This afternoon.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Brendan Doolin (37) left his home only twice in the previous 17 years prior to these matters being investigated. His lawyers described him as “an internet troll”.
Doolin of Leighlin Road, Crumlin, Dublin pleaded guilty to harassing Sarah Griffin, Kate McEvoy, Sinead O’Carroll, Christine Bohan, Roe McDermott and Aoife Barry on dates between May 2012 and February 2018.
Editor of the Journal news website Sinead O’Carroll, was once contacted and told to “break both legs” after she tweeted to promote an upcoming appearance on a television programme.
Kate McEvoy was informed that the sender of the emails was in the area where she lived, and once when she tweeted that her housemate had gone out for the evening, he messaged: “Good I’ll be over soon.”
Christine Bohan, who got more than 450 messages from Doolin, also received a 10-year-old political leaflet from him which carried a photograph of her on it. She was also sent an image of her from a dinner at her old college. After receiving this, Ms Bohan feared he had scoured the internet looking for her image.
Each of the women received hundreds of emails, usually using the same unusual font, containing insults such as calling the women “wannabes, nobodies, whiteist, bigots, lefties and pseudo intellectuals.”
He accused them of being narcissistic attention seekers, self-obsessed and concerned with their own self-promotion, referring to their “Twitter bubble” and suggesting that they do not care for others.
Man who harassed women writers and journalists jailed (RTÉ)
A warning to basement dwelling trolls everywhere. Terrible that it took 7 years to deal with him.
+1.
Although- some of them are outwardly quite well adjusted. What some people don’t realise is that with the right resources, EVERYTHING on the internet is traceable.
It’s not.
you keep telling yourself that @tommm
I do it for a living so I know.
Many more where he came from, unfortunately.
A real gaze into the psyche of the types of people who spend their days spewing misogynist, racist bile over multiple sock puppet accounts online. Plenty more of them too.
FWIW, plenty of others have said the same fella was harassing them at various points, lest anybody think it was confined only to the six involved here.
Yeah but this is the thin edge of the wedge- step down a few levels and you will find the more ‘intelligent’ who don’t overtly harass but still spend their time trying to get under other people’s skins. They never have opinions of their own (inc this site) – just the objective of bullying other’s into silence.
…racist bile you say…mmm ….
I identify with the lesbians from affluent political families- I commend them on their funding / connections. That they are demanding we bring we more and more anti gays into the country is good because all immigrants can and will change- within a couple of generations.
Jail will probably improve his life, get him off the ‘puter and meeting people.
Big dave in A wing would just love to
make his acquaintance.
It could well be mutual. The guy clearly doesn’t like women. Bren and Bubba and forever.
So. He was a Journal.ie reader? Left the house twice in 17 years? Makes sense.
I thought Memes real name was Tony….
now now…
(i was actually going to make the joke ‘oh, no wonder eoin has been quiet lately’ – but that’s mean, he’s not a bad old skin)
Did he call the journal.ie journalism…omg
Hope he meets all the lads from HMS Carthorse. The dribbling bag of Smeg. Rot him.
Hang on…
“Left the house twice in 17 years?”
How did he eat/earn/collect money/put out the bins/pay for internet…
This does not make sense…
He was obviously enabled
Not that I’m blaming the enabler for his behaviour but they didn’t do him or the community at large any favours
Either way it’s now been dealt with
Having said that I think it’s dangerous to assume all Trolls match the description of Brendan Doolin
The only common denominator is their activity and online behaviour
Not the lifestyle or physical markers
He didn’t leave the house since he was 20. There was bound to be an escalation of his on-line abuse capable of doing actual physical harm, he was getting off on the power he wielded… he needed help and so did those women, faster than the time it took. What a nightmare.