For a long time, the small group around the “Irish Political Review”
magazine, Athol Books and the Aubane Historical Society has been
aggressively critical of the Irish Times, accusing it of being
pro-British and anti-Fianna Fail. But things look set to get
more heated, with Minister of State Conor Lenihan invited
to speak at Athol Books’ launch of a new book attacking
The Irish Times.

http://www.atholbooks.org/book_launch.php

The book-“The Irish Times: Past and Present” by John Martin
is advertised as a critical history of the Irish Times, with
a strong emphasis on the correspondence between Major
McDowell and the British Ambassador about Douglas
Gageby.*
The book purports to be a history of the Irish Times as
well as the Anglo-Irish and Irish Nationalism.It
also claims to analyse the Paper’s “power structure”.
Publicity claims that “The resignation of Ahern is only the latest coup
inflicted by the newspaper on democratically elected Irish leaders.”


The book pretentiously bills itself as “essential for
understanding…the dynamics of Irish society.”

My own take on it is that the IPR group is simply
trying to ingratiate itself with the right wing of
Fianna Fail by bashing the IT’s coverage of FF.

Some Background info on the organisation:

viewtopic.php?p=977495

and on the IPR’s attacks on the IT here:

http://splinteredsunrise.wordpress.com/ ... ish-times/

*As Miriam Cotton has noted: “the IPR is obsessed with its own discovery of the McDowell/UK government connection and is now regularly in the habit of drawing connections between that sad affair and just about anything that happens in Irish public life: everything is now a dastardly UK plot. By this logic the IPR has ended up arguing that the UK is somehow behind Bertie's mismanagement of his affairs - or of bringing those affairs into the public domain, at least.”

IPR, originating I think in Belfast, comes with Labour Comment, born in Cork. It's a schizophrenic combination which serves only to confuse. The IPR obsession with the Irish Times borders on the fanatical at times. LC seems to lash out at the mainstream, pro - national agreement stream of trade unionism. It used to be vehementically critical of the Provo's but has laid off that tack for some time now. Read them and be non-plussed !

Another book they're republishing is the infamous "Notes on Eire" book attacking Elizabeth
Bowen-the first edition was ripped to shreds by critics such as Neil Corcoran and Maud Ellman
for its factual inaccuracies (ignoring Bowen's
defense of Irish Neutrality in the "New Statesman"),and poor production.

Then there was the ruckus they kicked up a few months ago over the "Hidden
History" documentary, with several members filing unsuccessful complaints
against the program:

http://www.bcc.ie/decisions/feb_08_decisions.html

With the renewal of attack on the IT and the republication of
the Bowen book, we must ask why?
I think they're trying to get attention and influence, but for what?
Keep FF in government? Seats in the Senate? The Irish Times
burnt to the ground and its fields sown with salt? Elizabeth
Bowen's corpse dug up and shipped off to Essex?

When I read the Irish Political Review's stuff on The Irish Times it reminds me of the excretible Captain Feehan and his nutty books praising Haughey and attacking Fine Gael. The moron's most infamous heap of sh1te was about "operation brogue", a fictitious account of a made-up British plot against Haughey spun by a few journalists to the gullible Feehan over a few jars. The nutter fell for it and published the book, which even FFers laughed at. When his hero then dealt with the British post 1987 Feehan finally realised he had been sold a pup and wrote a hilarious "Apology to the Irish People" book. It was a scream.

Ah, how we all miss the paranoid ramblings of Captain Feehan. (And don't worry, David. Captain Feehan is gone to that great conspiracy theorist heaven in the sky where he is no doubt regaling St Peter with stories about how the crucifixion of Christ was all the responsibility of MI6 as part of a plot to bring down FF and prevent Irish unity! Johnny used to believe that sort of paranoid ********************e. If it rained on his washing, he was convinced Thatcher had ordered it to get him back for outing 'Operation Brogue'. Unfortunately he never copped on that the Republicans who wound him up with the story called it 'operation brogue' as an in-joke referring to his own rather strong accent!)

__________________
(Guys, when I type in capitals it isn't shouting. I have technical problems which makes using italics difficult. Please don't take offence if you see capitals used!)

Wow. What an irrelevant anecdote.

__________________
Equality — It is new strung and shall be heard

Wow. Captain Feehan sounds like someone Frank Hall or Dermot Morgan would make up.

I had the misfortune to run into Mr. John Martin on Indymedia, after I quoted
a book Angela Clifford (Mrs. Brendan Clifford) had written in 1985 attacking Gageby.
In the 1985 book “ The Constitutional History of
Eire/Ireland” Clifford said that before Gageby became editor: (pg.184)

“In those days the “Irish Times” kept up a
liberal criticism of the Catholic State. Since the appointment of
Douglas Gageby as editor it has been motivated chiefly by
a detestation of Ulster Unionism, and has been anxious to explain
away the Catholic State in order not to be saying the same thing
as the Unionists.”

Mr. Martin was furious, calling me "infantile" and denying that
McDowell and Clifford had the same political views on this issue.
He also claimed McDowell had sought help from the British
State and gave me the 10,000,000,000,000th rendition
of the "white n*gger" anecdote.

But what was Angela Clifford and Major McDowell's shared objection
to Douglas Gageby? His critical stance towards the Ulster Unionists-his
"detestation" of them?
Remember also that the B&ICO/Aubane
group praised the activities of the RUC & British Army in
NI* and viciously denounced anything that might threaten the
British state in NI-which included not only Irish Nationalism
and Republicanism ,but Loyalists advocating an
independent Northern Ireland (See the notorious
Brendan Clifford pamphlet "Against Ulster Nationalism").
And what was the Campaign for Equal Citzenship, if not
an attempt to ask the parties of the British State
for help in NI?

* See, for instance, the Irish Political Review of
March 1988, where G. M Williams defends the
the imprisonment of the "Birmingham Six" & complains
"the various means to control the IRA are made
as ineffective as possible-and at the same time are
portrayed as something monstrous and tyrannical".
Don't worry Dave, I have the photocopy in front of me.

Is "excretible" a reference to that "infamous heap of sh1te", or did you mean "execrable" ?

Brendan Clifford had a habit of publishing books in the 1970s to get back at
his political opponents (People's Democracy, the SDLP) and he's still continuing
the tradition by going after the Irish Times & Roy Foster.

Commentator Derek Bell noted in a review of Athol Books'
output:

I have to admit that I made the mistake of taking Brendan Clifford at
face value; the more I read of his writings, the more disturbing I
found them. Possibly the worst was one where, in an attempt to spite
Roy Foster, he praises the _Catholic Bulletin_, saying it "made
Ireland great". In fact, he even tries to argue that the passage from
that publication that Foster quoted in the article he's responding to,
said that the introduction of contraception would lead to "racial
suicide". Now Clifford is quoting something pre-WW2 and he has
criticised Hubert Butler for using language post-WW2 that Clifford
argued was racist. I'm not sure why, but Clifford didn't comment on
the racist tone of the passage in question.
I've seen quotes from that publication {the CB} in Marcus Tanner's book
_Irelands' Holy Wars_, which certainly give the impression that the
_Catholic Bulletin_ contained plenty of material that would have been
equally at home in something published by Oswald Mosley.

A brief notice for the book launch on pg. 8 of the "Irish Times" today. Conor Lenihan
spoke approvingly of the publication, saying it gave an "alternative view" of the IT and
that people would be interested both in this and the IT's official biography.
Nothing about the launch, AFAIK, in either the Irish Examiner or the Irish Independent.

Out of curiosity, did any P.ie posters turn up to either the Friday or Saturday
book launches? Some Indymedia posters said they were going to turn up and
challenge Brendan Clifford over his various U-turns.

To say the Times is pro British is a joke..

I think the Sunday Indo may have taken the lead in that regard...