seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Business Post (newspaper)


by Leave a comment

Birth of John Magee, Bishop Emeritus of Cloyne

John Magee SPS, a Roman Catholic bishop emeritus in Ireland, is born in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dromore, on September 24, 1936. He is Bishop of Cloyne from 1987 to 2010. Following scandal he resigns from that position on March 24, 2010, becoming a bishop emeritus. He is the only person to have been private secretary to three popes.

Magee’s father is a dairy farmer. He is educated at St. Colman’s College in Newry and enters the St Patrick’s Missionary Society at Kiltegan, County Wicklow, in 1954. He also attends University College Cork (UCC) where he obtains a degree in philosophy before going to study theology in Rome, where he is ordained priest on March 17, 1962.

Magee serves as a missionary priest in Nigeria for almost six years before being appointed Procurator General of St. Patrick’s Society in Rome. In 1969, he is an official of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome, when he is chosen by Pope Paul VI to be one of his private secretaries. On Pope Paul’s death he remains in service as a private secretary to his successor, Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II. He is the only man to hold the position of private secretary to three Popes in Vatican history. He also acts as chaplain to the Vatican’s Swiss Guard.

Magee is appointed papal Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations in 1982, and is appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Cloyne on February 17, 1987. He is consecrated bishop on March 17, 1987, Saint Patrick’s Day, by Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

On April 28, 1981, Magee travels, without the knowledge or approval of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, to the Long Kesh Detention Centre outside Belfast to meet with Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker Bobby Sands. He seeks, unsuccessfully, to convince Sands to end his hunger strike. Sands dies the following week.

Magee plays a role in the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference where he is featured in the modernisation of the liturgy in Ireland. His pastoral approach places heavy emphasis on the promotion of vocations to the priesthood but, after some initial success, the number of vocations in the diocese of Cloyne declines, a trend reflected across the island of Ireland. He appoints Ireland’s first female “faith developer” and entrusts her with the task of transforming an Irish rural diocese into a cosmopolitan pastoral model using techniques borrowed from several urban dioceses in the United States.

Magee involves himself in a dispute with the Friends of St. Colman’s Cathedral, a local conservationist group in Cobh which organises an effective and professional opposition to the Bishop’s plans to re-order the interior of the cathedral, plans similar to previous re-orderings in Killarney, Cork and Limerick cathedrals. In an oral hearing conducted by An Bord Pleanála, the Irish Planning Board, it emerges that irregularities have occurred in the planning application that are traced to Cobh Town Council, which accommodates the Bishop’s plans to modify the Victorian interior designed by E. W. Pugin and George Ashlin. On June 2, 2006, when Bishop Magee was in Lourdes, An Bord Pleanála directs Cobh Town Council to refuse the Bishop’s application.

On July 25, 2006, Magee publishes a pastoral letter stating: “As a result of An Bord Pleanála’s decision, the situation concerning the temporary plywood altar still remains unresolved and needs to be addressed. The Diocese will initiate discussions with the planning authorities in an attempt to find a solution, which would be acceptable from both the liturgical and heritage points of view.”

A diocesan official explains that the bishop does not wish to institute a judicial review in the Irish High Court because of the financial implications of such an action and because of the bishop’s desire to avoid a Church-State clash.

Claims that the decision of An Bord Pleanála infringes the constitutional property rights of religious bodies are dismissed when it is revealed that the cathedral is the property of a secular trust established in Irish law. It is estimated that Bishop Magee spent over €200,000 in his bid to re-order the cathedral. The controversy is reported even outside Ireland.

A February 2006 article by Kieron Wood in The Sunday Business Post claims that Magee does not have the backing of the Vatican in his proposals for St. Colman’s. At the oral hearing of An Bord Pleanála he is requested to provide a copy of the letter from the Vatican in which he claims he has been given approval for the modernising of the cathedral. The letter that he produces is a congratulatory message dated December 9, 2003 to the team of architects who worked on the cathedral project from Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The whole text of this letter is then reproduced in a publication called Conserving Cobh Cathedral: The Case Stated pp. 108–109.

At a meeting of his liturgical advisers and diocesan clergy in November 2006, Bishop Magee speaks of his conversation with the Pope in the course of that ad limina visit at the end of the previous month. He mentions that he has been closely questioned on several aspects of his proposals to re-order St. Colman’s Cathedral. It is obvious, he says, that the Pope has been kept well informed of the entire issue.

Bishop Magee’s contribution to the ad limina visit concerns not only his diocese of Cloyne but also ceremonial matters on behalf of the Conference. He also facilitates the broadcasting, in coincidence with the visit, of a life of Pope John Paul I prepared some months earlier by Italian state television (RAI). In an interview published on the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire on October 26, 2006, Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone criticises the image that the programme presents of Pope John Paul I.

After the ad limina visit, Bishop Magee represents the Irish bishops at a meeting in Rome of the International Commission for Eucharistic Congresses.

In 2007, for the third year in succession, Magee fails to complete his personal schedule of confirmations in Cloyne diocese. On May 12, 2007, he is admitted to the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork to undergo a knee replacement operation. All official engagements are cancelled for the next ten weeks to allow him to recuperate, after which he resumes work.

In December 2008, Magee is at the centre of a controversy concerning his handling of child sexual abuse cases by clergy in the diocese of Cloyne. Calls for his resignation follow. On March 7, 2009, he announces that, at his request, the Pope has placed the running of the diocese in the hands of Dermot Clifford, metropolitan archbishop of the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, to whose ecclesiastical province the diocese of Cloyne belongs. Magee remains Bishop of Cloyne, but withdraws from administration in order, he says, to dedicate his full-time to the matter of the inquiry. On March 24, 2010, the Holy See announces that Magee has formally resigned from his duties as Bishop of Cloyne. He is eventually succeeded by Canon William Crean whose appointment comes on November 25, 2012.

The subsequent report of the Irish government judicial inquiry, The Cloyne Report, published on July 13, 2011, finds that Bishop Magee’s second in command, Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan, then the parish priest of Mallow, had falsely told the Government and the HSE in a previous inquiry that the diocese was reporting all allegations of clerical child sexual abuse to the civil authorities.

The inquiry into Cloyne – the fourth examination of clerical abuse in the Church in Ireland – finds the greatest flaw in the diocese is repeated failure to report all complaints. It finds nine allegations out of 15 were not passed on to the Garda.

Speaking in August 2011, Magee says that he felt “horrified and ashamed” by abuse in his diocese. He says he accepts “full responsibility” for the findings. “I feel ashamed that this happened under my watch – it shouldn’t have and I truly apologise,” he says. “I did endeavour and I hoped that those guidelines that I issued in a booklet form to every person in the diocese were being implemented but I discovered they were not and that is my responsibility.”

Magee also offers to meet abuse victims and apologise “on bended knee.” He says he had been “truly horrified” when he read the full extent of the abuse in the report. However, a victim says apologies would “never go far enough.” “It’s too late for us now, the only thing it’s not too late for is that maybe there will be a future where people will be more enlightened, more aware and protect their children better,” she says. Asked about restitution for victims, Magee says it is a matter for the Cloyne Diocese.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Tom McGurk, Journalist, Radio Presenter & Sportscaster

Tom McGurk (Irish: Tomás Mag Oirc), Irish poet, journalist, radio presenter and sportscaster, is born on December 20, 1946, in Cookstown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He attends Portadown College and studies English and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). He is involved in the Civil Rights demonstrations while at Queen’s.

McGurk first joins RTÉ in 1972, as a news reporter, moving on to present Last House and First House on television. In 1972 he wins a Jacob’s Award for his RTÉ Radio documentaries on Ireland’s islands. For 20 years he is the presenter of RTÉ Sport‘s rugby coverage, most notable of the Six Nations Championship and Internationals with the panel of George Hook and Brent Pope. He also spends time in the 1980s and 1990s in the UK, working for BBC Radio 4‘s Start of the Week as a presenter on the regional ITV station for the North West of England, Granada Television. On his return to Ireland, he presents the Sunday Show on RTE Radio 1. He also guest presents Tonight with Vincent Browne, on TV3. He presents a drive-time radio show on 4FM when it launches in 2009.

Until 2019, McGurk is a columnist with The Sunday Business Post. He then writes for The Currency until 2020.

McGurk writes the script for the TV film Dear Sarah based on the letters from Sarah Conlon, campaigning for the release of her husband (Giuseppe Conlon), son (Gerry Conlon) and sister Anne Maguire, caught up in the Guildford Four miscarriage of justice.

Among his poems is “Big Ned” about a farmer from Brockagh, County Tyrone.

While working for 4FM, the Director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, Susan McKay, speaks out against an “uncouth and objectionable” interview McGurk conducts with her. The National Women’s Council has since refrained from giving interviews to 4FM.

From 1983 to 1996 McGurk is married to the broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan, with whom he has four daughters. In 2003 he marries PR consultant Caroline Kennedy.

On December 5, 2017, the Irish Revenue Commissioners list of tax defaulters reveal that McGurk had made a settlement of €76,000 with the Revenue for the underpayment of income tax.


by Leave a comment

Formation of The Libertas Institute

The Libertas Institute, a lobby group that along with others successfully campaigns for a “no” vote in the 2008 referendum in Ireland on the Treaty of Lisbon, is formed on October 24, 2006. It is registered at Moyne Park, Tuam, County Galway, along with other organisations associated with Libertas and/or Declan Ganley.

The founders of the Libertas Institute are Declan Ganley, who serves as President, Naoise Nunn, James O’Reilly, Norrie Keane, Martina Higgins, Seán Ganley (Declan’s brother) and Dr. Chris Coughlan.

The group’s mission statement is “…to initiate and provoke enlightened discussion on the European Union, its relevance to its member states and peoples and its role in World affairs having regard to our shared values of peace, democracy, individual liberty and free markets…”

The Libertas Charter defines what is considered to be Europe‘s traditional values and influences, asserts what citizens’ rights and responsibilities are, acknowledges the EU’s role since World War II, states that the present EU structure is inherently undemocratic and unaccountable, and pledges to create a popular movement to debate Europe’s future.

The first Libertas Institute press release archived by the Wayback Machine, a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, dates to June 22, 2007. It concerns French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Treaty of Lisbon’s clause regarding free and undistorted competition. An article by Ganley dated July 16, 2007, in Business Week covers similar themes. The Libertas Institute continues to release press releases during its existence.

The Libertas Institute has a loan facility with Ganley, and by October 3, 2008, it has used €200,000 of this money. Since January 1, 2008, it also has the facility to receive public donations via its website. Ganley and his wife, Delia Mary Ganley (née Paterek), also donate the maximum amount of €6,300 each. Libertas states that its donors are “100% Irish.”

The Libertas Institute is a “third party” for the purposes of political fundraising. Regulation of such is monitored by the Standards in Public Office Commission which imposes a donations limit of €5,348 per donor per year, rising to €6,348.69 per donor per year in 2009, imposes a limit of €126.97 for any given anonymous donation, and disallows any donation from any non-Irish citizens resident outside the island of Ireland.

The Libertas Institute advocates a European Energy Innovation Fund intended to license and fund carbon-neutral energy producers, the funding deriving from auctions of CO2 emissions allowances. It also deprecates the Treaty of Lisbon and advocates a “no” vote in Lisbon I, the first Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon. On March 12, 2008, Libertas launches a “no” campaign called “Facts, not politics” and states that they expect to spend in the region of €1.5m on the campaign. The campaign targets wavering moderates, the most critical votes for the referendum. The campaign is joined by businessman Ulick McEvaddy on April 20, 2008.

Several politicians, including Minister of State for European Affairs Dick Roche, clashes with the group’s campaign stance but The Sunday Business Post reports that the group’s efforts at projecting its warnings about the treaty in the media are “hugely successful.” The referendum is held on June 12, 2008, and is defeated by 53.4% to 46.6%, with a turnout of 53.1%.

Following the referendum, attention shifts to Ganley’s new political party, Libertas.eu, and the Libertas Institute website, libertas.org, is redirected to that party’s website.


by Leave a comment

Birth of George Lee, Journalist, Presenter & Former Fine Gael Politician

George Lee, Irish economist, journalist, television and radio presenter, and former Fine Gael politician, is born in Templeogue, Dublin, on September 27, 1962. He has worked for RTÉ since 1992. Since 2019, he has been Environment Correspondent for RTÉ News. He previously was Economics Editor in 1996.

Lee’s father is a motor mechanic, and his mother is a hairdresser. He is the seventh in a family of eight children and grows up in Templeogue, Dublin. He attends Coláiste Éanna, a Christian Brothers’ School in the Dublin suburb of Ballyroan. He is a graduate of University College Dublin (UCD) and holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics (LSE) where his specialist area is labour economics and unemployment.

Lee is married to Mary Lee (née Kitson) and they have two children, Alison and Harry, and live in Cabinteely. He famously travels to work at RTÉ using a Segway, once giving it a test ride live on Tubridy Tonight.

Lee joins the civil service as an executive officer in the Central Statistics Office (CSO). Two years later he enters University College Dublin where he studies economics under academics such as Brendan Walsh and Peter Neary.

Prior to his move into broadcasting, Lee lectures at NUI Galway and then works as a journalist with The Sunday Business Post. He is also a Senior Economist at Riada Stockbrokers. He also works as Treasury Economist with FTI and as a research economist with the Central Bank of Ireland.

From 1992 to 2009 Lee worked at RTÉ, the public broadcasting service of Ireland. He is appointed Economics Editor with RTÉ in 1996. He is named Irish Journalist of the Year, along with Charlie Bird, in 1998 after they uncover a major tax evasion and overcharging scandal at National Irish Bank. He has devised, researched and presented several television series, including Moneybox, More to Do, Winds of Change, and Beyond the Berlin Wall. He is thought of as an “economics guru.” He leaves RTÉ in the late 1990s to work for BCP Stockbrokers. He leaves the job and returns to his RTÉ post the next day.

Before embarking on his political career, Lee films a four-part series based on the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2008. It is aired on RTÉ One in November 2009.

Lee is parodied in the 1990s comedy Bull Island, where he is seen “menacingly staring down the lens of a camera,” and is also featured on RTÉ 2fm‘s Nob Nation.

On May 5, 2009, on RTÉ News at One on RTÉ Radio 1, Lee announces that he is resigning as Economic Editor with RTÉ and announces his intention to seek the Fine Gael nomination for the Dublin South by-election in 2009. He takes a year’s unpaid leave from RTÉ in May 2009. On May 6, 2009, he is chosen as the Fine Gael candidate for the by-election. He is the only candidate for the nomination.

Lee is elected on the first count to represent Dublin South on June 6, 2009. He receives over 53% of the 1st preference vote. In total he receives 27,768 1st preference votes. When elected, he is referred to as a “Celebrity TD.” His RTÉ position is filled by Europe editor Sean Whelan, but only as correspondent. Instead, David Murphy is promoted to Business Editor.

In an opinion poll concerning support for possible candidates in the 2011 Irish presidential election conducted by the Sunday Independent in October 2009, Lee places third, receiving 12% support, ahead of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and other high-profile politicians.

Lee highlights the failure of EMPG, the holding company for U.S. publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and the potential impact on the Irish taxpayers of the loans given by Anglo Irish Bank to the investors in EMPG on January 13, 2010. He sees this as another example for the urgent need of an investigation into the Irish banking crisis.

On February 8, 2010, Lee announces his resignation from Fine Gael and from Dáil Éireann, due to having “virtually no influence or input” into shaping Fine Gael’s economic policies at a time of economic upheaval. It emerges that on February 2, he met with the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and told him of his intention to resign. Kenny then offered Lee the frontbench position as spokesman on economic planning. Speaking to reporters outside Leinster House soon after his announcement, Lee says it would have been dishonest of him to accept the position. “I had absolutely no input for nine months. I think I had to be honest with myself and honest with the electorate about that and not pretend.” Asked if his resignation is a vote of no confidence in Kenny, he says there are “certainly lots of large mutterings at the moment in relation to the leader’s position.” He says he had “minimal involvement” with Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton.

Kenny notes Lee had been appointed chair of the party’s committee on economic policy and also its forum. “I had anticipated a very important role for [George Lee] in the coming period with Fine Gael.” Kenny’s spokesman later dismisses the proposition that the resignation had implications for his leadership. He cited the public endorsement of Kenny by 20 Dáil deputies over the course of the weekend. Former Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan says he is surprised at the decision. “I thought that George Lee was fitting in well,” adding that he believes he would have been a cabinet member in a Fine Gael-led government.

Lee is criticised after his resignation by Senator Eoghan Harris, who is speaking on the Lunchtime programme of Newstalk Radio. Harris suggests financial considerations and long working hours of politicians are the reasons for Lee’s resignation. Fine Gael TD Brian Hayes, who is Lee’s campaign manager in the Dublin South by-election, says that in discussions with Lee, the latter had complained about “a major reduction in his income” since leaving RTÉ to become a Dáil backbencher. Lee denies that financial considerations had anything to do with his decision to quit politics.

RTÉ receives a letter from Lee confirming his intentions to return after his leave of absence. The Sunday Tribune says on February 14, 2010, that he will have to wait for three months before returning to RTÉ. Exactly a year after leaving RTÉ, he returns to the broadcaster on May 5, 2010. He works as an advisor on the RTÉ business desk. He presents Mind Your Business on RTÉ Radio 1 on Saturday Mornings as a summer replacement for The Business.

When John Murray moves to present his own programme, Lee takes over The Business slot on September 4, 2010, on Saturday mornings on RTÉ Radio 1. In addition to the radio edition, he has presented a televised version on RTÉ One, also titled The Business.

Lee has been Environment Correspondent for RTÉ since June 27, 2019.


by Leave a comment

Murder of Irish Crime Reporter Veronica Guerin

veronica-guerin-1

Journalist and crime scene reporter Veronica Guerin is murdered by drug lords in Dublin on June 26, 1996, an event which helped establish the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).

Guerin is born in Artane, Dublin on July 5, 1958. She attends Catholic school where she excels in athletics and later studies accountancy at Trinity College, Dublin. She plays for both the Ireland women’s national basketball team and Republic of Ireland women’s national football team, representing the latter in a match against England at Dalymount Park in May 1981.

After she graduates, her father employs her at his company but, following his death three years later, she changes professions and starts a public relations firm in 1983, which she runs for seven years. In 1983–84, she serves as secretary to the Fianna Fáil group at the New Ireland Forum. She serves as Charles Haughey‘s personal assistant, and becomes a family friend, taking holidays with his children. In 1987 she serves as election agent and party treasurer in Dublin North for Seán Haughey.

In 1990, she changes careers again, switching to journalism as a reporter with The Sunday Business Post and Sunday Tribune, working under editor Damien Kiberd. Craving first-hand information, she pursues a story directly to the source with little regard for her personal safety, to engage those she deems central to a story. This allows her to build close relationships with both the legitimate authorities, such as the Garda Síochána, and the criminals, with both sides respecting her diligence by providing highly detailed information. She also reports on Irish Republican Army activities in the Republic of Ireland.

From 1994 onwards, she begins to write about criminals for the Sunday Independent. Using her accountancy knowledge to trace the proceeds of illegal activity, she uses street names or pseudonyms for organized crime figures to avoid Irish libel laws.

When she begins to cover drug dealers, and gains information from convicted drugs criminal John Traynor, she receives numerous death threats. The first violence against her occurs in October 1994, when two shots are fired into her home after her story on murdered crime kingpin Martin Cahill is published. Guerin dismisses the “warning.” The day after writing an article on Gerry “The Monk” Hutch, on January 30, 1995, she answers her doorbell to a man pointing a revolver at her head. The gunman misses and shoots her in the leg. Regardless, she vows to continue her investigations.

On September 13, 1995, convicted criminal John Gilligan, Traynor’s boss, attacks her when she confronts him about his lavish lifestyle with no source of income. He later calls her at home and threatens to kidnap and rape her son and kill her if she writes anything about him.

On the evening of June 25, 1996, Gilligan drug gang members Charles Bowden, Brian Meehan, Kieran ‘Muscles’ Concannon, Peter Mitchell and Paul Ward meet at their distribution premises on the Greenmount Industrial Estate. The following day, while driving her red Opel Calibra, Guerin stops at a red traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway near Newlands Cross, on the outskirts of Dublin, unaware she is being followed. She is shot six times, fatally, by one of two men sitting on a motorcycle.

About an hour after Guerin is murdered, a meeting takes place in Moore Street, Dublin, between Bowden, Meehan, and Mitchell. Bowden later denies under oath in court that the purpose of the meeting is the disposal of the weapon but rather that it was an excuse to appear in a public setting to place them away from the incident.

At the time of her murder, Traynor is seeking a High Court order against Guerin to prevent her from publishing a book about his involvement in organised crime. Guerin is killed two days before she is due to speak at a Freedom Forum conference in London.

Guerin’s funeral is attended by Ireland’s Taoiseach John Bruton, and the head of the armed forces. It is covered live by Raidió Teilifís Éireann. On July 4, labour unions across Ireland call for a moment of silence in her memory, which is duly observed by people around the country. Guerin is buried in Dardistown Cemetery, County Dublin.

 


by Leave a comment

Birth of Journalist Eoghan Corry

eoghan-corry

Eoghan Corry, Irish journalist and author regarded as the most extensively traveled writer in Ireland, averaging over 30 countries a year, is born in Dublin on January 19, 1961.

Corry is the third of four children of Patrick Corry (1916–1971) from Kilmacduane, Cooraclare and Anne Corry (1929–2009) from Clahanmore, Milltown Malbay, both from County Clare. He grows up in Ardclough, Straffan, County Kildare.

Corry is educated at Scoil Mhuire, Clane, at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and University College Dublin (UCD). His first published work, as a teenager, is poetry in English and the Irish language in literary magazines and the New Irish Writing section of The Irish Press.

He begins his journalistic career as a sportswriter with The Irish Times and Sunday Tribune where he wins several awards and becomes sports editor. Determined to pursue a career outside of sports journalism, he joins The Sunday Press as a feature writer in 1985 and becomes features editor of The Irish Press in 1986, bringing younger writers and a more contemporary, polemical and literary style to the paper. He revives the literary and travel sections of the paper and is an adjudicator of the Dublin Theatre Festival awards.

When The Irish Press closes in 1995, he becomes Features Editor of the short-lived Evening News, storylines the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) museum in Croke Park in 1998 and is founding editor of High Ball magazine. Since then, he has been a columnist, first with The Sunday Business Post and then with the Evening Herald and Irish Independent. As a journalism lecturer in the Dublin Institute of Technology he tells students that “journalism is about pissing people off.”

Since 2002 Corry has edited Ireland’s biggest circulation travel publication, Travel Extra. He has fronted travel shows broadcast in Ireland and the Middle East and is a regular commentator on travel affairs to Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and TG4, and an occasional guest contributor to BBC Northern Ireland. He writes the ten-part series GAA@125, screened on Irish television station TG4 in 2009. He appears on Tonight with Vincent Browne from time to time to preview the next day’s newspapers.

Corry is awarded a lifetime “contribution to the industry” award at the Irish Travel Industry Awards in Dublin on January 22, 2016. He receives the Business Travel Journalist of the year award in London in October 2015. Previous awards include Irish sportswriter of the year, young journalist of the year, Seamus Kelly award, MacNamee award for coverage of Gaelic Games and is short listed for sports book of the year.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Crime Reporter Veronica Guerin

Veronica Guerin, Irish crime reporter, is born in Artane, Dublin, on July 5, 1958. Guerin attends Catholic school where she excels in athletics and later studies accountancy at Trinity College, Dublin. She plays for both the Ireland women’s national basketball team and Republic of Ireland women’s national football team, representing the latter in a match against England at Dalymount Park in May 1981.

After she graduates, her father employs her at his company but, following his death three years later, she changes professions and starts a public relations firm in 1983, which she runs for seven years. In 1983–84, she serves as secretary to the Fianna Fáil group at the New Ireland Forum. She serves as Charles Haughey‘s personal assistant, and becomes a family friend, taking holidays with his children. In 1987 she serves as election agent and party treasurer in Dublin North for Seán Haughey.

In 1990, she changes careers again, switching to journalism as a reporter with The Sunday Business Post and Sunday Tribune, working under editor Damien Kiberd. Craving first-hand information, she pursues a story directly to the source with little regard for her personal safety, to engage those she deems central to a story. This allows her to build close relationships with both the legitimate authorities, such as the Garda Síochána, and the criminals, with both sides respecting her diligence by providing highly detailed information. She also reports on Irish Republican Army activities in the Republic of Ireland.

From 1994 onwards, she begins to write about criminals for the Sunday Independent. Using her accountancy knowledge to trace the proceeds of illegal activity, she uses street names or pseudonyms for organized crime figures to avoid Irish libel laws.

When she begins to cover drug dealers, and gains information from convicted drugs criminal John Traynor, she receives numerous death threats. The first violence against her occurs in October 1994, when two shots are fired into her home after her story on murdered crime kingpin Martin Cahill is published. Guerin dismisses the “warning.” The day after writing an article on Gerry “The Monk” Hutch, on January 30, 1995, she answers her doorbell to a man pointing a revolver at her head. The gunman misses and shoots her in the leg. Regardless, she vows to continue her investigations.

On September 13, 1995, convicted criminal John Gilligan, Traynor’s boss, attacks her when she confronts him about his lavish lifestyle with no source of income. He later calls her at home and threatens to kidnap and rape her son and kill her if she writes anything about him.

On the evening of June 25, 1996, Gilligan drug gang members Charles Bowden, Brian Meehan, Kieran ‘Muscles’ Concannon, Peter Mitchell and Paul Ward meet at their distribution premises on the Greenmount Industrial Estate. The following day, while driving her red Opel Calibra, Guerin stops at a red traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway near Newlands Cross, on the outskirts of Dublin, unaware she is being followed. She is shot six times, fatally, by one of two men sitting on a motorcycle.

About an hour after Guerin is murdered, a meeting takes place in Moore Street, Dublin, between Bowden, Meehan, and Mitchell. Bowden later denies under oath in court that the purpose of the meeting is the disposal of the weapon but rather that it was an excuse to appear in a public setting to place them away from the incident.

At the time of her murder, Traynor is seeking a High Court order against Guerin to prevent her from publishing a book about his involvement in organised crime. Guerin is killed two days before she is due to speak at a Freedom Forum conference in London.

Guerin’s funeral is attended by Ireland’s Taoiseach John Bruton, and the head of the armed forces. It is covered live by Raidió Teilifís Éireann. On July 4, labour unions across Ireland call for a moment of silence in her memory, which is duly observed by people around the country. Guerin is buried in Dardistown Cemetery, County Dublin.


by Leave a comment

The M62 Coach Bombing

m62-coach-bombing

The M62 coach bombing occurs on February 4, 1974, on the M62 motorway in Northern England, when a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb explodes in a coach carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and their family members. Twelve people, nine soldiers and three civilians, are killed by the bomb, which consists of 25 pounds of high explosive hidden in a luggage locker on the coach.

The coach has been specially commissioned to carry British Army and Royal Air Force personnel on leave with their families from and to the bases at Catterick and Darlington during a period of railway strike action. The vehicle departs from Manchester and is making good progress along the motorway. Shortly after midnight, when the bus is between junction 26 and 27, near Oakwell Hall, there is a large explosion on board. Most of those aboard are sleeping at the time. The blast, which can be heard several miles away, reduces the coach to a “tangle of twisted metal” and throws body parts up to 250 yards.

The explosion kills eleven people outright and wounds over fifty others, one of whom dies four days later. Amongst the dead are nine soldiers – two from the Royal Artillery, three from the Royal Corps of Signals, and four from the 2nd battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. One of the latter is Corporal Clifford Haughton, whose entire family, consisting of his wife Linda and his sons Lee (5) and Robert (2), also die. Numerous others suffer severe injuries, including a six-year-old boy, who is badly burned.

The driver of the coach, Roland Handley, is injured by flying glass, but is hailed as a hero for bringing the coach safely to a halt. Handley dies at the age of 76 after a short illness in January 2011.

Suspicions immediately fall upon the IRA, which is in the midst of an armed campaign in Britain involving numerous operations, later including the Guildford pub bombing and the Birmingham pub bombings.

Reactions in Britain are furious, with senior politicians from all parties calling for immediate action against the perpetrators and the IRA in general. The British media are equally condemnatory. According to The Guardian, it is “the worst IRA outrage on the British mainland” at that time, whilst the BBC describes it as “one of the IRA’s worst mainland terror attacks.” The Irish newspaper The Sunday Business Post later describes it as the “worst” of the “awful atrocities perpetrated by the IRA” during this period.

IRA Army Council member Dáithí Ó Conaill is challenged over the bombing and the death of civilians during an interview and replies that the coach had been bombed because IRA intelligence indicated that it was carrying military personnel only.

Following the explosion, the British public and politicians from all three major parties call for “swift justice.” The ensuing police investigation led by Detective Chief Superintendent George Oldfield is rushed, careless, and ultimately forged, resulting in the arrest of the mentally ill Judith Ward who claims to have conducted a string of bombings in Britain in 1973 and 1974 and to have married and had a baby with two separate IRA members. Despite her retraction of these claims, the lack of any corroborating evidence against her, and serious gaps in her testimony – which is frequently rambling, incoherent, and “improbable” – she is wrongfully convicted in November 1974.

The case against Ward is almost completely based on inaccurate scientific evidence using the Griess test and deliberate manipulation of her confession by some members of the investigating team. The case is similar to those of the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, and the Maguire Seven, which occur at the same time and involve similar forged confessions and inaccurate scientific analysis. Ward is finally released in 1992, when three Appeal Court judges hold unanimously that her conviction was “a grave miscarriage of justice,” and that it had been “secured by ambush.”