Mary Ellen Synon
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Mary Ellen Synon (born 1951) is an Irish-American journalist currently writing for the Ireland on Sunday and the Irish Daily Mail.
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[edit] Career
[edit] Affair
In 1995 Synon made headlines in Irish and British press over her affair with Mr Rupert Pennant-Rea, the deputy governor of the Bank of England. Pennant-Rea subsequently resigned.
[edit] Sunday Independent
She became a regular freelance columnist for the Dublin-based Sunday Independent and was noted for her consistently right wing diatribes against asylum-seekers, travellers and education for the disadvantaged. After one such article [1], an unsuccessful attempt was made by a Travellers Rights Group to initiate a prosecution under the Incitement to Hatred Act. Her tenure culminated in an article penned in 2000 attacking the Paralympics for blind and disabled athletes in Sydney.
In the article, she wrote: "It is time to suggest that these so-called Paralympics . . . are - well, one hesitates to say 'grotesque'. One will only say 'perverse'…Surely physical competition is about finding the best - the fastest, strongest, highest, all that. It is not about finding someone who can wobble his way around a track in a wheelchair, or who can swim from one end of a pool to the other by Braille." She advised the disabled and blind to "play to your competitive advantage” and added: "In other words, Stephen Hawking shows his wisdom by staying out of the three-legged race."
The article which was criticised by the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) was subsequently discussed in the Irish senate where Maurice Hayes, a senator and director of Independent News & Media, which owns the Sunday Independent, said it was indefensible, indecent and hurtful: "It should not have been written and if written, it should not have been published. I know that my views are shared by my colleagues on the Independent board and in particular by the chairman."
Under pressure from several health boards in Ireland (who are collectively a very significant advertiser in the Sunday Independent), an official apology was issued by the paper, which they said was endorsed by Synon. Nevertheless she subsequently took issue with this apology and resigned shortly afterwards. Later in the same year, she was subjected to a bomb hoax at her home. [2]
[edit] Recently
Synon is currently contributing to the Irish business paper the Sunday Business Post. Her unique perspective continues with a recent article in defense of Intelligent Design[3], the logic of her argument of which was strongly castigated in the letters page the week after [4].
