ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, during the terror unleashed on the Irish people by the British Government, the Dublin Correspondent of THE TIMES (of
London, England) and the Editor of the IRISH TIMES shared the same skin.
JOHN EDWARD HEALY had been Editor of the Dublin paper since 1907 and correspondent for its London near namesake since 1899.
HEALY consistently supported British Rule in Ireland and the privileges of the landlord and other class interests which that rule had established. He deprecated
democratic evolution to devolved government under British Sovereignty (Home Rule), and the Gaelic revival. His paper called for repression of Republicanism
in 1916 that would keep the Irish on their knees for a century. And when the Irish electorate repeatedly endorsed the Republican Prospectus offered them
by the Insurgents, he was still on the side of their enemies.
He died in 1934, still Editor of THE IRISH TIMES and Dublin Correspondent of THE TIMES.
The London paper said that his Editorship of the Dublin one, “lasting, as it did for some 27 years, was one of the most difficult that have ever fallen to s
journalist. For the whole period he was the protagonist of a losing cause.” The obituary claimed that following the (partial) British withdrawal in 1922 the
“Treatyite” administration acted on his advice, Ho, Hum – could that explain 77 “executions”?
THE TIMES made the certainly false claim that “In the evil days that followed the” (Holy Days) “of the (Great) War” ,” Healy had every reason to believe himself a marked man.”… Night after night he used to leave the Irish Times office in the small hours of the morning and walk alone for some two miles to his
home on the outskirts of Dublin.”
In fact those evil nights were dominated by Crown Forces operating a Curfew during which they deployed trucks and tenders carrying search lights
striking terror into people, or slipping out at night to murder unarmed men in their beds. These murders were notorious, The Republicans did not murder
journalists nor imprison them. They had no equivalent to Captain Bowen-Coldhurst, who murdered journalists. including Ireland’s leading Pacifist and Feminist, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington on Easter Tuesday 1916.
IN FEBRUARY 1933, under Healy, an IRISH TIMES Editorial warned against the return to power of de Valera and Fianna Fail, which with Labour
support had been in office for a year. Few Republicans or Nationalists of any stripe, and less Socialists ever read that paper. Fianna Fail won an
overall majority in 1933 and, following more, equally democratic elections, kept Fianna Fail in power until 1948.
In the meantime –
IN MARCH !933 in an Editorial “HERR HITLER’S WAY” Healy’s paper exulted in Hitler’s coming to power in Berlin. THE TIMES of London was supportive
of Hitler almost until the outbreak of war in September 1939.
It would not be stretching things too far, surely, to describe the West British “IRISH” TIMES as JOHN BULL’S OTHER TIMES?
ONE HUNDRED YEARS ON -HOW DO THINGS STAND?
Readers of many of my Blogs, starting with “BRITISH FORCES’- NETWORK IN IRELAND” may recall that for the last fifty- plus years the IRISH TIMES
has been controlled by a secretive, oathbound “TRUST” established by Arnold, Lord Goodman. a crooked fixer for British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
This followed by an approach by an Irish Times Board Member, British Officer and MI5 agent, to the then British Ambassador in Ireland, Sir Andrew
Gilchrist. And you may recall that the award winning writer John Pilger convincingly established that Gilchrist orchestrated a genocide -scale massacre
of unarmed trade unionists and their families in Indonesia in 1965, when the British navy escorted assassins between the islands of that archipelago.
In the 1930s and later Ireland was fortunately wise enough to elect de Valera and a team which frustrated the schemes of THE IRISH TIMES and its sponsors.
I’ll reserve judgement, in this Blog, on those elected to serve Ireland’s interests today.
But I would suggest that THE IRISH TIMES, even today, can be Labelled, without LIbel – “JOHN BULL’S OTHER TIMES”.
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