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The Independent
15-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
‘Big sensationalist expose' claim over Adams programme denied
A BBC editor has strongly rejected a view that a programme which aired a claim that Gerry Adams sanctioned the killing of a spy was a 'big sensationalist expose'. During a libel trial in Dublin, Declan Doyle SC, acting for Mr Adams, put it to the witness that the programme's 'big reveal' was a false claim that Mr Adams had sanctioned the murder of Denis Donaldson. BBC Spotlight editor Gwyneth Jones said that was 'absolutely not the case', adding: 'I don't accept that characterisation of it for one minute.' 'The tone was measured, the language was precise. There was so much care taken over this programme. It was a solid piece of journalism and the result of many months work and a lot of diligence and a lot of rigour and a lot of scrutiny,' she said. The exchange came during the trial at the High Court in Dublin. Mr Adams has claimed that the BBC Spotlight programme, as well as an accompanying online story, defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of Mr Donaldson. He denies any involvement. Mr Donaldson was shot dead in 2006, months after admitting he was a police and MI5 agent for 20 years. In 2009, the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing, and the Spotlight programme was broadcast in September 2016 while a garda investigation into the matter was ongoing. In the programme, an anonymous source identified as 'Martin', who says he was an informant for Special Branch within the IRA, claimed that the shooting was sanctioned by the political and military leadership of the IRA and that Mr Adams 'gives the final say'. The BBC has said the claim was corroborated by five other sources. Ms Jones had been deputy editor of the programme at the time of the broadcast in 2016. She said Jeremy Adams, who had been editor of the programme in 2016, had since left the BBC, lived outside the jurisdiction and would not be giving evidence in the case. Asked about the online article and why it had not been taken down, Ms Jones said she saw no reason to, and the BBC is standing by its journalism. 'It came from the programme which was a very solid, very well researched, well considered, much scrutinised piece of significant public interest journalism,' she said. Earlier, BBC reporter Jennifer O'Leary rejected assertions that she had 'no regard or care' whether a claim that Mr Adams sanctioned the killing of a spy was true of false. She said she did not treat the allegation 'recklessly', saying her journalism was carried out in 'good faith'. Under cross examination by Mr Adams' barrister, Tom Hogan SC put it to Ms O'Leary that she did not make the allegation 'bona fide'. Ms O'Leary said that her journalism was carried out in good faith. 'The allegation was checked in good faith and in the public interest,' she said. Mr Hogan said the allegation was made by the reporter 'recklessly', adding that she had 'no regard or care if it was true of false'. 'I absolutely refute that assertion,' Ms O'Leary responded. She also told the court that the allegation against Mr Adams was not a 'single source' allegation. She said she took the allegation seriously and met with reliable sources who 'speak to it', and not republicans who had animosity towards Mr Adams. The investigative journalist said she avoided people who she knew had some sort of history with Mr Adams, and those who would be biased in what they said. 'I was careful and responsible. Was I supposed to ignore the allegation? It was in the public interest that it was in the programme but only if it was stood up,' she added. Mr Hogan put it to Ms O'Leary that she was 'just ticking boxes' when she was speaking to people about the allegation. She replied: 'Mr Hogan, I am a professional journalist, I wasn't ticking boxes. I was doing my job in a professional way. It would be nothing without sources.' However, Mr Hogan accused Ms O'Leary of setting about to find 'yes men' who would corroborate the allegation. 'That is not the case,' the reporter rebuked. She was accused of disclosing the allegation only to 'disaffected' republicans and 'indiscreet' security people. 'No, that is a wrong representation of the sources. I spoke to republicans who support the peace process, and have no animosity. I wasn't going to any Tom, Dick or Harry to check the journalism.' He went on to say that once she received the right of reply from Mr Adams, and 'having ticked the boxes', Ms O'Leary was able to publish 'in the knowledge you never had to stand over the allegation'. She said: 'I don't agree with the premise of that question. I absolutely can stand over the journalism. The way it is represented, that we can kick back and put our feet on table. That is not the way I operate. 'This is investigative journalism, it is rigorous and you get the gift of time.' Ms Jones, editor of Spotlight, also gave evidence on Thursday. Ms Jones, who has known Ms O'Leary professionally for 13 years, was asked by defence barrister Eoin McCullough SC to describe her work. Ms Jones said her BBC colleague is 'hard working, a grafter, very committed and passionate about her journalism'. 'She is someone who I think has a very good trait to be in investigative journalism, in that she will always play the devils advocate and she questions things. 'She is curious. Her work was to a very high standard.' The trial continues.
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Red into the record – Frank McNally on Peadar O'Donnell's libel case against the Irish Rosary magazine
The cases involving Oscar Wilde (1895) and Patrick Kavanagh (1954) are landmarks in Irish literary history. Much less well remembered, by contrast, is a libel trial of 1932, in which literature was also a major subplot. The complainant on that occasion was Peadar O'Donnell, Donegal-born socialist, republican and writer. The defendant was the Irish Rosary, a monthly journal of the Dominican order. The Irish Rosary trial had its origins in the 'Red Scare' general election of 1932 and in emergency legislation introduced by the soon-to-be-outgoing Cumann na nGaedheal government. That would have allowed special military tribunals to deal with radical opposition to the State. And pushing it through the Dáil, the Government cited the discovery of an arms dump in the Dublin Mountains, including documents linking the IRA with communist Russia. READ MORE Those were said to show that O'Donnell – a leading figure in anti-Treaty republican circles – had organised a group of students to visit the Lenin School in Moscow in 1929, where he and they studied Bolshevik revolutionary techniques. When this claim was repeated, without Dáil privilege, in an Irish Rosary editorial, O'Donnell sued the magazine, its printers, and the distributors. The editorial's author, the Very Reverend H V Casey, O P, accused O'Donnell and other socialist republicans of wishing to set up an 'anti-God State'. He also referred readers to a separate pamphlet in which the Society Union was alleged to be promoting 'free love' and other forms of decadence. So as well as denying that he had ever been to Russia, O'Donnell's defence included protestations of his own Catholicism and clean living: 'I have never thought nor inculcated blasphemy,' he wrote in an affidavit. 'I have never closed, nor have I attempted to close churches. I have never melted church bells; I have never encouraged drunkenness either among the youth or the adult population of this or any other country. I am a strict teetotaller, and regard alcoholic excess and the evils that attend it as a great obstacle to the achievement of the political and economic freedom of this country and the conquering of poverty ...' Countering this, defence lawyers scoured the several novels he had written already for incriminating evidence, even in the mouths of fictional protagonists. A line from The Knife (1930), in which a character complains about the bishops' directive to refuse absolution for republicans, proved useful, referring as it did to how 'the anti-Christs in Maynooth made a new religion to back the Treaty and because we won't give up the Republic ... they won't let a priest near us except gligíns like themselves'. The most notable witness for the plaintiff, meanwhile, was WB Yeats . This was the fruit of an odd friendship between the elderly poet and the young radical, dating from O'Donnell's attempt to write his first play, Wrack. Encouraged by Yeats's attention, O'Donnell nevertheless took advantage of it by asking in passing if he could book the Abbey for a forthcoming event. That event was to be the launch of Saor Éire, a hard-left organisation that would be banned almost immediately. Yeats had to cancel it at the last moment, explaining that during his conversation with O'Donnell he had been distracted by literature: 'I came away with a vague memory that he had said something about just hiring the Abbey for a meeting or a convention. However, my mind was on [the novel] 'Ardrigoole' and I thought nothing more of the matter until next day when a fellow director came round with the advertisement of a revolutionary meeting ...' The misunderstanding was put aside in court, where Yeats described O'Donnell as a 'a novelist of great promise', and hoped he would join him in a planned Irish Academy of Letters. This did not mean they shared political ideas. On the contrary, Yeats had always supported Cumann na nGaedheal. As paraphrased by one court report: 'he wished very much that Mr O'Donnell would devote his interest entirely to his novels and leave politics for a pastime in his old age (laughter).' To which a defence lawyer replied: 'If you can get him to do that you will be doing him a great service.' Yeats risked some reputational damage himself in appearing for O'Donnell. But then the cause of literature was at stake too. And as Niall Carson, a Liverpool University academic who will have an essay on the subject in the Irish University Review later this year (and to whom I am indebted for much of the foregoing) argues, the relationship may have been mutually transformative. The jury ultimately found in favour of Irish Rosary, rejecting the libel claims. But although the failed plaintiff would continue to be a political radical, his reputation as a threat to social order seems to have peaked then and there. As with Yeats, Carson writes, the trial marked a shift in O'Donnell's direction too, with literature 'taking a more prominent role in his life as the decade proceeded'.
BBC News
06-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Gerry Adams defends IRA actions in libel trial against BBC
Gerry Adams defends actions of IRA in libel trial against BBC Just now Share Save Julian O'Neill BBC News NI crime and justice correspondent Share Save PA Media Gerry Adams, pictured on Friday Gerry Adams has defended the IRA's campaign of violence during the Troubles and declined to name any of its members during his latest evidence at his libel trial against the BBC. Mr Adams is back on the witness stand at the High Court in Dublin. He is suing the BBC for defamation over a 2016 story which alleged he gave final approval for the murder of Denis Donaldson, a British agent within Sinn Féin. He denies any involvement. Barrister Paul Gallagher SC representing the BBC, resumed his cross-examination of the former Sinn Féin president on Tuesday. He showed Mr Adams a newspaper interview he had given in 1982 and remarks it contained about Mr Adams' attitude towards IRA violence. Mr Adams told the barrister: "I have never resiled from the view the IRA campaign was a legitimate response to military occupation. "I'm not here in this stand resiling from that position." "It's a historical position now. The IRA have now left. They are no longer there. "My position remains today what it has been consistently for at least 50 years." 'Fishing expedition' In a packed court number, Mr Adams was then asked if he knew who commanded the IRA in west Belfast in 1972, or any members from that time. "I'm not going to speculate…a number of people have acknowledged they were members," Mr Adams said. "You're asking me to go on a fishing expedition. "At some point we will get around to the Spotlight programme?" Mr Gallagher reminded the court that Mr Adams was released from internment without trial to attend peace talks with the British government in 1972. The barrister referred to a book from the time authored by P O'Neill, a pseudonym used by the IRA. An extract was handed to Mr Adams, in which it was written that a senior IRA member from Belfast had been released from internment to participate. Mr Gallagher asked Mr Adams if that was him. Mr Adams replied: "It wasn't me." The trial continues. Who is Gerry Adams? Mr Adams was the president of republican party Sinn Féin from 1983 until 2018. He served as MP in his native Belfast West from 1983 to 1992 and again from 1997 until 2011 before sitting as a TD (Teachta Dála) in the Dáil (Irish parliament) between 2011 and 2020. Mr Adams led the Sinn Féin delegation during peace talks that eventually brought an end to the Troubles after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. He was detained in the early 1970s when the government in Northern Ireland introduced internment without trial for those suspected of paramilitary involvement. Mr Adams has consistently denied being a member of the IRA. Who was Denis Donaldson? PA Media Denis Donaldson was a key figure in Sinn Féin and worked closely with former leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams
