I just found in amongst my papers a letter of mine published in THE IRISH WORLD (London) on the 2nd October 2005. It goes far to explain why most Britishers know next to nothing about Ireland, as David Aaronovitch, himself a misinformant, recently complained in THE TIMES.
“PETER LENNON describes in his interview with the IRISH WORLD (The Rocky Road to Dublin to Revelation 23 September 2005) the GAA ban on foreign
games, removed by its Convention in 1971, as “corrupt.”
How can he sustain such a charge?
Ever since its inception in 1884, the GAA has been open, voluntary, democratic and autonomous. Its rules were established and amended democratically.
Not much corrupt about that.
But can the same be said about the British media generally, or for THE GUARDIAN in particular, for which Mr. Lennon is a correspondent?
That newspaper welcomed the awarding of knighthoods on the same day, to two journalists who have a less than pedantic attitude to the truth. Both are
ex-Editors of THE TIMES of London.
SIMON JENKINS boasted in THE TIMES on 15th March this year of how he once tried to have President Clinton ban Gerry Adams from the USA. Jenkins
told a White House aide that Republicans “killed 3,000 Britons”. In effect he claimed that all victims of the troubles from 1969 to 1994 were British victims of the IRA.
HAROLD EVANS sought, unsuccessfully for almost a year (1981-1982) to defend to THE PRESS COUNCIL the assertion that the IRA killed over 2,000 Protestants.
Again the implication was that only Protestants were killed and that the IRA were the only killers in the field.
To this day neither Evans nor Jenkins have apologised for these whoppers.When Mr Lennon has taken on board the nature of his newspaper’s heroes, he might
ponder the appointment of SIR HUMPHREY ATKINS, who published a similar lie in THE DAILY MAIL, to THE PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION. Then he
night tell us who the real rotters are.
Donal Kennedy
London.
Neither Peter Lennon nor any of his admirers challenged my comments at the time. Lennon died six years later aged 81.
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