Fragments 30/11/06

Myers' despicable libel on Douglas Gageby

A book of essays on the late Douglas Gageby is about to be published: Bright, Brilliant Days: Douglas Gageby and The Irish Times, amid a welter of controversy. And the controversy arises from two contributions: one by Kevin Myers and the other by James Downey.

Downey's essay says of Gageby that without him the Irish Times might not have survived and that the newspaper primarily owes its colossal success to him. When Gageby became editor of the paper in 1963, its circulation was around 25,000. When he finally left the paper in 1986, the circulation was 75,000.

Gageby saw the changes happening in Ireland in the 1960s, the changes in the Catholic church and in Northern Ireland, and he fastened onto these and to some extent shaped them. But James Downey goes on to be very critical of Gageby. Critical of his editorial judgement in many instances, of his ill-temper as he went into old age, of his indifference and even hostility to the new technologies that have transformed newspapers. The criticisms are severe, but they are contextualised by an acknowledgement that here was an extraordinary person, an extraordinary editor.

Kevin Myers's essay is different. In an unintended tribute to Douglas Gageby, Myers writes that Gageby couldn't stand him from the outset of their acquaintance. It was partly because, Myers thinks, Gageby disliked him (Myers) for being English and for his English accent. Also, Myers was of the view that the Irish and others who took part in the First World War were heroes and should be so regarded. Gageby didn't. Myers says Gageby led the paper in a left-direction; Downey shows that, in fact, Gageby's politics were to the right.

But the outrage of that essay by Myers is the depiction of Douglas Gageby as a “crook”. Myers writes: “I admired him for his patriotism. But he was still a crook, as the creation of the Irish Times Trust suggested. Did Gageby feel guilt that he had encumbered the company with debts that took 20 years to pay off, in order to buy his shares, while he remained in control of the paper through the trust?”

Had Myers the courage to write this about Gageby when the latter was still alive, the damages would surely have exceeded the recent award of €750,000 to Denis O'Brien.

The truth is this. Douglas Gageby got eight per cent of the shareholding of the Irish Times when he became editor and joint-managing director. At a time in the early 1970s when the paper was doing spectacularly well commercially (largely because of Gageby), a trust was formed, to protect the independence of the paper, and the trust bought the shareholding in the Irish Times from the existing shareholders. There was, and is, nothing to suggest that an exorbitant price was paid by the trust at the time for the shares.

Very shortly afterwards the economy went into a depression because of an unexpected oil price increase. The Irish Times went into decline commercially. Its future was threatened, in part because of the heavy debt burden it had incurred in borrowing funds to buy out the shares. Gageby, who had retired as editor shortly after the trust was established, returned to save the paper and built it again into a huge success.

That he should be depicted as a “crook” for this is despicable.

Walking tracks obstructed by farmers and CIE

An organisation known as Comhairle na Tuaithe was established by Éamon Ó Cuív, Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs in February 2004. It is comprised of farming organisations, recreational users of the countryside and state bodies, and it was charged with devising a National Countryside Recreation Strategy, which it duly did earlier this year.
One of the reasons for setting up this body was to resolve conflicts between landowners and country walkers over entitlements to walk on land. Farmers, with some good reason, objected to a general license for members of the public to tread on their fields.

But there is another issue which the Comhairle na Tuaithe and other state agencies appear to have ignored: the propensity of landowners to appropriate illegally land owned by state agencies. And, worse than that, the complicity of some of the state agencies with this unlawfulness.

The issue has arisen in west Limerick and north Kerry where there has been an attempt since 1998 to establish a 53-mile walkway from Rathkeale to Tralee, along the lines of a disused railway line, land owned by CIE. This has been obstructed because, along that line, farmers and other landowners have taken over the land owned by CIE and object to the provision of a walkway along lands they do not own legally. And to compound that problem, CIE has failed to exert its ownership of the lands, thereby frustrating the effort to provide a spectacular recreational walk through west Limerick into north Kerry, down to Tralee.

In spite of this, significant progress has been made. At present there is a one-mile walk, provided by the local authority in Listowel, starting near the famous old Lartigue railway line – that was the mono-railway that ran from Listowel to Ballybunion. There is a six-mile track from Abbeyfeale to Templeglantine, which is surfaced and along which it is possible to cycle. There is a two-mile (unsurfaced) walk to the summit at Barna and a short walk through the Barna rail tunnel. There is a two-and-a-half mile walk from Newcastle West to Ardagh. All this has been funded and constructed by voluntary endeavour. No public funding has been forthcoming from local authorities or from the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, although that Department has funded similar projects in Mayo and Waterford County Council are themselves developing a track from Waterford to Dungarvan.

On this day: 2 December 1805

The Battle of Austerlitz

The Battle of Austerlitz was fought on 2 December, 1805, four miles east of the modern Czech town of Brno, then part of the Austrian Empire. Napoleon won a famous battle against the armies of the Russian and Austrian empires in just nine hours.

France had been engaged from 1792 in what were known as the French Revolutionary Wars, which had resulted in France taking control of Belgium and Holland, Italy and part of modern-day Germany. These lasted until the Treaty of Amiens of 1802.

In 1803 Britain declared war on France. Britain was joined in an alliance by Russia and Austria. Napoleon assembled a huge army to invade Britain but in September 1805 he had to deal with threats from Russia and Austria. He marched 200,000 troops across the Rhine. He forced the surrender of 23,000 Austrian troops at Ulm on 20 October and then Vienna fell to him in November.

 The battle was a spectacular strategic triumph for Napoleon but was accompanied by a shocking barbarism. Russian forces fleeing towards Vienna when crossing the Satschan frozen ponds were drowned in the freezing waters when Napoleon ordered his troops to pound the ice with artillery.

Austerlitz set the stage for a near-decade of French domination on the European continent.

Austrian and Russian casualties were about 27,000 out of an army of 73,000. French casualties were 9,000 from an army of 67,000.