Dean Buckley Investigative Reports

Mise Éire Festival Organisers Sue Ocean FM and Leitrim Activist for Defamation

(Author’s Note: I forwarded the open letter calling for the cancellation of the first Mise Éire Festival’s booking at the Mayflower Community Centre to musicians I know to sign. I did not participate in any subsequent efforts to cancel Mise Éire events at commercial venues.)

The organisers of the controversial Mise Éire Festival have launched defamation proceedings against Ocean FM, broadcaster Niall Delaney and activist Meryl McGowan over a radio interview in which they allege McGowan defamed them.

Stephen Kerr and Roy Deal are the directors of Saoirse Sessions Ltd., trading as Mise Éire, the company behind the Mise Éire Festival originally scheduled to take place at the Mayflower Community Centre in Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim last year.

The event was billed as an Irish cultural festival for “those who cherish Irish culture and heritage, and are united in celebrating our shared values”, but local activists accused the organisers of using Irish culture as a front for a far-right political event.

Following a local petition and an open letter signed by hundreds of Irish musicians, the committee of the Mayflower announced the booking had been cancelled, citing a failure by the organisers to comply with terms and conditions.

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Dean Buckley Irish Politics

Eoin Lenihan’s Easily Disprovable Lies About His “Antifa” Study

For most Irish people who know him at all, the moment they first heard about Eoin Lenihan – a right-wing social media influencer and commentator – was through his disastrous appearance on the Irish Times’ podcast Inside Politics last year.

Lenihan was on to promote his book Vandalising Ireland, and after giving him ample time to expound on the book, its themes and his childhood with little interruption, podcast host Hugh Linehan began to ask about some controversies regarding his previous writing and social media activity. Eoin almost immediately lost the plot, slated Hugh’s integrity and professionalism for daring to ask such questions, and accused him of spreading lies and smears about him. It went on for an extraordinary length of time like that, with Eoin sometimes refusing to answer any further questions while also refusing to end the interview, leaving the host audibly baffled by how to proceed with a man who had evidently decided to place himself in checkmate.

Both during and since the interview, Lenihan has presented it as an ambush meant to assassinate his character based on scurrilous and supposedly “debunked” claims. This was the meat of a complaint he made to the Press Ombudsman, whose decision rejecting the complaint I encourage you to read for yourself. To me, the most striking part was that he told the Press Ombudsman he’d emailed the Irish Times to request they not release the episode, but did not inform the Ombudsman he’d emailed again three minutes later telling them “If you do publish it, publish the whole thing – no edits”, which is exactly what the Irish Times did. I can’t even conceive of telling such an easily disprovable lie, but Eoin Lenihan did it on the public record in a venue where those he was lying about had the opportunity to directly respond.

I want to deal with some other easily disprovable lies of his today: those about his 2019 Quillette article alleging unethical relationships between journalists and antifascist activists, and his subsequent peer-reviewed study of antifascist social networks online. It’s a little complicated to explain, but the lie at the heart of it is both simple and outrageous, and it’s a lie that Lenihan relies on when he goes around threatening to sue people for calling the article bullshit, as he does frequently.

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Dean Buckley Irish Politics

Aontú Can’t Have It Both Ways on Climate Change

In the upcoming Dublin Central by-election, Aontú are running Ian Noel Smyth, an architect who describes himself as an “environmentalist” and “green builder” on his X account. Smyth has previously contested Dublin Central as Aontú’s candidate in 2024 and 2020, and as the Green Party’s candidate in 2016. He also ran in the locals for Aontú in 2024 and for the Greens in 2014.

This is not an article about Ian Noel Smyth, but I begin with that context because I find it striking that Aontú would put him forward for election once again just after welcoming an out-and-out climate change denier as one of its newest councillors.

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Dean Buckley Investigative Reports

George Mitchell Was Scheduled to Fly on Epstein’s Jet in March 2013

A previous version of this article stated that George Mitchell and Ehud Barak were both speakers at an event at Vanderbilt University on 18th March 2013. Only George Mitchell was a speaker at the event, as Ehud Barak’s appearance was rescheduled to a later date.

George Mitchell was scheduled to fly on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet in March 2013, according to emails released as part of the Epstein Files – contradicting previous claims made by the former US Senator that he had no further contact with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction for procuring sex from minors.

In an email dated 7th March 2013, Epstein asked his pilot Larry Visoski to add a stop in Nashville to an already planned flight so he could pick up Ehud Barak and George Mitchell on the way, though Mitchell’s name is misspelled as “geroge mitcehll”.

The 19th March trip appears in Epstein’s flight logs as a flight from St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands to Teterboro Airport, just outside New York.

But in an email dated 11th March 2013, Visoski confirmed he had obtained permission to land at Nashville, even though the stop wasn’t included in the border overflight exemption for the flight. This meant they would avoid going through customs at Nashville.

George Mitchell was a speaker at an event at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on 18th March 2013, the day before the pickup was planned. Ehud Barak was also scheduled to speak at the event, though his appearance was rescheduled for 7th April shortly before.

Mitchell has repeatedly maintained that he had no further contact with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction. A spokesman for Mitchell claimed earlier this month that he “declined or deflected” invitations to meet with Epstein following his release from prison in 2009.

Mitchell and Barak were both among those Epstein sought to contact immediately on leaving prison.

In an email dated 28th July 2009, less than week after his release, Epstein asks the recipient to tell “ehud barak and geroge mitchell” that he was “free and home” and that they “can call the home number”.

Mitchell wrote in a 2003 letter to Epstein that their friendship, which Mitchell described as a “blessing”, began “more than a decade” earlier with a chance meeting at an airport.