Tag Archives: Eamon Dunphy

Eamon Dunphy

Saturday night.

On the Ray D’Arcy Show.

Fergus McCormack, of RTÉ, writes:

Dancing With the Stars’ Demi Isaac Oviawe and dance partner Kai Widdrington will join Ray to talk about life after elimination…

Eamon Dunphy will be in studio to discuss the Republic of Ireland’s new management set-up and our chances of qualifying for the Euros, his love for Liverpool FC and what’s exercising him at the moment…

Victor Bayda tells Ray about his remarkable journey from Moscow to Kerry. A fluent Irish speaker, Victor has just been appointed as the Irish language officer in a South Kerry Gaeltacht…

Ray will also be joined by the parents of award-winning Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who was brutally murdered on a submarine in Denmark in 2017.

And we have a live performance from the hit musical Jersey Boys ahead of its return to the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre next month.

The Ray D’Arcy Show is on Saturday night at 9.40pm on RTÉ One

From top: Mick Clifford; Frances Fitzgerald writing in the latest Sunday Independent and The Last Stand podcast

Irish Examiner journalist Mick Clifford appeared on Eamon Dunphy’s podcast The Stand to discuss the media’s response to the publication of the Charelton Report.

In particular the ‘vindication’ of Frances Fitzgerald.

Eamon Dunphy: “Mick, I listened to The Marian Finucane Show on Sunday, which hundreds of thousands of people listen to every Sunday, it is broadcast by RTÉ , the national broadcaster, funded by the public and last Sunday it was said by Marian Finucane repeatedly that Frances Fitzgerald, the former Minister for Justice, who had to resign over this business, had been ‘completely vindicated’ by the Charelton Tribunal…

…A wrong in other words had been done to Frances Fitzgerald. Now this wasn’t a throwaway comment. The Finucane Show spent at least twenty minutes on this and it was in the light of what i read in the report, outrageous….I have read the report, you have read and written about it. The report does not completely vindicate Frances Fitzgerald, does it?”

Mick Clifford: “…I heard that show and I was quite taken aback by it… now it has to be said that a certain amount of discussion was around a piece by Frances Fitzgerald penned herself for the Sunday Independent, but let’s put things in context.

Frances Fitzgerald did not and I never for a second suggested it and as far as I know the vast majority of anybody who had anything to do with this story suggest that she had in any way a nefarious motive toward Maurice McCabe, that she in any way set out to do him ill, that she was in any way aligning herself to anyone who was trying to smear him. That was never suggested.

Now, a couple of politicians brought that up in the Oireachtas. They may have issues there on whether they should apologise or not, but ultimately that was not the reason that she was forced to resign and the impression that is put out there is that everything that preceded it is suddenly washed clean by the Charelton Report and, quite frankly, that is not the case.

…Frances Fitzgerald was minister when the O’Higgins Commission was on. At the beginning of that commission, a row blew up. The solicitor for the senior Gardai described it as ‘political dynamite’.

It effectively involved an attack or challenge to Maurice McCabe’s motivation and credibility. They all realised this was a big deal because in public the Minister and the Commissioner had been praising Sgt MCCabe yet in private his motivation and credibility was going to be attacked.

Now, the bare bones of that was communicated to the Minister. There was a lot of communication with the Department [of Justice], with the Attorney General’s office, with the Gardai but the bare bones of it was communicated to the Minister. She was aware of that.

Now, Charelton did say there was no way she could have remembered it  However, a couple of months later, RTÉ’s John Burke put in questions in relation to it and there was suggestion conveyed through the Department that he was questioning why an aggressive stance was taken against McCabe.

Now, the Minister was going on radio and she was told you can say Sgt McCabe has the full confidence of yourself and the commissioner yet being told that was not necessarily the case in terms of what was going on behind closed doors. So she had an awareness there

Roll on to May 2016, when the O’Higgins report was published and when the Examiner broke the story that this row occurred. She appeared on Prime Time and she answered questions in the Dáil.

Nowhere at that point did she convey the reality that she had been aware something had gone on. She gave the impression that this was the first she had heard of anything. And subsequently Leo Varadkar, on her behalf, said that in the Dáil.

So we go forward to November/December 2017 when this blows up (again). Alan Kelly, presumably on the basis of information he received, started submitting questions to the department of Justice and what occurred then was a drip feed,.

He didn’t get the answers he required, he put in more questions, it spread into the Dáil, Micheál Martin took up the cudgels and he started asking questions and it became effectively a runaway train. That is the nature of politics. What happened thereafter was political.

Then it emerged these emails that showed she had been informed back then and she had knowledge of it. Nobody was suggesting she was out to get McCabe. What it became was it showed she knew about these issues and she had said nothing and it effectively had to be dragged out of her.”

The Stand

Previously: Charelton Report on Broadsheet


From top: terror stalks computer screens at RTÉ, says Eamon Dunphy. Top picture posed by model.

Eamon Dunphy yesterday announced he had quit RTÉ to focus on his podcast The Stand.

He had worked with the national broadcaster for 40 years.

In his column in today’s Irish Daily Star (not online), Mr Dunphy said:

“For most of the four decades, I had the time of my life, but things haven’t been right for a while.

“I saw the way John Giles was treated, pushed out the door after the European Championships in 2016 even though he was – and still is – one of the best pundits around.

RTE is a different place now. It’s a place that lives in fear of keyboard warriors on Facebook and Twitter.

“I’ll never forget the words of a senior executive in RTE to us on the eve of [Euro 2016]. ‘Go easy on Martin [O’Neill, Ireland’s football manager]’ was his message. That was the brave new world of RTE sport, even though there was nothing brave about it.”

Eamon Dunphy blasts RTE following retirement claiming national broadcaster now live in fear of Twitter and Facebook keyboard warriors (The Irish Sun)

Yesterday: Après Match

He wants to spend more time with his money new podcast audience.

*chucks pencil*

The Stand with Eamon Dunphy

Eamon Dunphy to leave RTÉ after 40 years (RTÉ)

Gulp.

The Stand

Pic: The Irish Times

Thanks Oceanclub

Eamon Dunphy

“Tom Humphries life is effectively over and has been for many years. He has to live with the shame. His own family, he has hurt. He has hurt this girl.

I feel dreadfully sorry for the victim. This is a tragedy for two families.

In these tragic circumstances, I think judge Karen O’Connor gave just about the right sentences. It’s not for me to judge but I don’t believe in trial by media.”

Eamon Dunphy on TV3’s Tonight Show last night aboiuyt the sentencing of journalist Tom Humphries.

Watch here

Meanwhile…

Yesterday: Two And A Half Years

From top: The Stand with Eamon Dunphy podcast; Kevin Myers

Three weeks ago, Eamon Dunphy posted an interview he carried out with Kevin Myers for his podcast The Stand.

This was prior to the fallout of Mr Myers’ column in The Sunday Times on July 30 and his subsequent sacking for the same.

During the 71-minute interview they discussed The Irish Times and Mr Myers’s  time in Northern Ireland, Beirut and Sarajevo.

He told how he wasn’t invited to Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the war memorial  in memory of the Irish soldiers killed in World War I, in Islandbridge, Dublin; and how a journalism student told him he was warned not to mention Kevin Myers’ name if he wanted to proceed on his course; and how media/journalism courses in Ireland teach conformity.

He also lamented the lack of “good columnists” in Ireland under the age of 40, or even 50.

From the interview…

Eamon Dunphy: “Now you got the job of writing the Irishman’s Diary in The Irish Times which was very prestigious. You had some very amazing predecessors in that slot, you might tell us about. But it’s quite onerous because I think it’s three or four times a week?

Kevin Myers: “It was five times a week when I started.”

Dunphy: “Tell me who’d done it before.”

Myers: “Well, Patrick Campbell famously.”

Dunphy: “Yes…”

Myers: “Not famous anymore. He was a very, very celebrated man in the BBC and a very funny man and, before that, or well, after him, there was Seamus Kelly whom I never knew. He had a reputation for being very irascible but perhaps that was because he was drunk every morning by 11am and he had terminal cancer for a long time, so that would make you irascible.”

“But, it was, I didn’t want to be a diarist, I didn’t want to be a columnist. It seemed to me to be onerous, too onerous. But it was something that was a marking in the absence of anyone else, somebody else, a journalist in the newsroom pool, would be given the diary to write. So I was doing, they were going down well. Douglas…”

Dunphy: “In journalistic parlance, just to make it clear, a marking is a gig.”

Myers: “Yeah. And, I…Douglas Gageby that then edited The Irish Times didn’t like me at all. And made it very evident that he didn’t like me. He didn’t want me to be employed by The Irish Times but the overwhelming impression, decision amongst his, opinion amongst his senior editors around him, I should be employed, he was emphatically against me being employed as a columnist but, again, there was no one else to do the job.”

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Readers will recall how the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation, led by Judge Kevin O’Higgins, looked into allegations of malpractice made by Sgt Maurice McCabe (top).

After it was published, it emerged that claims made by Noirín O’Sullivan’s senior counsel to the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation – that Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe was acting out of malice – were proven to be untrue during the commission.

However, these details weren’t included in Justice O’Higgins’ findings.

Further to this…

The Disclosures Tribunal, led by Supreme Court Judge Peter Charleton, is looking at allegations that a smear campaign was conducted against Sgt McCabe by former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan – with the knowledge of Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan – as alleged by the former head of the Garda Press Office, Superintendent David Taylor.

Earlier today.

Michael Clifford, in this morning’s Irish Examiner, reported that the head of HR in An Garda Siochana John Barrett has told the Disclosures Tribunal that a member of Garda management told him that they were “going after” Sgt Maurice McCabe in the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation.

It’s reported this occurred before the O’Higgins Commission started in 2015.

In an interview earlier today for Eamon Dunphy’s podcast The Stand, Mr Dunphy spoke to Mr Clifford about this claim and about the Disclosures Tribunal.

At one point they talked about the media in respect of the Disclosures Tribunal and about how some journalists have ignored letters sent to them by the tribunal. The letters were a means for the tribunal to get answers about any possible contact they had with Supt Dave Taylor in respect of Sgt McCabe.

It should be noted that Supt Taylor has provided the tribunal with a waiver of any journalistic privilege and is not claiming privilege over his identification as the source of any information to journalists relating to Sgt McCabe, while similar waivers have been signed by Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan.

Mr Clifford said:

The media are going to come under focus very much and, personally, I think it’ll be a good thing for the media because if there are faults within how the media operates then they’ll be aired and hopefully we’ll be able to address them in some way.”

But 23 journalists were named the last day, at the tribunal, as having had contact with David Taylor at this time and the tribunal has indicated, there are, what you might call, varying degrees of co-operation being extended from members of the media as to whether or not they’ll help.”

They also discussed the matters pertaining to the Garda College.

The interview can be listened to in full above.

Readers may wish to note the Disclosures Tribunal will start to hear evidence on Tuesday, July 4.

An opening statement about the tribunal and some of the evidence gathered to date can be read in full here.

Previously: Disclosures And Non-Disclosures

A Templemore Timeline