Category: FitzGerald, Garret
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Sir Garret
Introduction. Charles Haughey of Fianna Fáil and Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael took very different approaches when dealing with Britain’s covert intelligence services and the more questionable diplomats assigned to the Dublin embassy. While FitzGerald was happy to dance with Her Majesty’s emissaries and spooks, Haughey recoiled. This contrast was never more apparent than when…
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The Smearmeister from the Irish Times
Hugh Mooney, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, worked at The Irish Times before becoming the UK’s foremost black propagandist in the early 1970s. Among his many successes, he distorted the truth about what happened on Bloody Sunday, the bombing of McGurk’s bar and circulated smears about John Hume. The Bloody Sunday and John Hume…
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The Mac Bride Principles: Genesis and History
An Army of Principles Will Penetrate Where an Army of Soldiers Cannot—Thomas Paine 1. I want to set out here for the historical record how the Irish National Caucus initiated, proposed, and launched the Mac Bride Principles. This is all the more important since there have been some attempts at revisionism. I will have to give…
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FG’s ‘flawed pedigree’.
1. Smearing ‘the bejaysus’ out of Catherine Connolly. When Ivan Yates spoke about ‘smearing the bejaysus’ out of Catherine Connolly, he was merely saying out loud what members of his party have whispered from the shadows for decades. Yates made remark on his Newstalk podcast ‘Calling It’. He outlined what he would do if his…
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Nest of Spies.
1. Introduction. I remember being struck by a passage in the late Kennedy Lindsay’s book, ‘The British Intelligence Services In Action’ (1981). Lindsay, a Unionist politician, alleged that MI6: ‘has numerous agents and informants [in the Republic of Ireland], including many at high levels in the civil service, police, and armed services. The territory had been part…
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From the Vaults (1989): The Riddle of Garret FitzGerald’s missing Dalí. By Frank Doherty.
Netflix is currently broadcasting a documentary on Salvador Dali, the celebrated Spanish artist famed as an exponent of surrealism. The Dalí film brings to mind the controversy – or, more accurately, the non-controversy – about Ireland’s missing Dali. The Irish state was presented with a Dalí picture (some say a sketch) by the Spanish government…
