Eavan Murray

I get that this is an unpopular view but: We need more journalists & fewer pundits. We need more original reporting & fewer hot takes riffing off the news. We don't have this because reporting takes work and is difficult & pontificating on YouTube is lazy & easy.

‘It restores dignity, fairness and safety’ – UN official ‘welcomes’ IOC ban on transgender women in female competition independent.ie/sport/olympics…

Terrible, tragic news. She was the best. Treated really badly by the BBC after she dared to speak out about you know what. She was absolutely disgusted with the powers that be. Maybe it will all come out now. Jenni was a true journalist, no one quite like her.

Despicable. There is wholesale abuse of some migrant workers. There should be massive penalties and compensation Worker was paid €4 an hour to guard high-end clothes shop on Grafton Street, WRC hears irishtimes.com/business/2026/…

Off to hell with him Soham child killer Ian Huntley confirmed dead after attack in maximum security prison independent.ie/world-news/bri…

Mother is jailed for 18 months for not protecting her daughter from sexual abuse. I have endless respect for Sophia Murphy and all survivors of CSA. Reporting abuse is the start of a difficult legal process but holding abusers to account is so heroic independent.ie/irish-news/cou…

If you’re in the media outside the UK, there’s no need to use the honorifics of the British “nobility” system. He’s Peter Mandelson. “Lord.” 🙄

“People born with a uterus.” That’s the phrase filmmaker Georgie Wileman used in her BAFTA acceptance speech for a film about endometriosis. Endometriosis is a condition of the FEMALE reproductive system, where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows elsewhere in the body. I don’t have endometriosis. But just last Monday I had a biopsy of my endometrial lining to rule out cancer. Endometrial cancer is one of the most common cancers in women. Breast cancer is the most common - around 99% of cases occur in women. I’ve already had that, which can increase the risk. So this isn’t abstract for me. Clear language matters in women’s health. It matters that women know which diseases affect us. It matters that we recognise symptoms and get changes checked promptly. I haven’t seen the film, so I don’t know how it’s framed. But in the 2-minute clip circulating online, the word “women” doesn’t appear once. In his acceptance speech, Wileman’s co-director Matt Houghton called her ‘brave’. Brave enough to deal with a serious gynae condition - and make a film about it. Just not, it seems, ‘brave’ enough to use the word ‘women’ - to describe a disease that only affects women.

This was written prior to today’s events. Mandelson’s role in watering down Patten policing reforms is still being felt today belfasttelegraph.co.uk/comment/opinio…

Here’s my story on the statements that two prisoners made to Gardai investigating the murder of Deirdre Jacob. One prisoner claimed he went into details of Deirdre’s murder while another claimed he had boasted of killing before. Full story here.

This is a horror Judge criticises ‘shameful’ profiteering by private firms providing care placements irishtimes.com/crime-law/cour…

Oh wow

It’s not a throw away remark. IRA gang members kneecapped and disabled circa 4000 young Catholics including children. Their offence ‘anti-social’ behaviour. They murdered neighbours, turned others into human bombs, disappeared parents and murdered more Catholics than any other organisation during their terror campaign. Facts, not reimagined fiction.

Great initiative providing important experience to the journalism students. There is nothing like learning on the job. I began my journalism career at the Limerick Weekly Echo after graduating from the journalism course at Rathmines College, Dublin.

Gisele Pelicot told us ‘shame must shift sides’ I have received this from one viewer .. ❤️

@RobLooseCannon That is heartbreaking

Most Irish people have seen the movie My Left Foot, but dont know the shocking things that happened to Christy Brown, after the film was set. Because when that romantic Hollywood style ending with Brown meeting Mary Carr was over, the reality of his adult life was far darker for the author and artist. But so much before that was also left out for poetic licence. Long before Mary Carr appeared on the scene, Browns most formative adult relationship was with Beth Moore, a wealthy American socialite and married woman who became his patron, muse, and intellectual partner. They met in 1960, after Beth read the first edition of My Left Foot and began a correspondence that quickly turned intimate when she traveled to Dublin and they fell in love. In awe of his literary genius she encouraged him to experiment beyond the confines of autobiography into more ambitious, Joycean narratives. She also gave him a valuable editorial sounding board. Between 1960 and 1970, Christy made several trips to Connecticut to stay with her, experiencing a level of independence and artistic focus impossible in the crowded Brown household. It was in this period that Down All the Days (1970) took shape. When the book became an international bestseller, translated into fourteen languages, Christy found not only fame but a bit of financial security, proving to himself aswell as everyone else that he wasnt a literary one hit wonder. But Brown and Beths relationship was storm. She was still married to someone else for part of this decade, and though she eventually divorced with the hope of marrying him, the union never materialised. Christy’s ambivalence about leaving Dublin and alleged family interference contributed to their painful split that year. Within months, he met Mary Carr at a book launch party depicted in the film My Left Foot, beginning a relationship that many considered a rebound. And that "happily ever after" portrayed in the film could not have been further from reality. After marrying Mary Carr in 1972, Brown moved away from Dublin, first to Rathcoole, then Kerry, and finally over to Somerset in England. And it was this isolation from his family and the city he loved which caused him to a period of profound isolation. While he published A Shadow on Summer (1974) and Wild Grow the Lilies (1976), these works failed to recapture the critical or commercial acclaim of Down All the Days. Health issues and waning creative energy caused by this depression steadily eroded his literary output. But the marriage was far worse than homesickness. Biographies, most notably Georgina Hambleton’s The Life That Inspired My Left Foot (2007), describe neglect and abuse. Mary Carr allegedly struggled with alcoholism, and was serially unfaithful. In Somerset, Christy lived increasingly reclusive days, alone and abandoned. Christy Brown died on September 7, 1981, aged 49, officially from asphyxiation whilst eating. Yet the circumstances remain contentious. Examination of his body revealed significant bruising, fueling suspicions of physical abuse or neglect. His sister Ann questioned how those caring for him could allow such a choking hazard, suggesting a level of inattention or worse. Christy Brown left behind four novels, three collections of poetry, and a posthumous final novel, A Promising Career (1982)

@Gabriel_Pogrund and I were the subject of a disgraceful smear campaign — just for doing our jobs I’m proud that The Sunday Times is calling it out on the front page tomorrow Labour activists paid for smear campaign against journalists thetimes.com/article/e5efcc…

Why did it take so long for an apology? Seriously shameful episode for SocDems

Oligarchs seeking to destroy the free Press, says Fergal Keane, veteran Irish foreign correspondent, as he leaves BBC after 37 years irishtimes.com/media/2026/02/…

It's a good thing Ryan Tubridy is on The Assembly Ireland on Virgin Media tonight. I was beginning to think a whole day would be allowed to pass without exposure to his PR comeback campaign.