Adjudication No. 639 (April 1993) [1993] APC 31

ADJUDICATION NO. 639 (April 1993)

The Press Council has dismissed a complaint against the Sydney Daily Telegraph Mirror over an article from its London columnist which carried the headline "Blarney behind that wonderful old Irish charm".

The complaint came from Hugh Dillon and others, who saw the article as an insult to the Irish, from the President down. They also saw it as inciting religious and ethnic hatred and said the article presented a derogatory stereotype of Ireland, the Irish and the Irish clergy.

The author's defence was that it was hyperbole; exaggeration it was, but the paper claimed it was not intended to be offensive. It did, however, publish a lengthy letter from the Irish Communications Council criticising a "malicious attack aimed at stirring up hatred".

The Press Council's principles include a warning against "gratuitous emphasis" on, among other things, race, nationality and religion. However, in this case, the comments, although extreme, did deal directly with Ireland and its relations with Britain.

In addition, the commentary was clearly one columnist's view, and a full reply from Irish interests was printed.

In a free press unpopular, even outrageous, views must find expression. Suppression of such views is, in the end, of no value to the traduced or offended.

The spark for the article was an IRA alarm in London which prevented the columnist, Bruce Wilson, from reaching, ironically enough, the Irish Embassy for its annual press party.

The inconvenience was of trivial import, but Bruce Wilson used it as the "hook" to hang a sweeping attack on a nation that "needs to beg from its wealthier neighbours in the European community and which is in the hands of a primitive form of Roman Catholicism tempered only by raging hypocrisy". He goes on the say: "A corrupt and widely disliked clergy rules over an unruly and drunken peasantry."

On the question of the IRA, the article says flatly that the home of the organisation is "not Belfast but Dublin, even if its bank happens to be in Brooklyn or Boston, or even Melbourne or Sydney".

The complainants see the commentary as "wilfully mischievous", using a stereotype of the Irish people based on prejudice. They point out similar terms used against other groups, such as Aborigines, Asians or Jews, would be regarded as "manifestly racist and even an incitement to racial hatred".

On the paper's responsibility for printing the article, the complainants sat: "It is one thing for the racists of the world to be reported, it is another to adopt their racist views as your own. This is what, by publishing Mr Wilson's diatribe, the Telegraph-Mirror has done."

A week after the original publication the paper published a column from Bruce Wilson defending himself by citing hyperbole, exaggeration not meant to be taken literally, and the paper's editor added a note that the columnist's views were his own and the paper had not intended to cause offence to the Irish community.

Below that, the paper ran a letter from the Irish Communications Council, representing 42 associations and clubs in Australia, expressing anger and dismay as an article "grossly offensive", demeaning and denigratory.

The Press Council dismisses the complaint. It commends the paper for promptly publishing the letter from the Irish Communications Council.