Comments on: Joe MacAnthony http://dublinopinion.com/2008/04/30/joe-macanthony/ It's a group blog. What more do you need to know? Mon, 21 May 2012 17:28:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Gar http://dublinopinion.com/2008/04/30/joe-macanthony/#comment-65577 Gar Fri, 02 May 2008 01:12:45 +0000 http://dublinopinion.com/2008/04/30/joe-macanthony/#comment-65577 The Irish Hospitals Sweepstake - some scam, huh? Amazing how the guys in at the top from the start managed to get away from close scrutiny for so long. McGrath's patriot credentials certainly helped. The sweepstake was projected as a patriotic project for helping the underfunded health services in third world Ireland. The diaspora Irish in North America and Britain (maybe those in Oz too?) responded patriotically to the needs of the old country and bought-sold those tickets. I suppose so long as the project brought so much hard currency, especially dollars, into the plodding economy, the politicians didn't ask pertinent/impertinent questions. {Incidentally, McGrath was so patriotic that he wrote generous cheques for his old comrade-in-arms, the leftwing Peadar O'Donnell, to finance the printing of The Bell magazine during the hungry 40s and 50s when O'Donnell was business manager/assistant editor.} Independent Newspapers are so "brave" these days exposing paedophile clergy and blaming all the ills of society between 1922 and 1970 on the priest-ridden mentality. Yes, even if they so readily splashed the discredited (Sr.) Norah Wall child rape verdict on their front pages, and declined to publish similar banner headline apologies when the ex-nun was vindicated after a key witness was found to be mentally unstable. Joe MacAnthony took on an entrenched secular money interest with his researched expose of the Sweepstakes scam, a scam that pointed the finger at the respected high and mighty in the worlds of Dublin finance and political establishment. But since newspaper proprietorship enjoys a symbiotic relationship with high finance and its advertising connections, the Joe MacAnthony research went too close to the bone. The fourth estate is a player, not a disinterested observer. Take a bow, Mr. MacAnthony. You are one of the principled journalists. The Irish Hospitals Sweepstake - some scam, huh? Amazing how the guys in at the top from the start managed to get away from close scrutiny for so long. McGrath’s patriot credentials certainly helped. The sweepstake was projected as a patriotic project for helping the underfunded health services in third world Ireland. The diaspora Irish in North America and Britain (maybe those in Oz too?) responded patriotically to the needs of the old country and bought-sold those tickets. I suppose so long as the project brought so much hard currency, especially dollars, into the plodding economy, the politicians didn’t ask pertinent/impertinent questions.

{Incidentally, McGrath was so patriotic that he wrote generous cheques for his old comrade-in-arms, the leftwing Peadar O’Donnell, to finance the printing of The Bell magazine during the hungry 40s and 50s when O’Donnell was business manager/assistant editor.}

Independent Newspapers are so “brave” these days exposing paedophile clergy and blaming all the ills of society between 1922 and 1970 on the priest-ridden mentality. Yes, even if they so readily splashed the discredited (Sr.) Norah Wall child rape verdict on their front pages, and declined to publish similar banner headline apologies when the ex-nun was vindicated after a key witness was found to be mentally unstable.

Joe MacAnthony took on an entrenched secular money interest with his researched expose of the Sweepstakes scam, a scam that pointed the finger at the respected high and mighty in the worlds of Dublin finance and political establishment. But since newspaper proprietorship enjoys a symbiotic relationship with high finance and its advertising connections, the Joe MacAnthony research went too close to the bone. The fourth estate is a player, not a disinterested observer. Take a bow, Mr. MacAnthony. You are one of the principled journalists.

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