jump to navigation

Some news….. May 6, 2021

Posted by irishelectionliterature in Uncategorized.
trackback

Eoghan Harris dropped by the Sunday Independent. .

wonder where he’ll end up?

Comments»

1. WorldbyStorm - May 6, 2021

Both posts must have gone up simultaneously here. Agreed, what on earth does he do next? What’s really telling is how a column in a Sunday newspaper wasn’t enough, there had to be more showboating elsewhere. Incredible stuff really.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
wesferry - May 6, 2021

I had a conversation with Eoghan Harris once about the WP leadership after he’d left with bitter recriminations and the Mary Robinson campaign for President of Ireland.

Actually, it wasn’t so much a conversation but more of a 30-minute almost non-stop diatribe against De Rossa & Co and about how great Eoghan was.

I’d anticipated a driven personality but he left me stunned by his expletive-laden monologue.

Obsessive verging on a behavioural disorder IMHO.

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 6, 2021

Was doing some research after the WP broke up and while I didn’t get that treatment it certainly wasn’t what I expected. Later he said some stuff in a certain paper about me on another matter entirely and a letter sent by me to correct on points of fact wasn’t published.

Like

Reply
2. oliverbohs - May 6, 2021

Is this the start of the Sindo taking a stance whereby they’re still as anti-SF as before but without instantly shutting down debate around what a united Ireland would look like?

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 6, 2021

Phoenix had an interesting piece during the last week or so about how Eilis O’Hanlon has taken a sharply divergent approach to him on a border poll and this caused some tension. Clearly there’s a change of mgmt at the Sindo.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
oliverbohs - May 6, 2021

I know nothing about Alan English save for the book he wrote about Munster beating the All Blacks in 1978, Stand Up and Fight. I’d imagine he wouldn’t be up to stuff like posing for photos in his underwear with young, female society columnists, unlike certain previous editors

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 6, 2021

Pray that you are right!

Like

Reply
3. Tomboktu - May 6, 2021

Speaking of fake accounts…

Liked by 1 person

Reply
4. irishelectionliterature - May 6, 2021
Colm B - May 7, 2021

No surprise there either, tallies with behaviour in the WP era.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

I didn’t see that. That’s vile.

Like

Reply
CL - May 7, 2021

” Re Eoghan Harris, I’ve set out my position here and will have more to say on Sunday. I had the pleasure of meeting Aoife Moore this week, when she spoke about her outstanding work on Golfgate. Attacks on her by the Barbara J Pym account were contemptible ” – Alan English
https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/sunday-independent-columnist-eoghan-harris-axed-over-fake-twitter-account-1123112.html

Eoghan Harris: ‘Kevin Myers – one more victim of the toxic flash mobs on Twitter’
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/eoghan-harris-kevin-myers-one-more-victim-of-the-toxic-flash-mobs-on-twitter-38763574.html

Like

Reply
5. roddy - May 7, 2021

Any chance he was operating multiple accounts?

Like

Reply
EWI - May 7, 2021

Whatever hellhole Myers is currently inhabiting.

A question is whether this finishes him as advisor to Micheál Martin?

Like

Reply
sonofstan - May 7, 2021

Has to.

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

That he was ever embraced by FF at all was a telling indictment about Irish political life.

Liked by 3 people

Reply
6. Alibaba - May 7, 2021

‘ wonder where he’ll end up? ‘ An intellectual at rest.

Like

Reply
7. Seán Ó Murchadha - May 7, 2021

I attended an event organised by the big debating society in Trinity(The Phil?) back in 1992/93. It was a grand affair- everyone was in suits and evening dress style. I was in jeans and denim shirt but got a loan of a tie from a mate so I could get in. The reason I was there was because the guest speakers were Brian Lenihan, David Trimble, Bobbie Ballagh, and Eoghan Harris. All the speakers were grand until it came to Harris. He started off ok but by the end of his talk he was ranting and raving, practically foaming at the mouth. At one stage he suggested that the southern government would need to arm the protestants in the north to protect them from the IRA. Even the crowd in their evening dress were laughing at this stage.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

It’s incredible. Absolutely… just…

Like

Reply
8. Ramzi Nohra - May 7, 2021

A long time coming – i almost respect him for churning out the same article for 20 years.

It’s actually a shame – he was intelligent and a good writer but he was completely, myopically obsessed with Irish republicanism (not just SF/PIRA as he would like to claim) and allowed this to colour his writing in all its contexts – including using what he knew were bad faith arguments – whereas he could have used his skills for good.

If I had to sum him up in one sentence it would be “supported the Iraq war, opposed the Northern Ireland peace process”

(btw – hope everyone’s well, haven’t been here for a while)

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

It’s a cautionary tale,no doubt at all.

All good thanks, how are you, hope all good.

Like

Reply
9. EWI - May 7, 2021

Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime programme, Eoghan Harris said he was one of the founders of the ‘site’, but that in recent times he had “moved to the background as more of an advisor”.

He said 5-6 people in total were involved (with the twitter account).

Mr Harris said he was involved with the account as he could not address issues relating to Northern Ireland every week as political columnist.

He said the other people involved with the account were historians and trade unionists and he said no politicians or journalists were involved. He said the others wanted to stay anonymous because they were “nervous of Sinn Féin”.

Mr Harris said he had “very few platforms available to him to express his views”.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0507/1215703-harris-sunday-independent/

Will be very interesting to see who the ‘trade unionists’ are (can readily guess at one or two of the ‘historians’). And one journalist name being speculated at today is apparently wrong, so?

Like

Reply
sonofstan - May 7, 2021

Mr Harris said he had “very few platforms available to him to express his views”.

He says on national radio.

Liked by 3 people

Reply
irishelectionliterature - May 7, 2021
wesferry - May 7, 2021

Eoghan Harris said he was one of the founders of his poison pen ‘site’, but that in recent times he had “moved to the background as more of an advisor”.

At first, I thought it was a few Twitter accounts. Now Harris says it was ‘a site’ involving several people that he was allegedly an ‘advisor’ to.

If his claim of recently having a background role to this ring is true, this sounds like a very secretive, longstanding, organised social media takedown of other journalists, commentators, film-makers and people who held political views that Harris & Co.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

It’s staggering the sense of entitlement. The rest of us have to make do with what we’ve pulled together over the years, he doesn’t just want a national newspaper column but another arm – and by the by, expressing ‘his’ views – when he does it anonymously. That’s a joke.

Liked by 2 people

WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

This says it all…

“He told RTÉ that “any fair minded person” would see the account as a “generally benign account” and if it did criticise people, they were “Sinn Féin enablers or pawns”.

He claimed RTÉ “keeps him off the air” because of his view of Sinn Féin and that he has little profile or support.”

I think he thinks the twitter account is a site.

Like

Colm B - May 7, 2021

A site involving several people eh?

…”well, Eoghan, do you think we should run another tweet calling so and so a Provo sympathiser?”
“Why that’s a great idea, Eoghan, very original but I think we should consult Eoghan first’
“Yeah, and the other Eoghan as well, he’s a great man for the Provo bashing”.

Liked by 3 people

WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

Hahaha, probably all too realistic

Liked by 1 person

Colm B - May 7, 2021

If he is telling the truth then I could have a good guess at who they are, the old Industrial Research unit gang. Faction as Twitter gang.

Liked by 3 people

Reply
roddy - May 7, 2021

One trade unionist springs to mind.Peace train and anti Palestine.

Like

Reply
Alibaba - May 7, 2021

I spy with my little eye something beginning with B and ending with t – Harris’s Drivetime comments stated in RTÉ’s News. 

It stinks to the highest level. As ever, deceitful, malicious and sailing close to the wind with accusations.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
Colm B - May 7, 2021

Again he’s at this for decade: so and so is a Provo hushpuppy, they want to kill all the Protestants, they’re terrorists, all nationalists are sectarian. It’s like listening to a a fuzzy tape recording found in a box buried by school kids
in 1985 with a note to the future.
It says more about the shallowness of the Irish media that this charlatan and his lackeys have held forth without serious challenge for so long.

Liked by 3 people

WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

+1

Liked by 1 person

10. CL - May 7, 2021

” It’s amazing the amount of digging you do with Sinn Féin’s lone political opponent. Because I’m almost alone in Ireland in warning about the danger of Sinn Féin fascism. And RTÉ, which never invites me on, sits down and you do a lot of digging with your researchers, and yet you never do any research into Sinn Féin’s carry-on. It’s a pile on.”
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/full-transcript-eoghan-harrissextraordinary-radio-interview-with-sarah-mcinerney-as-he-defends-anonymous-twitter-account-40399974.html

Bravely alone in splendid isolation Eoghan Harris marches to a different drummer, – someone pounding on a Lambeg.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 7, 2021

Remarkable

Like

Reply
Fergal - May 8, 2021

Passive-aggressive the refuge of many’s a bully?

Liked by 1 person

Reply
11. Tomboktu - May 7, 2021

Interesting point by Liam Herrick, Director of the ICCL.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 8, 2021

+1

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 8, 2021

Frankly they should hang their heads in shame. This… this is what the reality was. Someone who had a national soapbox but for whom that wasn’t enough – that they needed some sort of semi-confidential platform to rant and rave and attack others, people who were open and transparent or were simply doing their jobs and to subject them to the worst, most vitriolic and personalised attacks.

Like

Reply
Colm B - May 8, 2021

The interesting question is why? Why did so many leading figures in Irish politics fall under his spell? The list, you have to admit, is impressive, even if the magic was only temporary: Cathal Goulding, Sean Garland, Proinsias De Rossa, Mary Robinson, John Bruton, David Trimble, Bertie Ahearn, Michael Martin. And that’s just the pols. Many others were hoodwinked by him, famously, to be fair for a brief moment, Fintan O Toole, who wrote a column extolling Harris’s Necessity of Social Democracy doc, in 1989.

For what it’s worth, my theory is that it was because of the lack of a strong tradition of political intellectuals/theoreticians in Ireland, combined with a lack of confidence in their own intellectual abilities amongst political leaders. Harris was a rare beast because he aspired to be an active ideologue, not an academic. I say he aspired to, because his ideas were largely derivative (most importantly from the BICO) and lacked depth. No Gramsci is he!

The secret of his success was his clever way with words, not ideas, and his full-on bamboozling style, that battered people into submission. I know for example, that during the period of about a year where he had De Rossa’s ear, around 89/90 (and famously wrote his first, awful, speech as leader for him), he was constantly on the phone to him, haranguing him with lengthy monologues.
The second thing was that, at least by the late 80s, he was a political grifter- he realised that people saw him as a big fish in a small pond – there just wasn’t much competition in the pseudo- intellectual who would act as ideological guru for sale.
His problem though was his total obsession with the Provos, which fitted well with some people’s pre-existing politics (OSF, FG, unionists) but was too uni-focal even for many of them. Of course then there’s the social dynamic of his groupies/ faction who stuck with him through thick and thin but that’s another days work.

Anyway, that’s my theory. Maybe I should write a long boring document on it, call it the Irish Intellectual Revolution, get some gullible fella to put their name to it, get my minions to push it under people’s doors during the night..

Liked by 2 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 8, 2021

That’s a really good question you raise. What is striking is how thin his output actually is. Can anyone here name more than two documents to his name really, the IIR, the Necessity for Sociall Democracy and that letter to the Robinson presidential campaign.And those are really only known within a tiny fraction of people on this island, and only one – as you say – had any particular weight and much of that was derivative.

It’s sort of public intellectualism without any of the heavy lifting – there’s no books, no analysis, no research, no nothing there. Just a newspaper column – I would be very critical of Fintan O’Toole but for all his flaws he’s put his name to some works. Even the blessed John Waters managed a pretty good book or two in the late 80s early 90s before things went pear shaped.

But Harris has nowt. And his chosen political goal, the marginalisation of SF in whatever iteration of that party/movement has signally failed across the decades, time and time again. Which dovetails with the point you make re the obsession. Again, it’s amazing how little there is there.

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 8, 2021

Sorry, and again this is so inside baseball that it’s almost laughable, there’s his document on television and the Provos.

Like

Reply
sonofstan - May 8, 2021

“For what it’s worth, my theory is that it was because of the lack of a strong tradition of political intellectuals/theoreticians in Ireland, combined with a lack of confidence in their own intellectual abilities amongst political leaders”

That’s it exactly.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
sonofstan - May 8, 2021

“It’s sort of public intellectualism without any of the heavy lifting”

And that.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
roddy - May 8, 2021

At a more basic level ,my theory is that for all his claims of influencing “leaders” he is really what is called a”Billy no mates”.I got the chance of a lifetime to confront him 10 or 15 yrs ago while on holidays in Co Cork.We staid a night in Baltimore and were in a small shop when who came through the door but this dishevelled individual leading a small terrier.He muttered something to the shopkeeper who barely engaged with him(no first names or any form of polite small talk despite Harris living there for years)He left as quickly as he arrived and for a brief second ,I wanted to follow him out and as they say up here “put manners on him”. However a combination of Mrs Roddy being much wiser than me( “ignore the wee shite” ,I think were her exact words) and the fact that he looked so pathetic prevented him from having something to really moan about in the Sindo!

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 8, 2021

A shame people didn’t take Mrs Roddy’s advice on him a lot earlier.

Like

12. banjoagbeanjoe - May 8, 2021

He wrote a play “Souper Sullivan”. http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=30670

And I think at least one episode of a tv series about the British navy in the late 18th century – “Hornblower”?

And a (rejected) script for the Michael Collins movie. Or pitched for it at least.

Maybe there’s a project for his waning years – a collected works.

Like

Reply
Colm B - May 8, 2021

His obsession with Collins is another side story all of its own.

Like

Reply
gypsybhoy69 - May 14, 2021

Did he have something to do with the film Disco Pigs?

Like

Reply
13. banjoagbeanjoe - May 8, 2021

Em. Here goes.
A comrade and friend from my WP days, still a friend and someone who was around a little earlier than me so I guess from the early eighties. He gave Harris’s group – Harris, Smullen, the Industrial branches or whatever they were called – he gave them the credit for giving the party a direction in the seventies.
Basically, my friend’s thesis was (Yes, I am writing for a friend!):
The IRA split in 1970 and there was a period of a number of years where the official side of the split didn’t really know where it was going or what it was for. Once the IRSP split was done, the remaining official side still needed some kind of common direction and raison d’etre. And that direction and raison d’etre was provided and created by the Harris group. So the direction/raison d’etre became local political activism in urban working class areas with the ‘intellectual’ leadership or inspiration for activists provided by the writings of the Industrial group.
When you went into the shop in Gardiner Place you saw a range of pamphlets: “The Great Oil and Gas robbery”, “C’mon the taxpayers”, the Tony O’Reilly robber baron one and several more – most should be on the Left Archive. And so if you were a young lad, thinking socialist and looking at the various options of parties/groups on the socialist left, you might think that the WP was serious – it was active on the ground among and from the working class in the area where you lived and it had some serious, practical critiques and proposals for change and for moving Ireland in the direction of socialism.
So, you know, the likes of me and WBS and Colm B and some others on here, went and joined the party.

So yes. Riddle me that, my old comrades, yis wouldn’t have had a party to join only for the “Industrial” group in it led by Harris and Smullen.

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 8, 2021

It’s funny though, I see it almost the other way around. There were really dedicated people who had come through SF then OSF and they had been active in communities (thank you S. Costello for one on that score) for a decade or more before due to the political shift in original SF to political activism. And the pamphlets all came later – and weren’t to do solely or even completely with Harris, though Smullen did do quite a bit (as did others outside the party who were unsung but who fed stuff in or had it appropriated in some instances!). But those people in communities would have been active I think absent Harris. For myself I never read any of those leaflets, never heard of the IIR at the time except very vaguely, the currency was less than might be expected. Not saying they had no impact but mightn’t it be a stretch to say they were the backbone of the party?

Like

Reply
banjoagbeanjoe - May 8, 2021

Yes, it’s more complicated than ‘my friend’s’ story.
One more thing before I go out into the real world for the day: I remember Harris wrote a piece in In Dublin iirc and in it he said that “the brightest and the best joined our party”. He was of course claiming the credit for that ‘fact’. Take a bow, my old comrades. Several years later he could have added… “and then fooked me out”.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 8, 2021

That’s very true actually! But you’re right it’s a big mixture isn’t it of people and dynamics and so on

Like

Reply
Colm B - May 8, 2021

I beg to disagree your honour. The impetous for activism on the ground predates the Harris groups dominance, it arises from the changing republican strategy of the 60s of engaging with social issues on the ground.

Even in unions the modus operandi of the Harris group was not mass work but conspiratorial, operating behind the scenes, capturing positions etc.
What is the Harris group did do was provide some unique, though peculiar, talking points which became associated with the WP and in the long term effectively destroyed the party in the North. In the short term way they replaced a socialist republican ideology with a weird stainist-social democratic hybrid, which did benefit the party but eventually came a cropper.

So, I’m afraid the result is null point. The thing with many of the faction was that they just couldn’t face up to the fact that their hero was a right-wing charlatan. To him, Smullen’s sub-group in particular, were just useful pawns, stalinist true-believers, led by an eccentric, who eventually ended up trying to swing the party sharply to the right.

Like

Reply
roddy - May 8, 2021

Outside of his own clique, Harris was a virtual unknown.I have been following politics since 69 (a ten year old enthralled by Bernadette’s successful Mid Ulster bid).It may have been due to being without RTE television for a time in the late 70s,but I did not even know who he was until the early 80s.”Free state” politics was always followed in our house via “the press” newspaper group and RTE radio but I only encountered him for the first time circa 83 when “Telefis Eireann” as we called it became available in our house once more.He was on a TV panel type show on a Sunday morning and was introduced as a “producer” or something similar.However a FF TD interjected to say that if people were active in political parties they should let viewers know.A slightly taken aback Harris then mumbled “I am a member of the workers party” but in a manner that suggested he was merely a minor figure who happened to have a WP membership card. So nondescript was he that I would say I barely remembered his name after the programme was over and it was only gradually over the years that I realized what a scheming malevolent egomaniac. he really was.

Like

Reply
Jim Monaghan - May 8, 2021

He operated as an eminence gris. In the background egging and pushing others. he bears a moral responsibility for a lot of fairly nasty stuff down the years. I wonder how many careers were damaged or destroyed by his activities. Maybe not a well known public figure back in the day. This allows both wings of the Workers Party to claim, with a straight face, Harris, never heard of him.

Like

Reply
CL - May 8, 2021

Harris…. ” was instrumental in establishing a secret branch of the party within the Workers Union of Ireland (WUI) membership at RTE and this branch attempted and succeeded in slanting RTE current affairs programmers on radio and television through the judicious placement of its members and associates in key roles. In doing so they gravely damaged the credibility of RTE’s current affairs output especially in relation to northern coverage, on which it sought to exclude any voice that it considered sympathetic to Provisional Sinn Fein (not just members of Sinn Fein)….

Harris remained a member of the Workers Party during the period when it or its associates engaged in several murders both in the South and North, including the murder of a former member of the party, Seamus Costello in 1977 ”
https://magill.ie/archive/eoghan-harris-and-workers-party

” The Workers Party is now almost ideologically unnrecognisable as the party it was under the guise of Sinn Fein a decade ago.
On the national question, the EEC, trade union miliitancy, foreign investment, participation in broad front organisations and the use of violence, the party has changed beyond recognition.
From being a republican, anti-partitionist organisation, the party is now virtually unionist and drawing plaudits, as a consequence, from the likes of Ian Paisley and Harry West….
The change has represented nothing short of a political lobotomy and has come about not through the process of open democratic debate within the party but through the establishment of an elite corps within the organisation, the Industrial Section, which has operated outside the normal institutions of the party, been largely unaccountable to the party’s decision-making bodies, and which has conducted its deliberations in secret…..
In early 1974 Eoghan Harris, who even then was becoming the dominant ideologue within the party, delivered a paper entitled “From Civil Rights to Class Politics”, which effectively argued that civil rights had been achieved in Northern Ireland and that now the way was open for the kind of political initiatives which would unite the Protestant and Catholic working class….
It was this which also gave rise to the acceptance of the proposal of devolved Government, opposition to power sharing, acceptance of the RUC as an impartial peace-keeping force and the abandonment of any demands for the withdrawal of the British presence from Northern Ireland….

Harris and Smullen hit it off from the beginning and there then began a process of ideological re-evaluation which effectively transformed the party over the next three years. Which was the dominant personality it is not possible for an outsider to judge, but certainly the input of Harris was immense as was the input of those he brought into the Industrial Section of the party with him. These were mainly colleagues from RTE…..
The ideological context in which these decisions were . taken was outlined in the famous document, The Irish Industrial Revolution, which has been the foremost creation of the Industrial Section. This document very much complemented the party’s ideological stance on the national question – effectively exonerated British imperialism from any culpability for the backwardness of the Irish economy. …
The bete noir of the IIR was the southern bourgeoisie which “refused” to create an industrial revolution in the south and thereby the basis for socialism in Ireland – the voluntarist nature of this thesis is essentially non-Marxist, although couched in Marxist language….
This truly gargantuan shift of position was accomplished with only the minimum of debate within the party….
The decision to change the name of the party was a logical progression from the change that had occurred ideologically within the organisation ”
https://magill.ie/archive/secret-world-sfwp-part-2

Like

Reply
Jim Monaghan - May 8, 2021
banjoagbeanjoe - May 8, 2021

There may be some errors n that article. Prioncais de Rossa

Liked by 1 person

Reply
14. EWI - May 8, 2021

Like

Reply
EWI - May 8, 2021

(Sorry, wrong thread!)

Like

Reply
sonofstan - May 8, 2021

Appropriate, given how wrong the analysis is.

Like

Reply
15. Bartholomew - May 8, 2021

The burning question is this…. why did he use Barbara Pym for the twitter accounts, of all names? I read one of her novels forty years ago, and what I remember is a very English middle-class comedy of manners. The characters were mostly middle-aged to elderly, and the one detail I remember is that one woman character hoarded empty jam jars, and filled an entire garden shed with them. Does Pym represent the ‘ordinary decent Protestants’ that Harris seems to idolise?

Like

Reply
sonofstan - May 8, 2021

I’ve been wondering that – I’ve read some of her stuff too, and remember enjoying them for their understated malevolence: understated not being a word that sits easily with the former senator. Also, her middle initial wasn’t ‘J’ ?

Like

Reply
16. CL - May 8, 2021

” A WEST Belfast film-maker targeted by an anonymous Twitter account linked to former Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris has said he was trolled “for months” over his documentary on the Glenanne Gang…..
Seán Murray, director of Unquiet Graves…said the Barbara J Pym account had been “trolling me for months”.

“It was during the tour of Unquiet Graves and particularly after the RTÉ screening of Unquiet Graves,” he said….

Unquiet Graves focused on the loyalist Glenanne Gang which involved members of the RUC, UDR and UVF and is believed to have murdered around 120 people in the 1970s.
The gang was also involved in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings….

Mr Murray said Mr Harris was not the only person involved in the Twitter account.
“I want to know who else was involved in that account,” he said.

Mr Murray’s solicitor Pádraig Ó Muirigh said the film-maker was trolled between August and October 2020.

“Our client is a distinguished academic and award-winning filmmaker,” he said.

“We will take all necessary steps to vindicate his position in relation to any defamatory comments made against him and will pursue all legal remedies available in these circumstances against Mr Harris and other contributors to this fake account.”
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/05/08/news/film-maker-sean-murray-targeted-by-an-anonymous-twitter-account-linked-to-former-sunday-independent-columnist-eoghan-harris-2315101/

Liked by 1 person

Reply
CL - May 9, 2021

” I now have evidence of two other very prominent journalists who have been involved in a smear campaign against my character and the integrity of my work. This is a coordinated campaign that has far reaching implications of McCarthyite proportions.”

Like

Reply
17. Bartholomew - May 9, 2021

The Barbara Pym thing has become a meme. On the Sunday game a few minutes ago, the presenter put it to one of the analysts that his prediction about the game they had just seen had been spectacularly wrong. His answer began ‘I’d like to apologise. There are six people who contribute to Donal Og Cusack punditry, and that particular prediction was not made by me’!

Liked by 3 people

Reply
18. CL - May 9, 2021

” Gardaí have confirmed they are investigating the alleged online harassment of a female journalist through Twitter….
The criminal complaint about the Pym account and another account that has also since been suspended by Twitter, was made before it was known Mr Harris was one if its users…..
The investigation is at an early stage, and gardaí in Pearse Street intend to interview Ms Moore shortly. A review of an archived version of the Pym account shows about 50 tweets directed at Ms Moore or mentioning her, over a one-year period, many of them negative in nature…..
The Garda investigation is also looking at the activity of another account, which was also shut down by Twitter on Friday on the basis that it was linked to the Pym account.
The account mentioned Ms Moore almost 90 times since she joined the Examiner in early 2020. These included tweets calling her a “partisan blow-in from Derry” who put her colleagues at the paper under a “Shinnery spell”.
Mr Harris has denied being behind this account and said it was run by a real person whom he knows.
At least 10 accounts linked to the Pym account have now been shut down by Twitter for breaching its rules against “platform manipulation”.

This includes an account called Northernwig, which was suspended at the weekend after Sunday Independent editor Alan English wrote that he suspected it was linked to Mr Harris.

Mr English said the account accused him of being under a “witch’s spell” and frequently alleged that the paper’s Northern Ireland coverage was being influenced by “Lady Macbeth”.-
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/eoghan-harris-linked-twitter-account-under-garda-investigation-1.4559889

Like

Reply
19. EWI - May 10, 2021
20. Bagatelle's Unhewn Treats - May 10, 2021

Ronan McGreevy is denying involvement in the accounts.

Called the account eoghan in at least three separate interactions. Sez journalists all suspected.

I think this story may prove to be a long running, entertaining and satisfying story for ilk like us 😀

Liked by 1 person

Reply
Colm B - May 10, 2021

Floodgates, Open!

Liked by 1 person

Reply
Fergal - May 10, 2021

Harris by openly stating that he couldn’t run so many different accounts has implicated others… if he had a scintilla of honour he would have claimed them as all his own work, getting his friends off the hook… not wanting his collaborators to be shot may lead to death by a thousand cuts instead.
And now that the Guards are involved, yikes!
Or maybe that Drew lad is a closet provo… would make sense, wouldn’t it?

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 10, 2021

🙂

Just on the tweets detailed in the IT, what possessed anyone to attack English? What possible good was served by that even by their own lights. I mean there’s an intrinsic stupidity to all of this but at times it just comes over as dumb credulous people convinced of their own vast importance out of all proportion to the reality.

Like

Reply
Colm B - May 10, 2021

Harris has always attracted credulous groupies who are in total awe of his great powers. At least most of the pols who fell under his spell eventually saw the wee man behind the curtain.

Liked by 1 person

Bagatelle's Unpliable Talc - May 10, 2021

Trying to figure out which is more amusing – Harris ran the accounts on his sweeney or there are 5 or 6 other people with squeaky bums, waiting for him to drop them in it?

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 10, 2021

BTW how is Slugger taking this news? Often was the time when EH was quoted on there.

Like

Reply
Bagatelle's Unburnt Tilt - May 10, 2021

Don’t you ask the saucy questions? But yer dead right. There’s a delicious p.ie thread that is pulling together all the silences, hypocrisies and vengeful knife-wielding of those previously done wrong. Worth keeping an eye on. Maximum entertainment value. Especially as man of the mods there are Fealty clones.

Fealty’s gone very silent. I’d have dismissed him as too juvenile and stupid to be a contributor to the twitter account. But the longer he’s silent, the more I begin to wonder. ‘Sides they’re all desperately trying to re-assure themselves that Scotland rejected independence because the SNP only got 64 seats and that the NHS is an unassailable final bulwark against a UI. Utter blind to the reality that’s about to slap them hard in the face.

Right now yer man Nicholas Whyte (whom I have a lot of time for) is on there making an entire eejit of himself. Arguing the NHS defeats a UI. Fullstop. Then when the issues NI is currently experiencing are enumerated for him, he admits he was entirely unaware of all of it. Then just re-iterates his point that the NHS prevents a UI. Fullstop. When a fella like that can’t see the blindingly obvious, what chance Unionist politicians?

As the Greeks teach us, blindness of that scale is the hubris that presages a precipitous collapse.

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 10, 2021

Just asking for a friend! 🙂

Right, I’m off to check out that thread. odd that re Nicholas Whyte, usually he’s more sensible.

Like

wesferry - May 10, 2021

Journalists suspected?

But they all thought the trolling colleagues was okay, including from the ‘quality’ Irish Times, ‘The Paper of Record’.

Would they have been so relaxed if it had been Shinners or Lefties doing the same to Indo and Times writers?

Liked by 1 person

Reply
Bagatelle's Underlets Teocalli - May 11, 2021

Right?

The implications are just fascinating. I feel like this is a golden opportunity to do tremendous damage to the edifice of the establishment in Ireland. If not structural damage to the establishment itself.

Who knew, what, when? Nail them to the wall with it. Who has gone suddenly silent? That right there is a massive admission guilt that I want someone to pursue. He’s been a protected species for 50 years. Now they’re rocked back on their heels. Time to followup and deliver the long overdue knockout punch them feckers so richly deserve.

Like

Reply
21. CL - May 10, 2021

” It’s taken a long, long time…..

Eoghan Harris was a ruthless demagogue who never considered the possibility that he might be wrong about anything, a man who didn’t care about his followers, leading the naive into danger yet somehow never suffering, in career terms, himself….

His political loyalties might shift. His modus operandi, never.

His key instrument was the unstoppable monologue…..

His prime need is to be validated, whether as a commentator, screenwriter, or adviser to politicians. So bottomless is the pit of his neediness, it’s no surprise he ended up on Twitter praising himself for oratory, literacy, singing, and heroism….
It’s crazy that a man with half a page to himself every week in our biggest Sunday newspaper would repeatedly speak of himself as having no platform…..
This is parallel universe stuff. But it has worked. For 50 years, Harris built a career out of duplicity, force of personality, lack of insight, flashes of creativity widely separated from each other, frenzied self-regard, and sheer uncaring nastiness to others. Anybody who’s come into contact with him could see him for what he was. And is.
Because he has never changed.
But in half a century, nobody stopped him. Nobody stopped him. That’s our shame. Not his.” – Terry Prone.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-40285112.html

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 10, 2021

It’s a good piece. Don’t always agree with her but she got his number.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
Colm B - May 10, 2021

Absolutely, WBS, the best description of him so far.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
22. CL - May 10, 2021

” Eoghan Harris’s downfall may mean much more than just his departure. It marks the end of revisionist Irish history that he and many others peddled…..
Harris wrote at the time, “If we persist with the peace process it will end with sectarian slaughter in the North, with bombs in Dublin, Cork and Galway, and with the ruthless reign by provisional gangs over the ghettos of Dublin. The only way to avoid this abyss is to cut the cord to John Hume.” …..
But Sinn Féin are in the ascendant in the north and south of Ireland and the revisionist myth of Irish history is in rack and ruin especially after Harris, the high priest of revisionist history buffs, essentially exposed himself to possible legal and criminal action last week….

He was the protege of Conor Cruise O’Brien, the former Irish diplomat, and politician who dedicated his later career to destroying the notion of Irish nationalism. Both men’s grand project, which was to fuel pro-Unionist sentiment in the south and destroy any thoughts of a united Ireland, have ended in a shambolic mess…..
Amazingly, Harris had a steady stream of top politicians, several Taoiseachs included, who bought his snake venom.”
https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/death-revisionist-irish-history-eoghan-harris-downfall

Everybody it seems is piling on now that Harris is down. Is there nobody to defend him? Where’s Bertie Ahern and John Bruton?

Liked by 1 person

Reply
23. CL - May 10, 2021

– Correctly, he judges RTE to hold an inordinate influence over the nation. His personal history with the station is painful to him. He once told me he believes this history, and the effect on him, caused his cancer- Jody Corcoran. Cited by Eddie Hobbs.

https://twitter.com/realeddiehobbs?lang=en

Like

Reply
Colm B - May 10, 2021

This poisonous purveyor of venom, who has spent a lifetime attacking people individually, who never kicked a ball when there was a man ( or woman) was within kicking distance, this master of back-stabbing who has sent his minions firth repeatedly to destroy people simply because they held different views to himself, now utters this self-pitying whine.

Where now the macho man, where now the iron fist within the velvet glove? “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” indeed.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
24. entdinglichung - May 10, 2021

any statementfrom his former party?

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 10, 2021

Don’t you mean party(s)?

Liked by 2 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 10, 2021

I’ll get my coat.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
entdinglichung - May 11, 2021

meant his former official party 😉

Like

Reply
wesferry - May 10, 2021

Not sure which one would claim him. 😜

Liked by 1 person

Reply
banjoagbeanjoe - May 11, 2021

There’s only one FG.

Liked by 3 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 11, 2021

Brilliant. Class.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
25. WorldbyStorm - May 10, 2021
Bagatelle's Undroned Terrain - May 11, 2021

That KRW one looks pretty deadly. 3 now and surely more on the way.

Govt must be delighted Harris has stepped forward into the role of lightning rod for 15 months of lockdown. The public deserve a spectacle in the arena.

The pillorying he’s going to get. A more enlightened man would feel guilty for enjoying the prospect so much. OTOH good to have room to grow. *blessed*

Liked by 1 person

Reply
26. CL - May 11, 2021

” SACKED Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris has been linked to a second anonymous Twitter account responsible for trolling high profile female media figures from the north…..
Frequent targets of the account include Strabane-born ex-journalist Francine Cunningham, who is married to Independent News and Media (INM) publisher Peter Vandermeersch; Co Tyrone writer Martina Devlin, who writes a column for the Irish Independent; and Belfast Telegraph journalist Allison Morris, also part of the INM group….

Among the frequent targets of criticism was “Lady Macbeth”, confirmed by Alan English as a reference to the former Irish Times and Sunday Business Post arts and culture journalist Francine Cunningham. She returned to Ireland from Brussels in 2019 with her husband Peter Vandermeersch, now publisher at INM following the Irish group’s acquisition by Mediahuis ….

Ms Cunnginham said: “ these tweets fall somewhere between sick and crazy.”
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/05/10/news/harris-linked-to-second-account-which-targeted-female-media-figures-from-the-north-2316110/

Liked by 1 person

Reply
27. banjoagbeanjoe - May 11, 2021

I’ve seen him quoted as “I don’t like mobs” or “I hate crowds”. He’s got a mob to deal with now that’s for sure.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
Fergal - May 11, 2021

Surely you need to distinguish between the mob that acts in ‘good faith’ as Aristotle put it… and the mob acting in ‘bad faith’?
In a way Harris losing his job is proof the provos have taken over even in the Sindo… isn’t it? 🤷‍♂️

Liked by 1 person

Reply
28. CL - May 11, 2021

” I’d love to know why obviously abusive, vicious, hate-filled messages are tolerated yet a valuable account that many of us who cover Northern Ireland went to often for information, stimulation or just a laugh is axed……
The account tweeted much that was positive, but also robustly — even harshly — criticised those the team thought supported or appeased IRA apologists, or journalists who failed to ask hard questions about the fascist republican threat …
Harris’s life has been dominated by his exploration of different political positions in his passionate desire to find a solution to this island’s divisions….
I first heard from Harris in 1994 when in an English newspaper I wrote a political article attacking governmental appeasement of the IRA and he helped me to be published in Ireland….

The silencing of Harris is another major blow to free speech.

How sad that, yet again, some journalists seem pleased.”
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/ruth-dudley-edwards-the-silencing-of-eoghan-harris-is-fresh-blow-to-free-speech-3232310

Harris may have had more positions than the Kama Sutra but at least since the IIR pamphlet he has consistently supported imperialism.

Like

Reply
29. banjoagbeanjoe - May 11, 2021

He still has friends for sure.

“Eoghan Harris was a newspaper columnist of the highest order and a polemicist without equal. His departure from the Sunday Independent removes a pillar that held up the centre of this newspaper for 20 years. I believe he is irreplaceable. He will be missed by this paper and by me personally, although I will always be his friend.”

Jody Corcoran, Sindo Assistant Editor, in last Sunday’s Sindo.

Like

Reply
roddy - May 11, 2021

Dawn Purvis now confirming Harris was not a friend of David Ervine as he claimed in his car crash RTE interview.In fact she states Ervine was considering legal action against Harris before he died.Has there ever been a bigger liar in the annals of Irish journalism and politics?

Like

Reply
Pangurbán - May 11, 2021

I think you will find that most people Harris claims as friends are safely dead and are unable to confirm or deny the assertion

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 11, 2021

That makes sense.

Like

Reply
Colm B - May 11, 2021

Friends? He always cultivated a cult around himself and always had his sycophants.

As I said before, with Harris, there was no substance at the centre. At least other gurus had some substance – Tony Cliff, Frank Furedi etc. were not exactly world class but at least there some substance to their thought, whereas with Harris it was the method, not the ideas, that was at the heart of the whole thing. His ideas were crude stick-figures, parodies, but he pushed them with such unrelenting vigour that the impressionable or the opportunistic were swept along.

A cursory glance at his take on the Provos/SF reveals how unserious his thought was: they’re fascists, they are the primary source of the conflict in the North, they haven’t changed at all over the decades blah blah

Now you could be an ultra critic of SF and still see that this was just childish propaganda. Even their most vehement serious critics would accept that the emergence and growth of the Provos was at least partly a symptom of the underlying issues rather than the initial cause. A child’s knowledge of recent history would show that they have changed significantly as a movement over the years. But, his intention was never to establish the truth but to create a crude narrative, initially in the service of a political movement, later in the service of those with wealth and power but always in the service of himself.

I welcome his demise, not just from ex-stickie schadenfreude, but because it is a blow to a the network of reactionaries who used every opportunity they could to push their right-wing agenda. Let’s hope he takes a few more of them down with him.

Liked by 3 people

Reply
Bagatelle's Unmortised Ticks - May 11, 2021

+1

I’m already looking forward to round two where we haul the cadre of public personas that pushed his articles and used them as sticks to beat opponents into the limelight.

The House of Harris has many rooms and its Fall has many careers to take down with it. Let us not err in our haste and miss any.

Certain NI blogger’s twitter account been awfully quiet the past few days.

Like

Reply
30. roddy - May 12, 2021

See Phoenix magazine 10 may 2021 – a free to read article which shows ,Harris,FF and the Sindo have big questions to answer.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - May 12, 2021

+1

Like

Reply
31. CL - May 12, 2021

” A friend and colleague of the late David Ervine has rubbished sacked Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris’s claim that he was close to the former Progressive Unionist Party leader….
Dawn Purvis, who succeeded Mr Ervine as PUP leader, told The Irish News Mr Harris was not close to Mr Ervine…..
Ms Purvis tweeted earlier yesterday that Mr Harris’s claims of friendship were “complete fantasy”.
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/05/12/news/eoghan-harris-s-claim-he-was-friends-with-david-ervine-complete-fantasy–2318787/

– ” Kathy Sheridan: Eoghan Harris’s defence doesn’t stack up
There is a distinction between robust commentary and vitriolic abuse…

Eoghan Harris’s complaint of being deprived of platforms was predictable and nonsensically incongruous.

No regular follower of Eoghan Harris would have been surprised by his RTÉ interview with Sarah McInerney. Certainly not by the line about a “ban” by RTÉ or being deprived of platforms. The complaint was as predictable as the sheer nonsensical incongruity of it.

Across the decades at pivotal times in national discourse, Eoghan Harris was the serial alpha male presence on the most highly rated shows of powerful platforms, mainly due to his media-policy adviser-advocacy role to various political parties and candidates. In print he not only commanded priceless space and freedom to express his views in Ireland’s top-selling Sunday broadsheet but shaped vital aspects of that paper’s agenda. What he did with all that power and exposure is another column entirely “. – IT.

https://www.thephoenix.ie/2021/05/profile-eoghan-harris/

‘ With Harris admitting that he was “one of a group of people” involved in the Barbara Pym account, the intriguing prospect of who else might be involved has certainly fuelled speculation.
Of course, the fact that a law firm is now pursuing action against the account’s authors is likely to result in anyone else connected to it being smoked out.
The repercussions of this tantalising action will be keenly awaited.’
https://www.thephoenix.ie/2021/05/eoghan-harriss-sindo-tribe/

Barbara Pym dissed the wife of the publisher of Independent news. Not a smart move.

” Megalomania refers to having the irrational belief that one is all powerful and highly important. It also refers to an obsession for omnipotence and grandeur. This term came from the Greek words “megalo” which means “great” or “large” and “mania” which means “madness”. Many tyrants are megalomaniacs; for example, Joseph Stalin, was infamous as a dictator of the Soviet Union. A number of innocent people perished during his reign. In fact, during meetings, he forced everyone to clap for him until he would press a buzzer.

Grandiose sense of self-importance • Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited power, beauty, or love • Having the belief that one is unique; hence, he can only be understood by or associate with people or institutions having a high status • Demands excessive admiration • Has a sense of entitlement • Interpersonally exploitative • Lacks empathy • Usually envious of others or believes that others are envious of him/her • Displays arrogant behaviors ”
https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Megalomania

Liked by 1 person

Reply
32. CL - May 12, 2021

” I have instructed @PhoenixLawHR to take legal action against Eoghan Harris to retrieve data from a number of accounts that were engaged in sustained abuse of myself. Women in the media are not fair game and there are legal consequences for this type of social media abuse ” – Allison Morris.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
Colm B - May 12, 2021

For the first time, someone who has raged across the political landscape, slashing and burning all who attracted his ire, has to face the consequences of his words and actions.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
33. CL - May 12, 2021
34. CL - May 12, 2021

” Mr Harris has vowed to defend the cases being taken by Aoife Moore and Allison Morris, saying he was entitled to free speech and would “see them in court”….

Mr Harris told the Irish Independent he was terminally ill with cancer but intended to defend the cases.

The columnist denied his tweets were misogynistic.

“The comments were fair comments and they were always about politics,” he said.

In a letter to Phoenix Law, he said: “I am 78, I have lost my job and as a freelance journalist and have little chance of another. In short, I cannot afford legal representation. If you proceed to court I will either have to avail of free legal aid or represent myself.”
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/ill-see-them-in-court-eoghan-harris-to-fight-lawsuits-from-journalists-over-anonymous-tweets-40420053.html

Like

Reply

Leave a comment