Kevin Myers

Myers was born in Leicester, and grew up in England.Craig, Patricia. "[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/watching-the-door-by-kevin-myers-792501.html Watching the Door, by Kevin Myers]". The Independent, 7 March 2008; retrieved 27 May 2008. His father, an Irish GP, died when Myers was 15 and away at Ratcliffe College, a Catholic boarding school.[http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/kevin-myers-a-single-headstrong-heart-review-a-memoir-of-self-reproach-1.2901730 Kevin Myers, A Single Headstrong Heart – Review: A memoir of self-reproach], The Irish Times, 24 December 2016 His father's early death created financial difficulties, though Myers managed to stay at the school with the help of both the school and the Local Education Authority.

Myers moved to Ireland to go to university, and graduated from University College Dublin (UCD) in 1969.

He subsequently worked as a journalist for Irish broadcaster RTÉ, and reported from Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles. He later worked for three of Ireland's major newspapers, The Irish Times, the Irish Independent, and the Irish edition of The Sunday Times.

In 2000, a collection of his An Irishman's Diary columns was published,[https://books.google.com/books?id=cM0AAAAACAAJ From the Irish Times Column "An Irishman's Diary", Kevin Myers, Four Courts, 2000] with a second volume following in 2007.{{cite web |title=More Myers: An Irishman's Diary 1997-2006 |url=https://www.lilliputpress.ie/product/more-myers-an-irishmans-diary-1997-2006 |website=lilliputpress.ie |access-date=13 September 2020}}

Myers was presenter of the Challenging Times television quiz show on RTÉ during the 1990s.

In 2001, he published Banks of Green Willow, a novel, which was met with negative reviews.{{cite news|url=http://www.rte.ie/ten/2001/1205/myersk.html |work=RTÉ News |title=Banks of Green Willow by Kevin Myers |date=5 December 2001 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111220085057/http://www.rte.ie/ten/2001/1205/myersk.html |archive-date=20 December 2011 }} In 2006, he published Watching the Door ({{ISBN|1-84351-085-5}}), about his time as a journalist in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. The book received positive reviews in The Times,{{cite news|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3596373.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509125535/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3596373.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=9 May 2008|title=Watching The Door: Cheating Death in 1970s Belfast|work=The Times|date=22 March 2008|access-date=23 June 2009|location=London|author1=Kevin Myers|author2=Andrew Mueller}} The Guardian,{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/apr/19/featuresreviews.guardianreview4|title=Guns and girls|work=The Guardian|date=18 April 2008|access-date=23 June 2009|location=London|first=Chris|last=Petit}} and the New Statesman,{{Cite news|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/03/kevin-myers-door-watching|work=New Statesman|title=Here comes trouble|date=27 March 2008|access-date=23 June 2009}} while The Independent published a more mixed review that wondered whether there was "an element of hyperbole" in Myers' account.{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/watching-the-door-by-kevin-myers-792501.html|work=The Independent|title=Watching the Door, by Kevin Myers|date=7 March 2008|access-date=23 June 2009|location=London|first=Patricia| last=Craig}}

Myers was a regular contributor to radio programmes on Newstalk 106, particularly Lunchtime with Eamon Keane and The Right Hook. He regularly appeared on The Last Word on Today FM.

Myers was also a member of the Film Classification Appeals Board (formerly known as the Censorship Board).{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/when-looney-film-censors-ran-our-moral-madhouse-1263169.html|work=Irish Independent|title=When looney film censors ran our moral madhouse|date=11 January 2008}}

Myers has been a fervent critic of physical force Irish republicanism. In 2008, he wrote a column condemning the anniversary commemorations of the 1916 Easter Rising, asking, "What is there to celebrate about the cold-blooded slaughter of innocent people in the streets of Dublin? And who gave the insurgents the right to kill their unarmed fellow Irishmen and women?".Myers, Kevin, "[https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/kevin-myers-there-is-nothing-to-celebrate-in-the-easter-rising/28475007.html There is nothing to celebrate in the Easter Rising]", Belfast Telegraph, 3 July 2008.

Speaking on Newstalk's Talking History radio show in 2010, Myers said, "The awful thing about Irish freedom, and that's what it is, it was achieved at the cost of the lives of so many Irishmen... Irish independence movements have always been civil wars of one kind or another. You are taking up arms against your brother... It was always against fellow Irishmen. In 1798 or 1848 or 1871 or 1916 or 1919... In all insurrections, they involve consuming the lives of Irishmen. The vast majority of the people killed in the last Troubles in Ireland – up to 4,000 dead – the vast majority were Irish."{{cite episode |title=Kevin Barry |series=Talking History with Patrick Geoghegan |first=Kevin |last=Myers |network=Newstalk |date=7 March 2010}}

Myers has described the Larne gun-running by Ulster Volunteers in 1914 as "high treason, done in collaboration with senior figures in the British Army and the Conservative Party.""Lest we forget, the Shinners do still command an army", Irish Independent, Kevin Myers, 26 October 2007.

Myers has also written that it is a "myth" to say, when discussing Irish republicanism and Ulster loyalism, that "one side is as bad as the other... There is no republican equivalent to the Romper Rooms of the UDA, wherein men were routinely beaten to a pulp by loyalist thugs... And then there was Lenny Murphy and his merry gang, the Shankill Butchers, who for years in the mid-1970s abducted, tortured and murdered Catholics – usually by cutting their victims' throats. This culture did not emerge simply as a response to IRA violence. It was there already."[https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/archive/kevin-myers/loyalist-bigotry-did-not-arise-just-when-the-ira-came-along-28632319.html "Loyalist bigotry did not arise just when the IRA came along"], Kevin Myers, Belfast Telegraph, 30 June 2011, p. 32.

In 2005, he attracted considerable criticism for his column, "An Irishman's Diary", in which he referred to children of unmarried mothers as "bastards":

{{Blockquote|How many girls – and we’re largely talking about teenagers here – consciously embark upon a career of mothering bastards because it seems a good way of getting money and accommodation from the State? Ah. You didn’t like the term bastard? No, I didn’t think you would.|Kevin Myers, An Irishmans's Diary, The Irish Times, 8 February 2005Myers, Kevin. [https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irishman-s-diary-1.413221 "An Irishman's Diary by Kevin Myers"]. The Irish Times 8 February 2005.}}

Former Minister of State Nuala Fennell described the column as "particularly sad." She said the word "bastard" was an example of pejorative language that was totally unacceptable. Myers issued an unconditional apology two days later, "entirely at [his] own initiative". Then Irish Times editor, Geraldine Kennedy, also apologised for having agreed to publish the article.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/feb/14/pressandpublishing1|title=Row over Myers' Irish Times column continues to blaze|last=Tryhorn|first=Chris|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=14 February 2005|access-date=30 July 2007}}{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/how-myers-tackled-the-single-mothers-issue-and-became-a-national-hate-figure-464251.html|title=How Myers tackled the single mothers 'issue' and became a national hate figure|date=13 February 2005|access-date=13 February 2005|last=Sheehan|first=Maeve|author2=Cusak, Jim |work=Sunday Independent|quote=The first complaints were slow to trickle in. Anna Nolan, standing in for Marian Finucane on her 9am radio show and, ironically, a sister-in-law of Mr Myers, broadcast the first complaints from irate callers.}}

In July 2008, Myers wrote an article arguing that providing aid to Africa only results in increasing its population, and its problems.{{cite web|last=Myers |first=Kevin |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080901104116/https://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/africa-is-giving-nothing-to-anyone--apart-from-aids-1430428.html |archive-date=1 September 2008 |url-status=dead |url=https://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/africa-is-giving-nothing-to-anyone--apart-from-aids-1430428.html |title=Africa is giving nothing to anyone except AIDS |website=Independent.ie |date=10 July 2008 |access-date=23 July 2008}} This produced strong reactions, with the Immigrant Council of Ireland making an official complaint to the Garda Síochána alleging incitement to hatred.{{cite web|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0716/1216073118226.html |title=Immigrant body lodges Garda complaint over Myers article |website=IrishTimes.com |date=16 July 2008 |access-date=23 July 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-date=6 November 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101106154459/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0716/1216073118226.html}}

Hans Zomer of Dóchas, an association of NGOs, and another complainant, took a complaint to the Press Council on the grounds that it breached four of the principles contained in the council's Code of Practice: 1) Accuracy, 3) Fairness and Honesty, 4) Respect for Rights, and 8) Incitement to Hatred.{{cite web|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1018/1224279408479.html |title=Press Council upholds complaint against Myers' article |work=IrishTimes.com |date=18 October 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 18, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018194716/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1018/1224279408479.html}}{{cite web|url=https://pressombudsman.ie/complainants-and-the-irish-independent/ |title=Complainants and the Irish Independent |website=The Irish Press Council |date=10 October 2008 |url-status=live |archive-date=9 December 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241209104503/https://pressombudsman.ie/complainants-and-the-irish-independent/}} In their case details the Press Council said: {{blockquote|beginning with the headline "Africa is giving nothing to anyone – apart from AIDS", the mode of presentation was marked by rhetorical extravagance and hyperbole which used the failings of some to stigmatise whole societies, employing a level of generalisation that was distorting and seriously insulting to Africans as a whole and that, ... [I]n addition the article resorted, in several instances, to language that was gratuitously offensive and was, in the view of the Press Council, likely to cause grave offence to people throughout sub-Saharan Africa and to the many Africans in particular who are now resident in Ireland. They concluded that the article did breach Principle 8 of the Code of Practice in that it was likely to cause grave offence. It did not, however, find reason to conclude that it was likely to stir-up hatred or that there was any intention to do so. They also concluded that the Council did not have clear grounds on which to make any findings in relation to the complaints under Principles 1, 3 & 4 of the Code.|Press Council of Ireland Complainants and the Irish Independent}}

At the end of July 2017, Myers contributed an article entitled "Sorry, ladies – equal pay has to be earned" to the Irish edition of The Sunday Times about the BBC gender pay gap controversy.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40661179|title=BBC pay: Male stars earn more than female talent|publisher=BBC News|date=19 July 2017|access-date=30 July 2017}} He speculated: "Is it because men are more charismatic performers? Because they work harder? Because they are more driven? Possibly a bit of each"{{cite news|last=Rose|first=Eleanor|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/irish-journalist-kevin-myers-slammed-for-antisemitic-remarks-in-sunday-times-column-a3599586.html|title=Irish journalist Kevin Myers slammed for 'anti-Semitic' remarks in Sunday Times column|work=Evening Standard|location=London|date=30 July 2017|access-date=30 July 2017}} and that men might be paid more because they "work harder, get sick less frequently and seldom get pregnant".

Myers further alleged that Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz are higher paid than other female presenters because they are Jewish. He wrote: "Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity". The editor of the Irish edition, Frank Fitzgibbon, issued a statement saying in part "This newspaper abhors anti-Semitism and did not intend to cause offence to Jewish people". Martin Ivens, editor of The Sunday Times, said the article should not have been published. Ivens and Fitzgibbon apologised for publishing it. After complaints from readers and the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the article was removed from the website. It was later announced by the newspaper that Myers would not write for The Sunday Times again.

Myers was defended by the chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, Maurice Cohen, who said that Myers was not antisemitic, but had rather "inadvertently stumbled into an antisemitic trope. … Branding Kevin Myers as either an antisemite or a Holocaust denier is an absolute distortion of the facts."{{Cite web |title=Irish Jewish leader defends Sunday Times journalist sacked for antisemitic slur |url=https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/irish-jewis-leader-defends-kevin-myers-sunday-times-journalist-sacked-for-antisemitic-trope-1.442258 |website=thejc.com |date=31 July 2017 |access-date=1 August 2017 }} Myers apologised for this article on radio, saying that "it is over for me professionally as far as I can see", and that "I think they [Jewish people] are the most gifted people who have ever existed on this planet and civilisation owes an enormous debt to them – I am very, very sorry that I should have so offended them."{{Cite web |last=McDonald |first=Henry |date=1 August 2017 |title=Sacked Sunday Times writer apologises for article branded antisemitic |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/aug/01/kevin-myers-sacked-sunday-times-columnist-apologises-for-antisemitic-article |website=The Guardian|location=London |access-date=1 August 2017 }}{{Cite news |title='I must answer for what I've done': Kevin Myers breaks silence and issues apology over offensive column |url=https://www.thejournal.ie/kevin-myers-speaks-out-sunday-times-3524340-Aug2017/ |last=Halpin |first=Hayley |date=2017-08-01 |access-date=2023-06-03 |work=TheJournal.ie}}

Vanessa Feltz describe the column as "horrifying racism". She also said "When someone alerted me to it… I couldn’t believe such a thing had been printed. It is absolutely gratuitous, not cleverly done, it’s blatant racism. When you see it like that it’s very horrifying".

Media reporting the 2017 controversy drew attention to a 2009 column in the Sunday Independent and Belfast Telegraph opposing laws against Holocaust denial. Despite accepting that "the Nazis planned the extermination of the Jewish people" and that "millions of Jews were murdered", Myers wrote "I'm a holocaust denier" by making hair-splitting objections to statements about the Holocaust: namely that the figure of six million Jews killed was false in that it was approximate, not exact; and that the label "holocaust" was etymologically inaccurate in that, unlike a sacrificial holocaust, most victims were "not burnt in the ovens in Auschwitz" but died by gunshot, overwork, or starvation.{{cite news |last=Myers |first=Kevin |url=http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/there-was-no-holocaust-kevin-myers-28473646.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170730135449/http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/there-was-no-holocaust-kevin-myers-28473646.html |title=There was no Holocaust |work=Belfast Telegraph |date=6 March 2009 |archive-date=30 July 2017 |url-status=dead}} The column was subsequently removed from the Sunday Independent and Belfast Telegraph websites.{{cite news |url=http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/the-article-you-are-looking-for-is-no-longer-available-26518240.html |title=The article you are looking for is no longer available |work=Irish Independent |date=30 July 2017 |access-date=30 July 2017}} The Observer referred to "Holocaust denier Kevin Myers", later adding a footnote "Kevin Myers says he is not a Holocaust denier. He is not, in the usual sense of that term."{{cite news |last=Booth |first=Robert |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/30/sunday-times-accused-of-antisemitism-over-column-on-bbc-presenters |title=Sunday Times accused of antisemitism over column on BBC pay |work=The Observer |date=30 July 2017 |access-date=30 July 2017}}

In February 2018, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland by majority decision upheld an objection to the RTÉ Radio 1 programme Morning Ireland presenter Audrey Carville's description of Myers as a Holocaust denier:[https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/fk-the-lynch-mob-kevin-myers-splashes-out-to-celebrate-rte-libel-win-41604467.html ‘F**k the lynch mob’ – Kevin Myers splashes out to celebrate RTÉ libel win] Sunday Independent, 2022-05-01. "While noting that Mr. Myers had described himself as a 'Holocaust denier' in a typically provocative newspaper article that he had written, it was evident from the article as a whole that his description did not in fact amount to a statement denying the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazi regime. Rather, the article was a comment on how language is used and the criminalisation of individuals or groups who engage in Holocaust denial."{{cite news |url=https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0206/938744-broadcasting-bai/ |title=Complaint against George Hook programme upheld by BAI|date=6 February 2018 |work=RTÉ.ie |access-date=7 February 2018}}; {{cite web |url=https://static.rasset.ie/documents/news/2018/02/bai-decisions.pdf#page=29 |title=83/17: Mr. Karl Martin: RTÉ Radio 1: Morning Ireland: 31st July 2017 |date=February 2018 |work=Broadcasting Complaint Decisions |publisher=Broadcasting Authority of Ireland |pages=26–30 : 29 |access-date=7 February 2018}} Myers won a defamation lawsuit against RTÉ in 2019 as a result of Carville's accusation.

Myers is married to Rachel Nolan and lives in County Kildare.More Myers: An Irishman's Diary 1997–2006, p.125 He is the brother-in-law of TV presenter, producer and UK Big Brother housemate Anna Nolan.

• Kevin Myers: From the Irish Times Column 'An Irishman's Diary' (2000).
• Banks of Green Willow (2001).
• Watching the Door: A Memoir, 1971–1978 (2006).
• More Myers: An Irishman's Diary, 1997–2006 (2007).
• A Single Headstrong Heart (2013).
• Ireland's Great War (2014).
• Burning Heresies: A Memoir of a Life in Conflict, 1979-2020 (2020).[https://irishacademicpress.ie/product/burning-heresies-a-memoir-of-a-life-in-conflict-1979-2019/ www.irishacademicpress.ie]

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/ Kevin Myers] at the Irish Independent
• [http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2006/04/30/story13839.asp Myers signs lucrative deal with Independent Newspapers] {{dead link |date=September 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}} – The Sunday Business Post, 30 April 2006{{dead link|date=July 2017}}
• [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2101-2422245,00.html Ireland: The dark before the dawn]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} – Interview with Myers in The Sunday Times, 29 October 2006
• [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/kevin-myers-sex-guns-and-the-ira-791123.html extract from 'Watching the Door' by Kevin Myers]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, published in The Independent, 8 March 2008
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160305074820/https://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/lies-damned-lies-and-the-wickedness-of-wikipedia-26450163.html "Lies, damned lies, and the wickedness of Wikipedia"], a sample column from Kevin Myers, dated 27 May 2008

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