THE OBSERVER of London is a pillar of the British establishment. It sometimes boobs. Believing Kim Philby a loyal member of British Intelligence, it gave him the cover of a correspondent in Beirut which helped his escape to Moscow.
It was wiser in its choice of Conor Cruise O’Brien as its Editor in Chief who proved his allegiance to that Establishment by attending the crowning of TIHE TIMES editor, Harold Evans, as “Editor of the Year” by fellow British Editor in February 1982. That very day I was celebrating the lifting of the embargo of publication of the Press Council’s condemnation of THE TIMES for its coverage of the funeral of Bobby Sands, attributing
all fatalities in the war since 1969 to the IRA. It took me nine months to extract that adjudication from the Press Council, which was as corrupt as THE TIMES and the cabinet ministers pushing the same lie.
Regular readers of my blogs may remember that.
Anyway, THE OBSERVER has pronounced Fintan O’Toole one of Britain’s “TOP 300 INTELLECTUALS”.
If you read my BLOG “Sense, Sensitivity and Fintan O’Toole” and read his piece which inspired it, you must admit, whatever view you have on abortion. that O’Toole’s only concern was what people might think of him. His brain was not engaged, although he is not stupid. And there was no evidence of him having character or backbone. The Beatles’ Song “Nowhere Man” could cover him, if manhood could be detected.
O’TOOLE has written copious ignorant nonsense about the 1916 Rising and in various BLOGS I have commented on them. “GRASPING THE WRONG END OF THE STICK ON THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE 1916 WRITING ” takes him and his ilk to task.
“ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND FINTAN O’TOOLE ” tackles two of his takes on things. But life is too short to tackle all his absurdities.
O’TOOLE has been a Visiting LECTURER IN IRISH LETTERS at Princeton University. I doubt he has read or written IN IRISH since he left the Christian Brothers. I’ve not seen a single Gaelic idiom nor even a trace of the English we spoke in Dublin in anything I’ve read by him. I imagine he’d say “naughty” where we said “bold” and “playing truant” where we (and people in the West of England) said “mitching.”
And he’d choke on a trotter rather than recognise a crubeen.
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