| The following article appeared in last sunday's Irish "Sunday
Tribune". It covers the findings of the British Press Council's
inquiry into complaints about the nature of an obituary,printed
in the English "Sunday Telegraph" shortly after the death of
S�an Mac Bride.
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COMPLAINT ON SEAN MAC BRIDE OBITUARY
IS REJECTED IN UK
The British Press Council has rejected complaints about what it
calls a "startlingly critical" obituary of Noble Prize winner
S�an Mac Bride printed in the Sunday Telegraph last January.
In a judgement to be published today it rejects complaints made
by William O'Donnell of London and the Dublin writer Ulick O'Connor
because the Telegraph subsequently published a letter critical
of the obituary and the council said this was sufficient.
The obituary,published under the headline 'Death of an Evil Man'
was written by former Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner
Bruce Anderson,an assistant editor at the paper. He said that
Mr Mac Bride was a murderer guided by hatred of Britain and a
worship of violence,who spent his life trying to avenge the
death of his father,Major John Mac Bride executed by the British
after the 1916 rising.
He said that the "psychopathic" S�an Mac Bride might have had a
hand in the murder of Kevin O'Higgins in 1926 and that his search
for an authoritarian ideal let him to betray N�el Browne over the
Mother and Child Scheme(a controversy which Mr Anderson wrongly
dated as 1948).
Mr Anderson also claimed that Mr Mac Bride had spent most of his
last 35 years furthering Soviet interests and had been an elder
statesman of the Provisional IRA. He wrote:"Whenever in the
world an IRA killer was facing extradition,he could rely on Mac
Bride to argue that the criminal was one of Ireland's noblest
sons; his crime merely a gesture against tyranny."
After the obituary appeared, the Telegraph published a letter
from Geraldine Higgins of Trinity College,Oxford,critical of the
piece. It accused Mr Anderson of blatant historical revisionism
and said that to see Mr Mac Bride solely as a man devoted to
violence seemed as absurd as classifying Gandhi as an anti-British
agitator.
William O'Donnell of Chiswick,London,complained to the Press Council
after the Telegraph did not publish a letter of his.He asked if Mr
Anderson's "dingo dog snapping and ghoulish chewing at dead
honoured bones" should be permitted. He demanded censure of the
newspaper and publication of his letter.
Shortly afterwards the writers Ulick O'Connor,Brian Friel and
Anthony Cronin and painter Michael Kane also wrote to the Telegraph.
When their letter was not published, Mr O'Connor complained to
the Press Council.His complaint was appended to Mr O'Donnell's.
An oral inquiry was held by the council and attended by Mr O'Donnell
and Mr Anderson and Derek Sumpter,managing director of the Sunday
Telegraph. Mr O'Donnell complained that the critical letter printed
by the paper was not of sufficient content and did not receive
sufficient publicity to correct the article.He especially objected
to the claim that Mr Mac Bride was a murderer.
Mr Anderson replied that Mr Mac Bride had been chief of staff of
the IRA in the 1920's and 1930's and so was among the senior staff
of a murderous organisation.
The Press Council's adjudication published today is:
"Mr S�an Mac Bride was a prominent and highly controversial
political figure whose opinions and record raise strong emotions.
Newspapers are not obliged to print only good of the dead and
the Sunday Telegraph was free if it wished to print even so
startlingly critical an obituary of Mr Mac Bride as it did,
distasteful as that would be to his admirers.The paper published
one letter strongly critical of it's columnist's assessment of
Mr Mac Bride.It was not obliged to do more.The complaint against
the Sunday Telegraph is rejected."
Mr Anderson,a founder member of the People's Democracy,told
the Sunday Tribune that he stood over all he had written. "In
preparation for the Press Council hearing,I did more research on
Mac Bride.If I was rewriting the obituary,I'd have been tougher
on him."
Ulick O'Connor said: "It seems to me that no English tribunal
will give a fair shake to the Irish.It is another instance where
it would not have cost very much to be fair. The Press Council
has stood over a deceitful thing."
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For me, Ulick "says it all"
- Dave Keating.
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RTE television are showing the first of a two-part interview with
Sean MacBride tomorrow night. The interview is conducted by Sean
Macbride's son, Tiernan, and the first episode will concentrate on the
civil war period. The second part of the interview will be shown
on Tuesday week (March 7th).
-Dermot
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