Geraldine Kennedy

Geraldine Kennedy (born 1951) is an Irish journalist and former politician. She became the first female editor of "The Irish Times" upon the departure of Conor Brady in 2002. Kennedy had held several senior positions at the paper; at the time of her appointment to the top post, she was serving as political editor. [One of her rivals for the editor's chair was the paper's high-profile columnist, Fintan O'Toole] .

Kennedy was barely out of her teens when she began her journalistic career with a regional newspaper, the "Munster Express". She moved to the "Cork Examiner" [Now the "Irish Examiner"] after less than a year, but spent only a few years there before joining "The Irish Times", [An impressive riseFact|date=December 2007 for a journalist still in her early twenties] .

On the foundation of the "Sunday Tribune" in 1980, Kennedy joined it as the paper's political correspondent. [The paper's publisher, John Mulcahy, had become familiar with Kennedy when she had contributed to his journal "Hibernia".] The "Tribune" has always been a troubled paperFact|date=December 2007. When it briefly ceased publication, Kennedy moved to the "Sunday Press". [A paper that would itself shut down permanently within a few years] .

Early in 1987, Kennedy successfully sued the incumbent Charles Haughey-led Fianna Fáil government for illegally tapping her phone. She was one of fourteen Progressive Democrat TDs elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1987 general election, the first election after the party was founded. She was elected for the Dún Laoghaire constituency and became the party's spokesperson for foreign affairs.

In the 1989 election, Kennedy lost her seat and returned to "The Irish Times", then edited by Conor Brady [Whom she had worked with at the "Tribune", where he had been editor for a time.]

Though she avoided party-political journalism for several years, she returned to covering politics in the early '90s, and became "The Irish Times"'s political editor in 1999. She was appointed editor of the paper in late 2002. Brady had been editor for 16 years, and was consideredFact|date=December 2007 a brilliant one; however, in his last year, the paper sufferedFact|date=December 2007 severe financial difficulties, problems which have since been somewhat smoothed out.

In September 2006, Kennedy approved the publication of an article in The Irish Times giving confidential details of investigations being made into payments purported to have been made in 1993 to Ireland’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Bertie Ahern.

Kennedy refused, upon request of the investigating Tribunal, to provide details of the source of the printed information. She responded that the documents had since been destroyed. Her refusal caused the Tribunal to seek High Court orders compelling her to provide details of the source. On 23 October 2007, the High Court granted the orders compelling her to go before the Tribunal and answer all questions. In its judgment, the High Court, criticising her decision to destroy the documents, said it was an 'astounding and flagrant disregard of the rule of law'. Kennedy announced, on 9 November 2007, that she will appeal the High Court's orders to the Supreme Court.

References

ee also

* Douglas Gageby

External links

* [http://oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=25&MemberID=576&ConstID=99 Oireachtas database entry for Kennedy]
* [http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=3674 Elections Ireland - Profile]