of the man very strongly challenged.

by Bitter and Twisted Fri May 11, 2007 13:45

It may be of no consequence to John Martin that a few millionares bankrolled Haughey. It matters deeply to me, a school leaver in the early 1980s who remembers that hypocrite telling us that we were living beyond our means while he bought Charvet shirts. Well my family weren't living beyond our means. I remember 'health cuts hurt the old the sick and the handicapped.' How is it unpatriotic to oppose Haughey, a man who aped the lifestyle of an English squire? He owned an island for christ's sake! This is trying to provide some sort of left wing cover for a crowd of chancers who have bene in the pockets of land re-zoners and property developers since the 1960s. As for 'pro-Dev' I have no problem with Dev, I don't think he was a hypocrite; Haughey, McSharry, Ahern, Lawlor, Burke...bastards, all of them. And we are still paying for it.

by brabazon - none Fri May 11, 2007 05:51 davidpormonde at yahoo dot ie

Bertie has been found out....The media are no longer in fear of the Irish government gestapo, thanks to one courageous journalist who was arrested for daring to follow a story that the minister for injustice tried to quash. The tribunals they set up only mean that none of the shysters can be brought before a real court of law to answer for their crimes......Let's get some hungry politicians from Eastern Europe at a fraction of the price!......Let them live in the Ireland we do. The whiff of third world style corruption has always made this country a joke in the eyes of the world. It's time to make an example of these money grubbing arseholes who think that the laws of the land only apply to people who earn less than seventy grand a year.....NONE of these thieves have the interests of Ireland or her people foremost in their minds....

by Pro Dev - Irish Political Review Group Fri May 11, 2007 00:00

Checkov’s identification of a fundmental flaw in the IPR Group’s press statement is itself fundamentally flawed. He wants the media to follow up aspects of the Taoiseach’s finances that the Mahon Tribunal is prevented from investigating. The point is that the Mahon Tribunal as a judicial body is trying with every means at its disposal to prevent newspapers from publishing stories based on leaked documents from it. Its work is being undermined by these leaks.

There are laws that prevent the media from reporting the details of crimes that are to be dealt with in court. Such media reporting would make justice impossible. If the Tribunals are to be able to function the media should be told to back off, if necessary by legislation.

From a journalistic perspective all the details of Bertiegate must be chased up. From a political perspective the question to ask is: Does Bertie’s record show that the national interest has ever been anything less than his top priority. He is not the greatest Taoiseach or Fianna Fail leader ever but there has never has been the faintest whiff of suspicion in the highly sensitive world of politics that he has acted for particular business interests or whatever. I think the editors who have forced this controversy upon us have failed to see this story in its true proportion. From a political perspective the Bertie story is a non-story.

The IPR Group is not anti-media. The problem we are highlighting is specific to Ireland. We are protesting against the way the Irish media is waging this campaign against the Taoiseach and we are questioning the motivation of the Irish Times in particular.

If Checkov equates traditional culture in Ireland with corruption maybe he’s read too many Irish Times opinion columns. I believe that sections of the media want to discredit the national tradition as a means of integrating this State more effectively into the Anglo American camp. I would have lots of criticisms of Fianna Fail but Bertie is being targeted by exactly this anti-national element and opponents of globalisation should not be joining in the hunt.

De Valera once stated that it was impossible for Ireland to stop the Great Powers from initiating military adventures or starting wars, but that we could refuse to be their instrument in such actions. Without him this State would be a pale little Treatyite extension of the UK. I suspect there is more to Dev’s Ireland than Checkov knows.

by Eamonn de Paor Thu May 10, 2007 22:53

Corruption ... Gombeens ... !!!

If the above exhibition of national self-hatred is anything to go on, then the Irish Times has already won, and we should just apologise to Queen Elizabeth and ask her to overlook the past 90 years of Irish history.

by Spinning Quickly Thu May 10, 2007 20:34

"We should defend our tradition of corruption so?"

I suspect that's what he's saying. It reminds me of a column written by John Waters some years ago, when he claimed that accusations of corruption was due to a misunderstanding of culture.

"Gombeens against Globalisation!"

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that B&ICO are using that as a front already!!!

"The notion that Fianna Fail are acting as a bulwark against capitalist globalisation is so absurd that words fail me. Have you been living in a poítín-induced reminiscence of Dev's Ireland for the last 20 years?"

I'd speculate that the B&ICO crowd have found themselves becoming so irrelevant that they've decided to stick even more doggedly to their views than before - hence their fetishisation of Fianna Fáil.

by Spinning Quickly Thu May 10, 2007 20:18

I honestly don't know why they support the idea that a major newspaper should be connected with a political party - saying that because it's so elsewhere is merely confusing an "is" with an "ought" - it provides no explanation. What is given is an odd notion that a political party would somehow give the newspaper guidance or an overall outlook. This strikes me as at best patronising and worst reduces the paper to a mouthpiece for the party. (I have grave reservations about Geraldine Kennedys' editorial decisions in the Irish Times.)

Fianna Fáil did (and still has on paper) the Irish Press Group, but they went under in 1995.

by John Martin - Irish Political Review Thu May 10, 2007 20:13

I agree that it is not easy to explain why left wingers are urging a vote for Fianna Fail, although there are precedents for communists supporting that party.

The position of the Irish Political Review is that Irish independence was a positive development. The 1916 Rising was a dispute over a foreign policy. The mainstream of Irish nationalism led by John Redmond wanted an alliance with the British Empire in exchange for some local autonomy. It did not dissent from British foreign policy and therefore was quite happy to encourage the blood sacrifice of tens of thousands of Irish people in the interests of Britain.

The 1916 rebels, on the other hand, did not believe that we had any quarrel with Germany and invited our “gallant allies” in Europe to support their struggle against the British Empire. The vision of the 1916 revolutionaries won out and set in train the development of an independent state which felt no obligation to send troops to Iraq in 2003.

With the exception of the years when Douglas Gageby was its editor, The Irish Times has since the Treaty in 1921 opposed all national developments independent of Britain. In particular it was vehement in its opposition to national leaders such as De Valera who built on the partial independence achieved in 1921.

Charles Haughey broke the link with sterling, brought Ireland into the European Monetary system and developed close relations with Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Delors in the national interest. He has never been forgiven for it by the secret oath bound directory which currently runs The Irish Times. I happen to believe that the fact that some millionaires decided to finance Haughey’s lavish lifestyle is of no consequence.

Bertie Ahern has indicated that he wants to do something about the revisionist view of Irish history which has achieved dominance in Irish academia and therefore he must be “taken out”. Incidentally he has already been “taken out” once. It was an Irish Times story by Geraldine Kennedy in 1994 that persuaded the Labour party to withdraw from the Fianna Fail led government and resulted in John Bruton succeeding Albert Reynolds as Taoiseach at a crucial period in Anglo-Irish relations. It is interesting that the current controversy relates to Ahern’s personal affairs during that period and today Albert Reynolds to his discredit has added his bit to the anti-Ahern campaign. And of course it is given front page treatment in The Irish Times.

The Irish Times for most of its history since 1921 has denigrated Irish culture and identity. So called left wingers have been useful in participating in this project. A recent article by Fintan O’ Toole suggested that we missed a great opportunity to remember on our national day that St Patrick was a slave and that the Irish were slave owners. For Fintan O’ Toole it is irrelevant that the Irish didn’t have a state then. We should still wallow in our shame.

The Irish Times celebrates “multi-culturalism”. A recent editorial urged a “redefinition of Irishness”, presumably because the existing “Irishness” is so shameful. It is not urging us merely to be tolerant of other cultures but is encouraging us on a “process” in which we will be different to what we are. Here is an extract from the editorial of March 17th, our national day:

“The process in which we have been engaged in recent years, the gradual internalisation in all of us of a new sense of inclusive Irishness, is not just about accepting that one can be black and Irish, or Polish and Irish; it is also about national reconciliation and a new relationship with the “old enemy” so magnificently expressed at the Ireland-England game in Croke Park.”

I would submit that the last bit gives the game away.

by Slim Jim Thu May 10, 2007 17:19

Still no guesses fromm anybody on why former Maoists are now lending intellectual defence to Fianna Fail over corruption. The Irish Political Review has been arguing for a year that Charlie Haughey was hard done by and that it is all an Irish Times plot to take us back into the empire. This from people who practically invented the two-nations theory. Why?

by name Thu May 10, 2007 15:40

I see you got published on the Village site and in the magazine but a commentator is equally confused about. I coulnd;t say it better myself. You regret that "some newspapers, especially the Irish Times, have no association with political parties".
You didn't demonstrate any substantial benefits that the public might derive from such an arrangement, while the downside is far clearer...
http://www.village.ie/Forum/Election_2007_Blog/Bertiega...Media!/

by Gotcha Thu May 10, 2007 15:01

Incredible headline in Sir Tony's Herald today.
'Threat to shoot Bertie'

You couldn't make it up. Story goest that a lone stalker intends to do it but doesn't have a gun.

I once said I wouldn't mind giving Liz O'Donnell one.
Hope tomorrows Herald isn't indymedia reader intends to rape PD beauty.

by Jerry Cornelius Thu May 10, 2007 14:25

Its a matter of opinion and in my opinion Collins writes an opinion column on Saturdays, the inclusion of gossip supports my opinion that his column is opinion.

As for the cabbage basher, I dont have a paid sub to the Irish Times, so you''ll have to take my word on it. I'm not a NeoCon, so I dont lie.

by John Thu May 10, 2007 14:17

This is an excerpt from Stephen Collins column last week:

As you can see, its not an opinion column in the sense that your boss,
Vincent Browne, has an opinion column every Wednesday. Its merely
political reporting, with a bit of inside gossip thrown in. No one can
tell from this or Collins' other columns what his political views are.
Contrast with Browne's or Fintan O'Toole's or Mary Raftery's columns
where they rant gainst the present government every week.

*********************************************************************************

FF floundering but can Kenny ride a rising tide?

Fianna Fáil has had a disastrous start to its campaign. But its rivals fear
being trampled by 'the elephant in the corner' of Bertie Ahern's finances,
writes Stephen Collins

The astonishing first week of the election campaign to the 30th Dáil is
ending as it began, with Fianna Fáil apparently drifting rudderless, the
crew at each other's throats and nobody in clear command. It is
reminiscent of Albert Reynolds' disastrous campaign in 1992, only this
time it promises to be far worse, unless somebody can get a grip on the
strategy.

What makes it all completely mystifying is that Bertie Ahern created the
shambles by choosing the worst possible moment to dissolve the Dáil.
If he had gone a couple of weeks earlier, as many of his own TDs had
been expecting, it might all have been so different.

Instead the Taoiseach made the baffling decision to go the Áras to seek
the President's permission for a dissolution early last Sunday. The
midnight phone-around to alert the media created a peculiar sense of
unease from the beginning, but it was the press conference to launch
the campaign later in the morning that was truly baffling.

Everybody expected the campaign launch at Treasury Buildings to be a
typically upbeat, confident display of Fianna Fáil power. The old crew,
who had come within an ace of pulling off an overall majority in 2002,
were on hand. The legendary PJ Mara was back as director of elections
and Séamus Brennan, who had masterminded one of the biggest
Fianna Fáil landslides in history in 1977, was there in a central role.

An assorted crew of press officers, lobbyists and Government advisers,
on unpaid leave for the campaign, were also there on that bright, sunny
Sunday and seemed not to have a care in the world. They were going to
fight the election on the Government's economic record and felt that if
they kept the debate focused there they couldn't be beaten.

and so on

*********************************************************************************

Pleae gave an example of where Krauthammer expresses an opinion
on internal political matters in Ireland. I just read 10 of his columns on
the Irish Times archive and Ireland isn't mentioned in any of them.

by Chekov Thu May 10, 2007 13:53

"If you're using him as an example of how Geraldine Kennedy is rallying the Irish Times behind the PD election campaign, don't you think that's rather strange behaviour on his part."

I didn't say that and I don't think that Geraldine Kennedy is rallying the IT behind the PD election campaign. I was merely pointing out the fact that you were talking your normal rubbish when you claimed that the "vast majority" of IT columnists were left wingers.

Of course if you are rabidly right wing, everybody sane looks like a pinko. So, there's really no point in continuing an argument with somebody who thinks that Breda O'Brien is a leftie. Dev was a commie too I suppose.

by Jerry Cornelius Thu May 10, 2007 13:46

"Stephen Collins doesn't write an opinion column."

He does on Saturdays. Its on the page opposite the obituaries.

"Krauthammer's column is merely a worldwide-syndicated column. He's never written a word on Irish politics."

Its not. He specifically tailors this version of his column to Ireland and even comments on letters published on the IT letters page.

by John Thu May 10, 2007 13:37

Stephen Collins doesn't write an opinion column. If his views are as you say, that's probably why he's not allowed to.

Breda O'Brien is a left-winger on the economy and most social issues, other than ones that relate directly to Catholic Doctrine.

Garret Fitgerald is a supporter of the FG/Lab Coalition that is running against the current FF/PD Coalition and would describe himself as
center-left. He wrote a column a week or so ago strongly attacking the PDs for building private hospitals. If you're using him as an example of
how Geraldine Kennedy is rallying the Irish Times behind the PD election campaign, don't you think that's rather strange behaviour on
his part.

Krauthammer's column is merely a worldwide-syndicated column. He's never written a word on Irish politics.

Geraldine Kennedy was in the PDs twenty years ago. Your own boss, Vincent Browne, used to be in Fine Gael (long ago). It would be as accurate
to describe Village magazine as a FG magazine because its editor used to be in FG as it is to describe the Irish Times as a PD paper because its
editor used to be in the PDs.

by Chekov Thu May 10, 2007 12:24

"The vast majority of columnists in the Irish Times are left-wingers..."

Charles Krauthammer, Stephen Collins, Martin Manseragh, Garret Fitzgerald, Breda O'Brien....

"I don't know of any columnist in the Irish Times who supports the PDs"

Stephen Collins, the main political correspondant, wrote a book about the PDs, a book that was so utterly sycophantic that the vast majority of copies sold were bought up by the PDs and distributed free to the electorate of Dublin South East as part of their electoral propaganda.

Geraldine Kennedy, the editor, was a PD TD.

John, your counter-factual rants are just total rubbish as usual. You are nothing more than a dishonest propagandist and you know it.

by Miriam Cotton - MediaBite Thu May 10, 2007 11:13 mcotton at mediabite dot org

Sure, the IT allows an appearance of 'balance'.

Columnists are not the same as journalists. But even there, those who challenge the status quo with real persistence can easily be got rid of or marginalised, as Eddie Holt has found out. Columnists are carefully contextualised as offering personal opinion - every reader knows that they can take it or leave it. The reporting however is a different matter. The rock-solid editorial and staffer journalism is unrelentingly pro-business and pro the PD agenda. The front page headlines are almost exclusively sympathetic to the corporate perspective. Let's not pretend either that Kennedy's background is irrelevant.

by John Thu May 10, 2007 10:58

The idea that Geraldine Kennedy and the Irish Times are trying to whip up support for the PDs is absurd. The editor controls who writes in the newspaper. The vast majority of columnists in the Irish Times are left-wingers: Fintan O'Toole, Vincent Browne, Mary Raftery and until recently Maev-Ann Wren (although she seems to have disappeared in this election, hope she's not ill). All these columnists and others spew out venom against the PDs in every column they write. I don't know of any columnist in the Irish Times who supports the PDs. For this election, Fintan O'Toole seems to have been promoted by Geraldine Kennedy to numero uno commentator. He has a column on the election almost every day, including today. His hatred of the PDs is legendary and every column he writes is full of the usual left-wing nonsense. So, if Kennedy is trying to whip up support for the PDs, she has a strange way of going about it. If that's her objective, why promote Fintan O'Toole, an avowed opponent of the PDs and long-time socialist, to such a position of prominence in the paper's election coverage. So what if she supported the PDs 20 years ago? People change their views. Look at Eoghan Harris.

by Miriam Cotton - MediaBite Thu May 10, 2007 10:33 mcotton at mediabite dot org

Where the Irish Times is concerned it's reasonable to speculate that this attack on Ahern is an IBEC/PD backed attempt to unseat him because of attempts to temper their approach to the economy. The PDs and IBEC are on a roll with destroying the concept of the welfare state in Ireland. They are dismantling whatever fragile infrastructure we have as a matter of driven ideology. The more division and inequality they create, the more they feel they have succeeded. This is making them increasingly unpopular as their 2% standing in the polls now indicate - they are in fact electorally insignificant if that poll is correct. Yet look at the power they wield. The shit is about to hit the fan economically because of the PDs and the more right-wing elements of FF. While they exhort us not to 'throw it all away', the fact is they have squandered every advantage we might have had as a country. It's not unlikely that in devising their pre-election strategy Ahern and FF were feeling that they ought to pull back a little from the exlusively pro-corporate /IBEC agenda. So Ahern had to be taught a lesson - he was losing the faith. There are a lot of nervous FF TDs out there who feel very strongly that there ought to be more focus on ordinary people. FF candidates and party activists are meeting with a lot of anger on the doorsteps. Geraldine Kennedy is on record as saying that the role of the IT is 'to lead and shape public opinion'. It's unlikely she is particularly interested in exposing corruption. If that were the case, the pages of her newspaper would daily be filled with stories of the corruption which is still rampant in Irish public and corporate life. Lazy, Dublin-based journalists would scarcely have to get off their arses to find it if they were interested. But who needs to do any actual work anyway when you can simply regurgitate what it says on that nice PD/FF press release?

Having said all that, Ahern's own behaviour deserves full media analysis. He left himself wide open to it. As Joe Higgins has pointed out, the money he was given was the equivalent of three times the average wage at the time. The idea that the sums are too small or that the passage of time somehow lessen the significance of what he did is insulting to ordinary people. The MoS have accused him of lying. Can he defend himself against that charge? Politically, however, he can't resign even if he wanted to because FF would be destroyed at the election if he did. Even those myopic and unthinking people who continually vote for FF would register something was wrong if he did that. It would almost certainly propel the undecided voters into the arms of the opposition parties too. The Irish Political Review article is a preposterous attempt to invert the logic and morality of the situation. To suggest that open scrutiny of what Ahern has done is the crime is risible nonsense. Attack as a form of defence is a well worn Fianna Fail strategy. At least some elements of the media are showing some guts over this issue, for a change.

by John's mother Thu May 10, 2007 10:15

"none of their support is going to left-wing parties, which is not I'm sure what Frank Connolly and the Irish Times editor would have hoped for."

Son, I'm really worried about you. As you well know, Geraldine Kennedy is a right-winger. In fact, she was a leading member of the PDs for several years and represented them in the Dail. I know you like glorifying yourself by pretending that there is a grand left-wing conspiracy against which only brave mavericks like yourself are willing to struggle, but this effort is particularly ludicrous and makes you look completely unhinged.

by spendro Thu May 10, 2007 09:55

"equal to the weekly wage of a Premiership football player. The matters at issue occurred thirteen years ago and the strong likelihood is that no impropriety took place"

I do admire the sweet innocence and the unwavering faith in Politicians. By the way, the average Premiership football player earns more in a week than a lot of Irish people do in a year, so it's not that people couldn't be influenced by it.

And as for advocating political parties being tied in with newspapers... didn't they do that in the USSR?
Our media is already too controlled, we don't need more vested interests.

your article is unmitigated rubbish attempting to do damage limitation, because the thing that enables most of these shitebags from escaping proper scrutiny is the shiny shallow nice honest image they like to portray, which the mainstream media is usually too timid to pierce, preferring to refer to 'errors of judgement' rather than 'screwed the country and laughed at us'.

by John Thu May 10, 2007 09:04

So you think 82% happy all or most of the time in Ireland is bad.

Actually, if anyone cares to check on the table to which Sean has kindly provided a link, they'll find that Ireland's score of 82% for that question
was the highest in the EU. Most of the other countries were around 70% and some were as low as 50% to 60%. Go check it yourself.

by Seán Ryan Thu May 10, 2007 03:38

Eurobarometer?

Don't make me laugh. If Irish people are happy, why is suicide in Ireland reaching epidemic levels and always on the increase.

Why do the Samaritans take more and more calls every year?

This Eurobarometer survery: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_248...n.pdf

In the Eurobarometer survey, a group of Irish people were asked "QA5 These questions are about how you feel and how things have been with you during the past 4 weeks. For each question, please give the one answer that comes closest to the way you have been feeling. How much of the time during the past 4 weeks have you felt happy?

82% of those asked answered that they felt happy all the time or most of the time. This tells us that 18% make up those who did not feel happy most of the time, some of the time and those who did not know how they felt over the four week period. This means that almost one in five seldom if ever feels happy.

On top of this only 65% answered that they'd felt full of life over the four week period, for all of the time or most of the time. This means that 35% answered that they never or seldom (or even that they didn't know if they) felt full of life over the four week period. I'd suggest that this question was answered more honestly than the first as it isn't as obviously about mental health as the first question, and thus there is not as much of a perception of branding or stigmatism.

But back to this figure of 35%. 35% of people who seldom feel full of life is a scary picture. It paints a picture of a depressed society.

I'm sure John will be back to re-explain what I've just said. Afterall, we cannot have it said that we the Irish are depressed, it would lower productivity.

14% of those questioned answered that they'd sought help from a professional in the last year in respect of a psychological or emotional health problem. Of course this data is fuzzy to a degree. There's a stigma attached to asking for help with regard to emotional issues. There's also a financial consideration. This opinion is borne out by the data in the study. Ireland had the highest ammount of people who sought help for a psychological problem by turning to a general practitioner (91%) the highest in Europe. This reflects both the poorness of Mental Health facilities and lack of practitioners in Ireland, as well as the financial aspect and the stigmatism associated with mental health.

Of those questioned throughout Europe, only 2% of those who would look for support, saw help lines as a support mechanism that they would turn to. This finding shows that the work done by the Samaritans and others is only the tip of the iceberg and this is no slur on the incerdible work that the Samaritans do.

So once more I ask the question, Is Ireland happy?

Comparing happiness levels between countries etc. might look nice in some politician's speech, but has very little meaning with regard to defining a population as happy. The fact that mental health and depression are very much a taboo subjects in Ireland, would suggest that the accuracy of any such poll be treated with skepticism and that only very general data could be garnered from it.

I'd suggest a much more general approach to collecting data on happiness. Try walking down a busy street, counting the people you see and comparing this figure with the number of people smiling or exhibiting other signs of happiness.

Mr. Ahern cannot in all fairness be said to have increased the level of happiness in Ireland. The ever increasing incidents of suicide, coupled with inadequate information, training and facilities in this and similar areas, belies any notion of Mr. Ahern's abilities and deeds in this respect, indeed the picture developing is an emergency situation and way beyond the cares and abilities of Mr. Ahern and his contemporaries.

by CJ Thu May 10, 2007 00:17

Ireland 4% - rarely or never happy.
Throw in the Irish psyche and this figure becomes, well.... who knows?
We have a habit of ignoring the reality of our lives, not always a bad thing, but sometimes a terrible thing.
Beneath our carpets we hide depression, broken marriages and child abuse, to name but a few.
Add to that the fact that most of us lie in response to surveys (a recent survey showed this).
It will take more than a simple question to gauge our level of contentment.
But nice try.

by Chekov Thu May 10, 2007 00:01

"I think the Irish Times are following an agenda in their holier than thou war on corruption, and in particular in their attacks on Ahern. Geraldine Kennedy set out to hijack the election campaign and take out Ahern. The question that should be asked is why."

I think they are too, but in this case their agenda is exposing something that is both true and of public interest. However, that's besides the point and I'm not particularly interested in Bertie's finances - I have very low expectations of politicians and assume they are generally compromised by power and/or wealth. My comment above merely pointed out a fundamental flaw in the article. I have no idea what Geraldine Kennedy's motivation is for choosing to focus so much on this issue, or what the motivation is of other journalists, but I'd assume that for some at least it is a desire to expose corruption. I'm sure there are other motivations at play, but there's no point in speculating further since I really don't know.

"A media dominated society might have appeal for journalists or critics but it offers little scope for political development. "

In a complex and interconnected world such as this, media is always going to be pervasive, that's just reality. Without media we'd be confined to finding out about the world from those whom we meet in person - and we'd probably all still be in awe of our divinely appointed monarchs. The problem isn't that our society is dominated by media, it's that our media is dominated by a handful of super-wealthy individulas who use that dominance to shape society to their needs.

"The actual effect of media power in Ireland today, and the Irish Times leads the way for that media, is to demoralise society by denigrating traditional politics and culture."

We should defend our tradition of corruption so?

"In this way the society is being opened up for globalisation"

Gombeens against Globalisation!

The notion that Fianna Fail are acting as a bulwark against capitalist globalisation is so absurd that words fail me. Have you been living in a poítín-induced reminiscence of Dev's Ireland for the last 20 years?

by Pro Dev - Irish Political Review Group Wed May 09, 2007 21:30

It is not enough to look at this issue from a journalistic perspective. I think the Irish Times are following an agenda in their holier than thou war on corruption, and in particular in their attacks on Ahern. Geraldine Kennedy set out to hijack the election campaign and take out Ahern. The question that should be asked is why.

A media dominated society might have appeal for journalists or critics but it offers little scope for political development. The actual effect of media power in Ireland today, and the Irish Times leads the way for that media, is to demoralise society by denigrating traditional politics and culture. In this way the society is being opened up for globalisation

by John Wed May 09, 2007 21:22

May I direct you to the most recent Eurobarometer survey on the subject.

Eurobarometer reporton Mental Well-being ( reference: special eurobarometer 248/wave 64.4 published: May 2006)

available on web site: http://ec.europa.eu

the survey gives respondents answers to the following question:

"how much of the time during the past 4 weeks have you felt happy?"

in response, percentage answering "RARELY" or "NEVER"

[ 1] Ireland 4%
[ 2] U. Kingdom 4%
[ 3] Denmark 5%
[ 4] France 5%
[ 5] Neth'lands 5%
[ 6] Malta 5%
[ 7] Finland 6%
[ 8] Belgium 7%
[ 9] Luxembourg 7%
[10] Spain 7%
[11] Sweden 7%
[12] Austria 8%
[13] Slovenia 8%
[14] Czech Rep. 9%
[15] Slovakia 9%
[16] Cyprus 10%
[17] Portugal 11%
[18] Germany 12%
[19] Greece 12%
[20] Italy 16%
[21] Lithuania 16%
[22] Poland 16%
[23] Estonia 17%
[24] Hungary 19%
[25] Latvia 22%

by Seán Ryan Wed May 09, 2007 21:08

Despite making the argument that the Irish Times only deals in statistics and percentages and not in reality, John has himself climbed into the very same holed boat and has sunk himself too - by only dealing in statistics and percenages himself.

The real measure of a succesful rule is in happiness and contentment.

Are the citizens of Ireland happy and content John, has Mr. Ahern ushered in a state of Nirvana?

I don't think so.

by John Wed May 09, 2007 20:20

An excellent article and spot-on. Its not just the Irish Times continual smear campaign against the Taoiseach, its their invention of 'bad news' and their suppression of 'good news' .

For example. To read the Irish Times during this campaign, you'd think we were in recession. The most recent figures for the Irish economy show it growing by 7.4 per cent (GNP) or 6 per cent (GDP). The current EU average is 2.5 per cent. Our economy is growing at 3 times the rate of the UK, Germany, Finland, France Italy, Denmark etc. There isn't the slightest hint of even a slowdown. Merely a few economists predicting that, not this year, but next year it might slow to 4.5 per cent or so, i.e. about 2 times the rate in other EU countries. Yet this is being presented by the Irish Times on a daily
basis as economic Armageddon.

Another example. On Monday week last the Central Statistics Office published its latest figures for life expectancy in Ireland in their latest edition of Monitoring Ireland's Progress. Historically, for over a century, Ireland has had the lowest life expectancy in western Europe. But, the CSO figures last week showed life expectancy in Ireland jumping to 6th highest for males and 9th highest for females out of 27 EU countries, overtaking the U.K., Denmark, Germany, Finland and others. Given that, for voters on the ground, health is the most important issue in this election, you might think the Irish Times would have reported this historic development. But, not a word. Not even in the two editions of their Tuesday health supplement that have been published since the CSO released the figures.

Although I shall certainly be voting FF/PD, I'm not going to lose any sleep over an FG-led government being in power for a few years, should that happen. Its interesting that, although FF have gone down in the polls since the Irish Times started its smear campaign, none of their support is going to left-wing parties, which is not I'm sure what Frank Connolly and the Irish Times editor would have hoped for. The total vote for the three 'right-wing' parties (FF, FG and PD) remains rock solid at about 65% to 68%. The left-wing parties as a bloc have made no gain at all, stuck at around 25% to 28%, and merely taking votes from each other depending on which poll you read. Frank Connolly and the Irish Times are going to be gutted if, after the votes are counted, the sole result of their smear campaign against the current Taoiseach is Enda Kenny as Taoiseach. Although I will be voting FF/PD, I can live with Enda as Taoiseach for a few years (he has good views on abortion, crime etc), but I doubt if Frank Connolly and the Irish Times editor can.

by Slim Jim - Jimmy Magee's memory men Wed May 09, 2007 17:34

The Irish Political Review Group are one of the many faces of the Aubane Historical Society, formerly the British and Irish Communist Organisation. Theres a thread about their history, under the title 'From Peking to Aubane' elsewhere on Indymedia. Defending Bertie, and CJH as well, by the way, is some going for an organisation that used to be Maoist supporters of the UVF. But hey, its a wonderful world out there folks.

by Chekov Wed May 09, 2007 16:52

This article is fundamentally mistaken. The thing is the Mahon tribunal has a very narrow remit - it can only investigate the various payments and planning decisions which it was established to look into. The thing is that Bertie Ahern's answers to some of these questions, while exonerating him from the accusations that he took money from Owen O'Callaghan have raised other questions. The tribunal is not allowed to investigate these other questions. The media should have every right to point out the fact that his explanations are not at all credible.

Claiming that these questions should be investigated within the tribunal gets it wrong - the tribunal doesn't have the authority to look into these issues since they are beyond its scope.

by 13th Duke of Wybourne Wed May 09, 2007 16:50

The Sindo has shown that Bertiegate is the work of the Provo's through Frank Connolly and the MI5 through the Irish hating Mail.
To say anything else is just damn unpatriotic.

by Seán Ryan Wed May 09, 2007 16:32

I agree that the media is a large part of the problem.

But, suggesting that Mr. Ahern has a long history of service and a good record, is as bad a thing to do as the authors of this article accuse the Mainstream Media of. What history of service?

Do the authors suggest that we have a health service that's up to par?

That education is where we want it?

That we have an acceptable infrastructure and transport mechanism?

What body of government is acceptable?

Bertie has a record alright and it should be a criminal record.

As for the media pouncing on him. This is distracting from the issues. However, firstly, Mr. Ahern should have no querstions to answer. Secondly Mr. Ahern should have answered all questions publically when this was initially an issue, months ago. The fact that the media pounced on Mr. Ahern is down to the fact that they are following their own agenda and because Mr. Ahern ought to be publically investigated and eviscerated (metaphorically speaking).

As for going before the Mahon Tribunal and that this is where he ought to be. What a load of utter shite. Firstly he should be in front of a judge in a criminal court. When they've finished with him he should be handed over to the Hague for trial in regard to his complicity in War Crimes.

A long record indeed!!