Kevin Myers

Kevin Myers (born 30 March 1947) is an Irish journalist and writer. He writes for the Irish edition of The Sunday Times, having previously been a columnist for the Irish Independent and a former contributor to both The Irish Times, where he wrote the "An Irishman's Diary" opinion column several times weekly, and the UK Sunday Telegraph.

His articles criticise left-wing opinion and the "liberal consensus", sometimes incorporating hyperbole, sarcasm and parody.

Myers was born to an Irish emigrant family in Leicester, England, where his father was a general practitioner. He attended Ratcliffe College, a Catholic independent school. Myers was accepted by University College Dublin (UCD), where he subsequently obtained a degree in History in 1969. He began to work as a journalist for Irish broadcaster RTÉ, and reported from Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles from 1971 to 1978. In the 1980s, he covered the Lebanese Civil War, and in the 1990s the Bosnian War. Otherwise he has been based in Dublin and Liverpool.

Myers is married and lives in County Kildare. He is the brother-in-law of TV presenter, producer and UK Big Brother housemate Anna Nolan.

Aid to Africa

In July 2008, Myers wrote an article arguing that providing aid to Africa only results in increasing its population, and its problems. This produced strong reactions, with the Immigrant Council of Ireland making an official complaint to the Garda Síochána alleging incitement to hatred.

Hans Zomer of Dóchas, an association of NGOs, and another complainant, took a complaint to the Press Council on the grounds that it breached four principles of the Council's Code of Practice: 1) Accuracy, 3) Fairness and Honesty, 4) Respect for Rights, and 8) Incitement to Hatred. In their case details the Press Council said:

beginning with the headline "Africa is giving nothing to anyone – apart from AIDS", the mode of presentation was marked by rhetorical extravagance and hyperbole which used the failings of some to stigmatise whole societies, employing a level of generalisation that was distorting and seriously insulting to Africans as a whole and that, ... [I]n addition the article resorted, in several instances, to language that was gratuitously offensive and was, in the view of the Press Council, likely to cause grave offence to people throughout sub-Saharan Africa and to the many Africans in particular who are now resident in Ireland. They concluded that the article did breach Principle 8 of the Code of Practice in that it was likely to cause grave offence. It did not, however, find reason to conclude that it was likely to stir-up hatred or that there was any intention to do so. They also concluded that the Council did not have clear grounds on which to make any findings in relation to the complaints under Principles 1, 3 & 4 of the Code.

— Press Council of Ireland Complainants and the Irish Independent

He was presenter of the Challenging Times television quiz show on RTÉ during the 1990s. In 2000, he published a collection of his An Irishman's Diary columns (ISBN 1-85182-575-4). In 2001, he published Banks of Green Willow, a novel, which was met with negative reviews. In 2006, he published Watching the Door (ISBN 1-84351-085-5), about his time as a journalist in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. The book received positive reviews in The Times, The Guardian, and the New Statesman, while The Independent published a more mixed review that wondered whether there was "an element of hyperbole" in Myers' account.

He is member of the Film Classification Appeals Board (formerly known as the Censorship Board) and a regular contributor to radio programmes on Newstalk 106, particularly Lunchtime with Eamon Keane and The Right Hook. He has regularly appeared on The Last Word on Today FM.