NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Eoghan Harris

Senator Eoghan Harris is an Irish politician and a sometimes controversial and outspoken newspaper columnist and polemicist. He was appointed to Seanad Eireann the upper house of the Oireachtas as a nominee of the Taoiseach on 3 August 2007. He currently contributes to the Sunday Independent newspaper. He has variously been the chief Marxist ideologue of the Workers Party^{[citation needed]} and its precedessor, Official Sinn Féin, a short-lived advisor to the Christian Democrat leader of Fine Gael John Bruton^{[citation needed]}, an advisor to the Ulster Unionist Party^{[citation needed]}, and most recently a supporter of the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats government of Bertie Ahern. At one stage, an Irish republican he is now a bitter critic of modern day Sinn Féin, expressing his political views in trenchant terms in the Sunday Independent. An unpredictable figure, Harris' critics often accuse him of demonstrating a supreme ideological malleability, and of being inconsistent to the point of irrationality^{[citation needed]}. Harris is also noted for his screenwriting work, he lectures at IADT the Irish National film school and teaches a comprehensive screenwriting workshop. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Seanad Éireann (English: Senate of Ireland), the Irish Senate, is the upper house of the Oireachtas: the parliament of the Republic of Ireland1. ... The incumbent, in politics, is the current holder of a political office. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is now the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... The composition of Seanad Ã‰ireann, the upper house of the Oireachtas (parliament) of the Republic of Ireland, is defined in outline by Article 18 of the Constitution of Ireland, which provides for 11 appointees that are nominated by the Taoiseach (prime minister). ... The term Unknown is used in a number of contexts: To indicate the lack of knowledge, such as the list of unsolved problems, unsolved problems in physics or the unknown unknown To refer to anonymity In mathematics, as a noun, the unknowns of an equation are the quantities (or variables... Seanad Éireann (English: Senate of Ireland), the Irish Senate, is the upper house of the Oireachtas: the parliament of the Republic of Ireland1. ... The Oireachtas is the National Parliament of the Republic of Ireland. ... The Taoiseach (IPA: or ) â€” plural: Taoisigh ( or ), also referred to as An Taoiseach[1], is the head of government of Ireland or prime minister. ... is the 215th day of the year (216th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is now the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... The Sunday Independent is a broadsheet Sunday newspaper published in the Republic of Ireland by Independent News and Media plc. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... The Workers Party (in Irish PÃ¡irtÃ na nOibrithe) is an Irish left wing political party that evolved from Official Sinn FÃ©in. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Workers Party of Ireland. ... Christian Democracy is a political ideology, born at the end of the 19th century, largely as a result of the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII, in which the Vatican recognizes workers misery and agrees that something should be done about it, in reaction to the rise of... Fine Gael (IPA: , though often anglicised to ) (approximate English translation: Family or Tribe of the Irish) and officially, Fine Gael - The United Ireland Party, is the second largest political party in the Republic of Ireland, presently forming the largest opposition party in the Dail (Irish Parliament), and claims a membership... John Gerard Bruton (Irish: ; born 18 May 1947) was the ninth Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Fianna FÃ¡il - The Republican Party (Irish: ), commonly referred to as Fianna FÃ¡il (IPA ; traditionally translated by the party into English as Soldiers of Destiny, though the actual meaning is Soldiers [Fianna] of Ireland[1]), is currently the largest political party in Ireland with 55,000 members. ... The Progressive Democrats (Irish An PÃ¡irtÃ Daonlathach, lit. ... Patrick Bartholomew Bertie Ahern (Irish: ; born 12 September 1951) is an Irish politician who, since 26 June 1997, has served as the tenth Taoiseach. ... Fianna Fáil - The Republican Party (Pronounced fee-na fall.) (English: Soldiers of Destiny) is the largest political party in the Republic of Ireland. ... For pre-Arthur Griffith use of the political name, see Sinn FÃ©in (19th century). ... The Sunday Independent is a broadsheet Sunday newspaper published in the Republic of Ireland by Independent News and Media plc. ...

Early career

Harris was educated at University College, Cork where he studied History, achieving a first class honours degree. He later worked at RTÉ, the Irish television broadcaster, on current affairs programmes such as 7 Days and Féach. He also made a documentary on mental illness called "Darkness Visible" . University College Cork - National University of Ireland, Cork - or more commonly University College Cork (UCC) - is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland located in Cork City. ... RTÃ‰ One (Irish: RTÃ‰ a hAon) is the Republic of Irelands oldest and most popular television channel, operated by Irish state broadcaster Radio TelefÃs Ã‰ireann. ... 7 Days (previously Seven Days) was a current affairs programme that was broadcast on Radio TelefÃs Ã‰ireann in Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s. ...

As a writer Harris is the author of Souper Sullivan which was performed at the Abbey Theatre for the Dublin Theatre Festival 1987, and of the television series "Sharpe". He lectures on screen writing in the National Film School, in the Centre for Film Studies in UCD, and at Moonstone Labs in Europe. UCD can refer to: University College Dublin or their association football club University College Dublin FC Democratic Center Union University of California, Davis User-centered design The Universal Child Database, a government database in the United Kingdom. ...

Leading Marxist

Harris was a leading Irish republican in Official Sinn Féin in the 1960s, and was an important influence in the party's move from Irish nationalism to Marxism, a political ideology which Harris currently claims to abhor. He was close to leading Official Sinn Féin members Eamonn Smullen and Cathal Goulding, the latter of whom was at the time Chief of Staff of the paramilitary Official IRA, an organisation the demonisation of which Harris has built his recent journalistic career upon. The movement's eventual move to Marxism led to alienation from its working class base at the start of The Troubles, and its subsequent eclipse by Provisional Sinn Féin and its violent military wing, the Provisional IRA. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Workers Party of Ireland. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Workers Party of Ireland. ... Cathal Goulding (January 1922 - December 28, 1998) was Chief of Staff of the IRA and the Official IRA. Born into a Republican family, Goulding was involved as teenager in Na Fianna (the Junior IRA) and joined the IRA at the age of 17 in 1939, the earliest age at which... The term Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA refers to one of the two organisations - the other being the Provisional Irish Republican Army - that emerged from the split in the then Irish Republican Army in 1969-70. ... For other uses, see Troubles (disambiguation) and Trouble. ... Provisional Sinn FÃ©in is an Irish republican political party which evolved from the split in Sinn FÃ©in and the IRA that took place in the late 1960s. ... The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) is a paramilitary group which aimed, through the use of violence, to achieve three goals: (i) British withdrawal from Ireland, (ii) the political unification of Ireland through the merger of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland , and (iii) the creation of an all...

According to Patterson in the Politics of Illusion, Harris's pamphlet the "Irish Industrial Revolution" (1975) was influential in shifting the party away from nationalism.

In 1990 Harris published a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Social Democracy in which he surmised that socialism would not survive its east european crisis. Harris called for a shift to social democracy and that the party should seek an historic alliance with the social democratic wing of Fine Gael. The document was initially submitted by Eamonn Smullen on Harris's behalf for publication in the party's theoretical magazine "Making Sense" but when this was refused Harris and Smullen published it themselves as a publication of the party's Economic Affairs Department of which Smullen was head. When the pamphlet began to circulate it was banned by the Workers Party and Smullen was suspended from his position on the committee. Harris resigned in protest and Smullen resigned subsequent with many of the members of the Research Section of the party, a move which was the prelude to a bigger split in the party in 1990, when senior members of the party alleged that the supposedly moribund Official IRA still existed and was implicated in criminality and sought to move to some extent in the direction proposed earlier by Harris.

RTÉ

Harris was once a central figure in shaping the current affairs output of Radio Telifís Éireann. He pushed the organisation, in line with his grievances, towards a heavily critical perspective on Sinn Féin and the IRA, and on nationalism in general. It was stated in Magill(November 1997)that he set up a secret branch of the Worker's Party called the"Ned Stapleton Cumann". This gave the party considerable influence within RTE. Michael O'Leary,then leader of the Irish Labour Party commented that RTE current affairs coverage was "Stickie orientated". The tensions within the organisation between traditional nationalists such as Mary McAleese and Marxists led to major disagreements within the station, and criticism of what was perceived as the station's left wing political agenda. Radio TelefÃs Ã‰ireann (RTÃ‰; Irish for Radio and Television of Ireland) is the national publicly-funded broadcaster of Ireland. ... For the place in Adelaide, South Australia, see Magill, South Australia. ... Senator Eoghan Harris is an Irish politician and a sometimes controversial and outspoken newspaper columnist and polemicist. ... Logo of the Irish Labour Party The Irish Labour Party (Irish: Páirti an Lucht Oibre) is the third largest political party in the Republic of Ireland. ... Mary Patricia McAleese (Irish: [1]; born 27 June 1951) is the eighth, and current, President of Ireland. ...

Working with Robinson

In 1990 the Labour Party nominated former senator Mary Robinson to be its candidate for President of Ireland. Harris's boisterous attitude led him to be kept at arms length by the Robinson campaign. While his strategy proposal is thought, by some, to have been significant in the rebranding of Robinson, just how influential Harris was remains a matter of much controversy, with her campaign team and the President herself blaming him for a crucial and fatal change in tactics - having previously been non-compative in dealing with the controversies that had engulfed dismissed Tánaiste Brian Lenihan, Harris pressured Robinson into going on the offence on a Tonight Tonight live debate, an action which was generally seen to have backfired horribly. Harris made three election videos, and claims to have been reponsible for the memorable line from Robinson's acceptance speech "the hand that rocked the cradle rocked the system." Logo of the Irish Labour Party The Irish Labour Party (Irish: Páirti an Lucht Oibre) is the third largest political party in the Republic of Ireland. ... Mary Robinson (Irish name MÃ¡ire Mhic RÃ³ibÃn; born 21 May 1944) was the first female President of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. ... -1... The TÃ¡naiste (IPA: ; plural TÃ¡naistÃ ), or, more formally, An TÃ¡naiste[1], is the deputy prime minister of the Republic of Ireland. ... Brian Lenihan (17 November 1930 - 1 November 1995) was a Irish Fianna FÃ¡il politician. ... Tonight, Tonight is a song by The Smashing Pumpkins. ...

Working with Bruton

After this campaign, the success of which Harris had litle to do with, He was asked to work for Fine Gael by its leader John Bruton. However he received universal criticism both within and outside the party in April 1991 when he wrote the script for a sketch for the Fine Gael Ard Fheis in which a cleaner (played by the comedy actress Twink), interrupted the leader's speech by Bruton. The sketch was universally criticised as being in bad taste and tacky, particularly in its references to a controversial incident that had made the news, whereby a female reporter from RTÉ had allegedly been groped by an inebriated Fianna Fáil TD. The catchphrase "Una gan guna" (Una without her dress, in Irish) was sexist and demeaning of a victim of alleged improper conduct.) Twink may mean: Twink (gay slang), a young or young-looking male homosexual Twink (musician), John Charles Alder, a British singer and drummer Twink (home perm), a British brand of hair product once produced by Elida Twink Storey, former radio station programme director and presenter for 2HD Twink is a...

Attacking McAleese

In 1997 Harris denounced Fianna Fáil presidential candidate Mary McAleese, calling her a "tribal time bomb" and writing "if she wins not on a technicality but because so many people gave her their number one, then I am living in a country I no longer understand." McAleese won the election with 45% of the vote. Fianna FÃ¡il - The Republican Party (Irish: ), commonly referred to as Fianna FÃ¡il (IPA ; traditionally translated by the party into English as Soldiers of Destiny, though the actual meaning is Soldiers [Fianna] of Ireland[1]), is currently the largest political party in Ireland with 55,000 members. ... Mary Patricia McAleese (Irish: [1]; born 27 June 1951) is the eighth, and current, President of Ireland. ...

Attacking John Hume

Harris, along with fellow Sunday Independent columnist Eamon Dunphy, became an outspoken critic of Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume over Hume's decision to hold talks with Sinn Féin prior to an IRA ceasefire. Hume argued that he was seeking to convince republicans to abandon violence. The resulting Belfast Agreement was strongly praised by Harris. In the late 1990s he became the first Roman Catholic political advisor (and the first ex-Marxist advisor), to David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. He wrote some of his speeches, one of which included the infamous line that Northern Ireland had been "a cold house for Catholics." He was invited to address the UUP annual conference in 2003 where he described the Belfast Agreement as "an Amazing Grace" and urged the UUP to make a leap of faith in Sinn Féin. The UUP subsequently imploded and is no longer a significant force in Northern Irish politics. Eamon in the guise of popular radio host. ... The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP â€” Irish: PÃ¡irtÃ SÃ³isialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is the smaller of the two major nationalist parties in Northern Ireland. ... John Hume. ... The Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday Agreement and, more rarely, as the Stormont Agreement) was a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process. ... The Lord Trimble William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, PC (born 15 October 1944), known as David Trimble, is a Northern Irish politician who served as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the first First Minister of Northern Ireland. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq

Harris strongly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and unlike many other neo-conservatives is unrepentant about the morality of removing Saddam Hussein, declaring in the Sunday Independent that "hindsight history has no moral status." In May 2003 he wrote "Already,as I predicted in the lead up to the war,the neoconservative hawks have done much better than the liberals in getting down to the dynamics of opening up the gulf to democracy. Already ,and this I predicted too,there is substancial hope for an Israeli Palestinian settlement now that Saddam no longer scowls at Israel". He has been bitterly critical of Middle East journalist Robert Fisk. Fisk has, unlike Harris, actually been to the Middle East. In November 2003 he wrote, "Far from wanting to pour venom on Fisk, I think he does us a favour by being so forthright. For my money his analysis of Middle East politics is a first cousin to believing that aliens take away people in flying saucers." Fisk's books on the Middle Eastern conflict have continuously topped international best-seller lists. Harris himself is soon to publish a book on the Middle East. The subject of this article is the 2003 invasion of Iraq. ... Neoconservatism describes several distinct political ideologies which are considered new forms of conservatism. ... The term Palestinian has other usages, for which see definitions of Palestinian. ... Saddam Hussein Saddām Hussein ʻAbd al-Majid al-Tikrītī (Often spelt Husayn or Hussain; Arabic صدام حسين عبدالمجيد التكريتي; born April 28, 1937... For people named Robert Fiske, see Robert Fiske (disambiguation). ...

Endorsing Fianna Fáil

Harris, a one-time Marxist republican, then an advisor to Fine Gael and the Ulster Unionists (prior to their implosion), in the mid 2000s began endorsing the centrist, populist Fianna Fáil, which was in a coalition government with the neo-liberal Progressive Democrats. Harris was one of a minority of journalists to support Bertie Ahern during the "Bertiegate I" crisis, amid questions over Ahern's financial propriety. Harris, like his paper, heavily supported Ahern and Fianna Fáil in the 2007 general election, while denying that the Sunday Independent's editorial stance, a u-turn from its previous criticism, was the result of a meeting between the deputy leader of Fianna Fáil, Brian Cowen and the owner of Independent News & Media, Sir Anthony O'Reilly. Patrick Bartholomew Bertie Ahern (Irish: ; born 12 September 1951) is an Irish politician who, since 26 June 1997, has served as the tenth Taoiseach. ... The Irish general election of 2007 took place on 24 May 2007 after the dissolution of the 29th DÃ¡il by the President on 29 April 2007, at the request of the Taoiseach. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Independent News & Media plc (INM) is a media organisation based in Dublin, Ireland with interests worldwide. ... Sir Anthony Tony OReilly (born 7 May 1936) is a Dublin born billionaire who holds both British and Irish nationality. ...

Harris controversially appeared in a later criticised edition of The Late Late Show on RTÉ in which he and another panelist heaped praise on Ahern and poured scorn on anyone who criticised him. Harris also claimed that other newspapers, namely The Irish Times, The Irish Mail, and the Sunday Independent's daily newspaper, the Irish Independent, waged an anti-Ahern campaign.[1] All other news outlets dismissed the claim, with most accusing Harris and the Sunday Independent of doing its own u-turn following the Cowen-O'Reilly meeting. (The paper had previously been highly critical of one of Ahern's policy stances, but changed its stance after the meeting. The paper claimed that its change was because Ahern had changed policy on stamp duty.) During a live radio debate on Today FM's The Last Word with Matt Cooper (Election special 26 May 2007), when an Irish Times columnist, Fintan O'Toole denied Harris's claims of an Irish Times campaign against Ahern, and accused the Sunday Independent of having its own political agenda, Harris stormed out of the studio mid-debate.[2] This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... It has been suggested that Irish Times Trust be merged into this article or section. ... The Chester and Holyhead Railway was incorporated out of a proposal to link Holyhead, the traditional port for the Irish Mail with London by way of the existing Chester and Crewe Railway, and what is now the West Coast Main Line. ... The Irish Independent is Irelands best-selling daily newspaper. ... 100-102 Today FM, formerly called Radio Ireland, is Irelands only independent national commercial radio station (there are many other independent local commercial stations, however). ... Matt Cooper is a journalist and presenter in Ireland. ... is the 146th day of the year (147th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Fintan OToole (b. ...

Eoghan Harris's ex-wife, Anne Harris, is deputy editor of the Sunday Independent. She lives with the paper's editor, Aengus Fanning. Anne Harris, 25 August 1947, is deputy editor of the Sunday Independent. ... Aengus Fanning is an Irish journalist and former Farming editor of the Irish Independent who is the current longterm editor of the Sunday Independent. ...

References

Categories: Cleanup from June 2007 | All pages needing cleanup | Articles with unsourced statements since June 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Year of birth missing | Living people | Irish columnists | Irish journalists | Members of the 23rd Seanad The Irish Daily Mail is a tabloid newspaper published in the Republic of Ireland by Associated Newspapers. ... For the place in Adelaide, South Australia, see Magill, South Australia. ... The Sunday Independent is a broadsheet Sunday newspaper published in the Republic of Ireland by Independent News and Media plc. ... The Sunday Independent is a broadsheet Sunday newspaper published in the Republic of Ireland by Independent News and Media plc. ...

Contents

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