Enemy Of The State
Ten years ago this month, my career of almost two decades with the Irish Independent came to an abrupt end. An order came directly from Garda Headquarters in The Phoenix Park under the then Commissioner Martin Callinan, who would resign in disgrace less than a year later. Gemma O’Doherty had to be removed from the mainstream media and shunned from the profession for siding with two whistleblower officers he called ‘disgusting.’
My unlawful dismissal happened at a point in my career when I felt my work was starting to bear fruit and effect real change in the broken justice system. My stories were being raised in Leinster House and resulting in inquiries and state investigations, which I realise now was just meaningless window-dressing to give an appearance of accountability.
Some weeks before the purge, my two-year investigation into the cover-up of Fr Niall Molloy’s murder had been the subject of a Prime Time special (which RTE have since deleted from their archive!) in which it was acknowledged that my body of work on the case had led to its ‘reopening’ by the Gardai. Miriam O’Callaghan and the priest’s family were effusive in their praise and gave me full credit for exposing new information on the murder in relation to the real killer that resulted in ‘ten detectives being sent to Offaly’ to work full-time on the murder.
Of course this was just a charade by the Gardai to try to silence me and portray themselves as the good guys in the public eye. They knew exactly who killed Fr Molloy (52) since the night of his murder in July 1985, as the whole of Clara did, but they have protected him to this day because they know if arrested, he would expose certain Fianna Fáil VIPs who were in attendance in Kilcoursey House on the night of the murder and are alleged to have taken part in the gruesome beating.
Because I am now a ‘Far Right Conspiracy Theorist’ according to the media, they delete any mention of my name in the Fr Molloy case and claim my work as their own.
The killer, who is still alive today, is just one in a long line of criminals who have been protected by the Gardai because of their political/society connections. Look no further than the cases of Mary Boyle, Raonaid Murray, Sophie Du Plantier, Jo Jo Dullard, Fiona Pender, Veronica Guerin, Garda Adrian Donohoe, John McClean and many many more.
The hopelessly corrupt former head of the Cold Case Unit, Supt Christy Mangan, who helped to frame innocent man Aaron Brady for the murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe, came into my office in the months before my departure from INM and promised me he was going to take the Molloy killer ‘by the scruff’ - this was done in the hope that I would stop exposing their corruption and start to portray them in a positive light in the paper.
Little did they know it would only spur me on. I had seen through their duplicity long before and knew they had no intention of bringing the killer to justice. When their farcical ‘review’ of the case began in late 2012, reports came back to me from key witnesses in Offaly almost immediately that Mangan’s ‘detectives’ were more interested in ‘the horses in the field’ than the death of Niall Molloy, when they came to call about the case.
Around this time, I was nominated for a National Crime Writer award for my work on the Molloy case and management at Independent House were exuberant about the good publicity my stories were gaining for the company, putting ads in the paper promoting my stories.
As Chief Features Writer, I was also making waves in the field of health, winning a medical award for my work on cancer research. I was been asked to sit on an advisory board of a large Dublin hospital. My investigations on the dangers of water fluoridation had previously earned me the title of ‘National Campaigning Journalist Of The Year’ and I was writing about the dangers of vaccines: a no-no even back then.
I had also just published an extensive investigation on HSE corruption, revealing the fact that their counselling services were encouraging pregnant women to take the dangerous abortion pill - long before it had been legalised - and to lie to their doctors about their abortions - a practice which could have led to their deaths. When the Department of Health found out I was investigating the scandal, I got a phone call late one night from a senior editor saying the HSE had been in touch and wanted me to back off. I told him to tell them where to go.
My story made the front page splash and a red-faced HSE was forced to announce an investigation into themselves. The Gardai also got involved and proceeded to cover the whole thing up and intimidate my sources. Nothing was ever done. No-one was sacked or jailed, as is always the case in Ireland.
As an investigative journalist, I was putting noses out of joint in all the right places, fulfilling, as I saw it, the most important function of a reporter and the reason I went into the profession in the first place. Afflict the comfortable. Comfort the afflicted. I was - and still am - consumed with the idea that the media’s only role is to protect the public from the powerful political class, the Gardai, judiciary and health service, and act like fearless watchdogs defending the best interests of the people in the knowledge that unbridled control would corrupt all of those institutions if unchecked, and could one day drag us into the situation we have today: a totalitarian dictatorship that can crash the economy on a whim and imprison the public in their homes.
I had gained a reputation as a reporter who would take up the cause of families who had been denied justice by the State and were victims of Garda corruption. My desk was piled high with case upon case of murder cover-ups and Garda crimes. I had nearly reached the point where I was reluctant to answer my phone for fear of being asked to take on yet another one.
One day in late 2012, a call came through to my desk which would dramatically change the course of my life.
The elderly man on the line said he was the father of a Garda sergeant who was aware of widespread criminality in the force and had been admiring my work from a distance for some time. He said his son had been rejected and ignored by Garda management and the mainstream media when he tried to air his concerns, and asked if I would be willing to speak to him. Some time later, I set off through the Meath countryside to meet Maurice McCabe - a journey that would lead to unimaginable turmoil in my career.
It was the first of many trips I made to Maurice’s home during that period. There, with his colleague John Wilson, we would pore over the names of senior Gardai, judges, state solicitors, crime reporters, RTE celebrities, GAA stars and HSE officials who had been abusing the road safety laws and had speeding points wiped from their licences. A system of elitist back-scratching had been in operation for years where the powers-that-shouldn’t-be would look after each other and to hell with the plebs who paid their wages. Some of these crooks had so many points wiped, they should have been off the road long ago.
Towards the end of 2012, a radical change of management took place in Independent Newspapers following the ousting of Tony O’Reilly by Denis O’Brien, one of the final nails in the coffin of Irish journalism. O’Reilly was a hands-off owner who respected journalists’ right to go about their work without fear or favour. He was a decent and fair employer, paying generous salaries and pensions, and the paper’s commercial success as the biggest-seller in the country was testimony to the fact that journalists loved to work there and were allowed to thrive.
O’Brien, who unlike O’Reilly was anything but a self-made businessman and was in cahoots with all the wrong people from Lowry to the Clintons, took a sledgehammer to everything O’Reilly had built.
As part of his demolition of Independent News And Media (INM), O’Brien put Garda lackey Stephen Rae into the editor’s chair - a move that would prove disastrous for the paper and the independent groundbreaking journalism it had always produced that helped to keep a check on government. Utterly compromised and lacking moral backbone, Rae, like his best friend Paul Williams, was the sort of grovelling hack who had the Garda Press Office on speed dial, afraid to print a line without their approval. We later discovered that both of these scoundrels were also on the list of state pawns who got nefarious favours from the Gardai including the wiping of motoring offences.
When Rae took over, we were warned that life in INM was about to change radically. A bizarre memo was sent down from ‘The Fifth Floor’ to say that adversarial journalism was to become a thing of the past in The Indo. What this meant in practical terms was that a politician could not be asked a question more than once and if they refused to answer they must be left alone.
To myself and a few other Rottweiler-style journalists who had always been encouraged by our editors to give politicians and all state operatives a hard time, it seemed like a sick joke. I agreed to myself that I would take it as such and carried on regardless.
During this time, the atmosphere in the paper darkened. Immature interns in short skirts and skimpy tops were brought in to replace hard-nosed journalists with long track records exposing low practices in high office. Overnight, it became Independent Lite - nothing more than a Garda PR operation and an ally of government that would be more than willing to participate in the Covid deception and vaccine mass murder when the time required some years later.
One evening in the months after he took over as editor, Rae sent a request to all journalists urging them to attend a social event with the Advertising Department - a partnership which up to then would have been inconceivable in The Irish Independent. As reporters, we fiercely guarded our independence from the commercial side of the business.
I had no intention of going and had planned to meet Maurice and John to discuss what would turn out to be one of the biggest scoops of my career despite Stephen Rae’s best efforts to destroy it. In the long list of VIPs who had speeding offences unlawfully wiped, we had uncovered a ‘Martin Callinan’. The two men were certain it was THE Martin Callinan, their nemesis, but I had to verify it independently so as not to inflict a defamation action on the paper. I pre-empted a question from our in-house lawyers: how do you know it’s definitely him? It could be another Martin Callinan. I left the men and hailed a cab to the address in Glasnevin.
I told the driver to wait as I knocked on the door and spoke to a lady I presumed to be his wife.
‘Is Martin Callinan here?’ I asked politely, apologising for the disturbance.
‘No,’ she answered pleasantly, stating he was away.
‘Is he the Garda Commissioner?’
‘Yes’.
I gave my name and left without another word.
Job done. I now had the proof that would meet the legal standard to publish the story.
I jumped back into my cab and went to meet my husband for dinner. I couldn’t wait to tell him. It felt like real vindication after years of work exposing Garda management and the profoundly evil practices they were involved in, causing no end of hurt to innocent citizens all over Ireland.
Here we had evidence that the head of the force had abused the law for his own personal gain. It would have to result in his sacking. But as it happened, a few days later I was in the firing line, for merely doing my job and trying to undo the stranglehold corruption had over the Gardai.
I had barely finished my starter when my mobile rang. It was one of Rae’s stooges in a raging temper, claiming all hell was about to let loose on me because I had dared to call to the Commissioner’s house. I tried to calm him down and let him know we had a massive scoop which I needed to verify, but he didn’t want to know. He ordered me not to breath a word about the story to anyone.
A wave of nausea cut through me. They were clearly trying to punish me for being impeccably cautious and were looking for an excuse to reject the story. In all my time in the paper I had sacrificed so much for, I had never been abused like that. Prior to now, a story like this would have earned me the praise of management and resulted in congratulatory emails and calls. Instead I was being treated like a pariah and being told to keep my mouth shut. They soon discovered they were messing with the wrong person.
Needless to say I didn’t shut up and insisted that the story be published over the following days.
I was ignored. Rae then resorted to calling me names in front of other people, and one morning, after I had made it clear that I would not be silenced by appearing on Prime Time again about the penalty points scandal, word came through that a senior manager had been hauled up to Garda HQ and my removal ordered.
At the time, I was finishing up a story about the corrupt FF TD Robert Troy and how Gardai had mysteriously failed to serve multiple summonses upon him for motoring offences. More Garda protection of VIPs. What if he had killed somebody’s child? Nobody cared.
By now the new regime were fuming over my brazen attitude and unwillingness to stand down.
When they refused to print my Callinan story, I gave it to a third party who put it out elsewhere. Embarrassed into publishing it, Rae eventually put it down the side of page one rewriting it in such a way as to acquit Callinan. He buried my story about Robert Troy on page 18.
Then came a memo from the head of HR, Declan Carlyle, calling me up to his office for a chat. I knew Carlyle quite well and naively believed I was to be given an apology for the appalling way I had been treated by Rae for doing my job getting a big exclusive. But as soon as I stepped into his office, I knew he too was up to his neck in the rotten scheme. Like all hardened reporters, I had my dictaphone in my pocket ready to push record. The contents of that particular tape are explosive.
The bottom line was I had to go. Money would not be a problem, but my title ‘Chief Features Writer’ was being done away with therefore I would be too. I told him I would not be bought off and would see them in court.
As I walked into the warm sunlight of the early summer evening, something was telling me that the nightmare I was going through would be the making of me. I realise now that it was.
My efforts to shake the National Union Of Journalists and its secretary Seamus Dooley into action was a learning curve too. They could have stopped the whole process by ordering a shutdown of the printing press until I was reinstated but I soon discovered he was just another cog in the O’Brien/Garda machine.
A few days later, I cleared my desk and walked out of Talbot Towers for the last time without flinching. I know now that my guardian angel rescued me from the awful hell that was about to descend on the paper.
Within weeks, news of my unlawful dismissal had leaked out and glowing reports about my work mixed with disgust for Rae and Callinan were appearing in Phoenix Magazine, The Guardian and on the floor of the Dáil. I was invited to speak at media conferences in Europe about corruption in Ireland and give talks about journalism in schools and colleges. Martin Callinan’s efforts to hide his criminal behaviour were now known across the country. His mistake was putting his lapdogs on me. Some months later, he was forced to step down himself.
My lawyer made it clear to INM that we were heading to court and I issued legal proceedings for defamation, unfair dismissal and personal injury against Rae and the company. In a pathetic effort to make amends, the CEO came to meet me one summer’s day. It could all be sorted amicably, he said. I could come back to my job as long as I stayed away from Garda corruption stories. I laughed at the suggestion.
It took more than a year to go through the various legal hoops, and during that time, I knew I was being followed by unmarked Garda cars. Maurice had told me they were listening to every word on our calls but that never bothered me. I had nothing to hide except the fact that I was going to dedicate the rest of my career to exposing the rot in the force. The Gardai had already ordered the murder of Veronica Guerin for exposing their links to drugs, crime and gangland. They were hardly going to kill another reporter, but if they did, I was willing to die for what I believed was a noble cause and the purpose of my time on Earth.
INM is well aware of the terrible toll the entire saga took on those close to me, particularly one of my loved ones and that it directly contributed to his death. Every person involved in my firing has the blood of that man on their hands. But that is a subject I have chosen not to write about for now as it is still too personal and painful to share with the public.
In the end, the company was forced to settle my case in front of the President of The High Court, issue an apology and pay me compensation for the hardship they had put me and my family through.
Since then, O’Brien and Rae have been exposed for the crooks they are and The Irish Independent is reduced to a government pamphlet pushing lethal injections and lie after lie on the few who are still foolish enough to read it.
The damages paid to me allowed me to pay off our mortgage and were a springboard to start a new career on my own continuing my exposés unshackled, producing documentaries and publishing The Irish Light.
So justice was done for me in the end but only after a long fight and a determination that right would prevail. As a Catholic and patriot, I have watched with pain the impact of Garda corruption on Ireland knowing that if The Irish Independent had remained true to its mission, we could have stopped the nightmare that is now unfolding.
If I had been editor during Covid, we would have informed the public day in and day out of the scam that was underway and that the vaccine would result in the deaths of tens of thousands of Irish people.
But God had another plan. I now understand that this terrible evil has to play itself out so that people will finally see what has been done to them and why they must never trust the institutions of the Irish State again, all of which will collapse in the fullness of time along with RTE and the rest of the gutter media. Just watch.
Thank you all for your continued support.
This article is dedicated to all Irish people whose lives have been destroyed by the most corrupt police force in the world, An Garda Síochána, in particular Aaron Brady, who has been framed by them for the murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe.
You are an inspiration, Gemma.
An absolute joy to read your work Gemma 🍀