At the end of each year,,under The Thirty Year Rule, selected (carefully
vetted) British Government Documents are lodged in the Public Records Office in
Kew, Surrey, for the perusal of the
Public. Journalists and Academics, with or seeking Editorial or Faculty Chairs
descend on the Office and each January 1st the media broadcast their
discoveries to the masses.
Andrew Gilchrist, Britain’s Ambassador destroyed his letter of September 1969,
but Kelvin White, the recipient at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,didn’t
and it was there for all to see in the Public Records office Thirty Years
Later. Documents relating to Ireland have routinely been examined and quoted
when available in Kew, But 1969 was no routine year in Ireland, and an
understanding of how things seemed to the British Government then and how they
set about dealing with them should have been of intense interest to everybody affected.
Ambassador Gilchrist’s letter, whose appearance on the record was a more
significant British blunder than the Charge of the Light Brigade at
Balaclava, was either unnoticed by Ireland’s paid media and academic
commentariat, or noticed but deliberately not reported by them.
It was not until December 2002 that the letter attracted attention, when Jack
Lane of the amateur Aubane Historical Society discovered it in Kew. In this
case was proved the adage that an An Enthusiastic Amateur can be
more than a match for Any Pro.
Below is the correspondence which followed between Jack and Geraldine Kennedy,
Editor of THE IRISH TIMES at the time-
—
10th. January 2003.
Ms. Geraldine Kennedy
Editor
The Irish Times
Dublin
Dear Ms. Kennedy,
WHO DIRECTS YOUR PAPER?
I enclose a copy of a publication (Irish Political Review, January 2003) that contains an extraordinary document concerning the running of your paper, The Irish Times.
As you can see, it is a copy of a report by the British Ambassador in Dublin in which he outlines the arrangements made with the owner of your paper, Major McDowell, to have the paper’s content directed from No. 10 Downing St.
Do you accept this is a genuine document?
If you do, can you say if these arrangements are still in place and, if not, when were they rescinded?
I am sure you will understand that readers of your newspaper, as of any newspaper, are entitled to know by whom, and in whose interest, the newspaper is run.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Jack Lane
Aubane Historical Society
15th January 2003
Dear Mr. Lane,
I can assure you that no such arrangement is in place for the running of The Irish Times. The ownership of the newspaper is vested in The Irish Times Trust since 1974.
I am unable to confirm the veracity of the letter to which you refer. We published a story that Major McDowell was prepared to act as “a link” to encourage North/South contacts on the release of the British Cabinet papers in January 2000.
Yours sincerely,
Geraldine Kennedy
Editor.
31st. January 2003
Dear Ms. Kennedy,
Thank you for your letter dated 15th January 2003. You are not able to tell me when the arrangements made by Major McDowell with No. 10 Downing St. were rescinded so I can hardly accept your assurance that they are no longer in place. Moreover, your reference to the Irish Times Trust being in charge of the paper would confirm that the arrangements remained in place. It is well known that the Irish Times Trust was a unique institution of its kind in that it was designed and set up to ensure that the Trust, and therefore its paper, was under the control of a single individual, Major McDowell. I understand that he remains President for life of the Trust. The Trust ensures that his writ runs and as he originated the arrangements with Downing St. it is just not credible that he used his own Trust to undo his own efforts. Au contraire, I would say.
Also, I find it amazing that you cannot confirm the authenticity or otherwise of the document concerned, or even give an opinion on it, although you and your paper were aware of it for over 3 years. You have not taken the trouble to clarify the matter in all that time! This shows an incredible lack of curiosity on your part about the running of your own paper. Your paper gave a misleading account of the relationship between Major McDowell and Downing St. in January 1971 in only reporting a reference to him as simply wishing to be a ‘link’ between the two governments. You were given an opportunity to rectify this deceit and instead you now repeat it and obviously condone it.
Your paper investigates and reports extensively on a host of issues, many of which are of considerably less significance than what is contained in the Ambassador’s letter (the publications of this tiny local history group, for example). You are now shown to be very selective indeed in your investigations, reports and in the issues that seize you.
Your predecessor, Mr Gageby, the object of Major McDowell’s barrack-room abuse in the document, was clearly kept in ignorance of the paper’s direction arranged by its owner but you are clearly determined to be wilfully ignorant of the facts of the matter and their consequences. You are in denial. This must be a unique attitude for the editor of a paper that claims to be national, investigative and a journal of record. You and your paper are no longer credible in respect of any of those attributes.
This is all the more disappointing as it was generally assumed that your appointment as editor was made on the basis of your reputation for good news reporting and it was expected that you would take The Irish Times in that direction. This incident shows that you have not done so and the deceit and evasions you have practiced about it makes the high moral tone you adopt editorially on other issues appear very hypocritical indeed as your reporting clearly stops short where your own vested interests are concerned.
Yours etc.,
Jack Lane
The contents of the letter in question were published in The Irish Times on January 27th, 2003, as soon as its existence was drawn to my attention. – Ed., IT.
(Irish Times letters, 23 April 2003
PART FOUR WILL INTRODUCE YOU TO THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE
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