Ed Moloney with a brief response to a commentary by Tim Pat Coogan. It was published in the The Broken Elbow on 9 May 2014.
I have just read Tim Pat Coogan’s article in Niall O’Dowd’s website Irish Central which you can read here.
A number of people have urged me to respond but after reflection this is what I have to say: isn’t it a shame that after such an illustrious career, which has included writing major books on Irish republican history and editing one of Ireland’s major daily newspapers, he has reduced himself to such a level.
Very sad indeed?
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I enjoy some of Tim Pat Coogan's books though he does tend to be subjective quite often. I remember his book on Michael Collins where he stated 'it is said' Collins was taught by a former hedge school teacher whose own teacher 'it was said' taught Wolfe Tone. So with zero factual data and 'it was said' Tim Pat had Michael Collins directly linked with the founder of Irish Republicanism.
ReplyDeleteSeems he has hopped onto the SF bandwagon here. Or perhaps put his name to one of its press releases. The peace process isn't in trouble, simply because there is no peace process. There's a devolved pantomime at Stormont and if Tim Pat thinks Marty and Peter will be giving up their 1st class global junkets any time soon he must be on the laughing gas.
What we really have are manufactured crisis every now and then to keep things trundling along.
Ed some respect please for TPC.
ReplyDelete"We're talking about the man who made the Irish Press what it is today."
Jimmy Sands commenting on original article on irishcentral.
The problem with Tim Pat Coogan's perspestive is that it is deeply entrenched in treatyite politics and self deluded Irish pacifist hypocrisy. The guist of his argument is how dare Moloney and McIntyre undermine "the peace process", and that they are working in tandem with British black ops. This is consistent with Coogan's earlier writings on the Troubles" where he develops a political love fest for Fr. Alec Reid, Gerry Adams, and Niall O'Dowd, who surprise surprise espouse that fuzzy FF/Vatican garbage that divides northern nationalists into two groups, victims and villains, with the victims lumped as friends, and villains as foes. In this perspective nobody has a right to argue against the party position or the dear leader, be it DeValera or Adams, not now nor in 2006, nor in thirty years from now.
ReplyDeleteanother problems with this is that it only sees black ops in all opponents but never in its own soul, whilst all the while the real problems and the real solutions for peace in Ireland never get addressed.