Irish radio show criticized for calling columnist a Holocaust-denier

Myers is set to speak at The Little Museum in Dublin, just half a year after being ousted from The Sunday Times.

By AMY SPIRO
Updated: FEBRUARY 12, 2018 05:18
Kevin Myers article that got him ousted from The Sunday Times (photo credit: Courtesy)
Kevin Myers article that got him ousted from The Sunday Times
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Is Kevin Myers a Holocaust-denier? In 2009, the firebrand columnist wrote in the Irish Independent, “There was no holocaust (or Holocaust, as my computer software insists) and six million Jews were not murdered by the Third Reich. These two statements of mine are irrefutable truths.”
But earlier last week, the Irish national broadcaster RTE was criticized by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, after a morning-show host categorized Myers as a Holocaust-denier last year.
On Tuesday, the Broadcasting Authority published a decision that upheld a complaint against the Morning Ireland radio show. The authority claimed, “It was evident from the article as a whole that his description did not in fact amount to a statement denying the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazi regime. Rather, the article was a comment on how language is used and the criminalization of individuals or groups who engage in Holocaust-denial.”
And just as Myers was supposedly vindicated, he appears to be gearing up for a comeback, with an upcoming appearance at The Little Museum in Dublin. It has been just over six months since he was ousted as a columnist from the Sunday Times.
The Sunday Times? That’s right, Myers wasn’t actually fired over the Holocaust column in The Independent, but rather a much more recent one that centered on the gender pay-gap. And it was only once an outcry erupted over the summer that the Holocaust op-ed was pulled from that newspaper’s website eight years later.
The column that did get Myers fired contained his assertion that the two highest paid women at the BBC were Jewish and that “Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price.”
The Sunday Times – after originally approving that column for publication – removed it from its website after the controversy erupted and fired Myers. Its editor said the comments were “unacceptable and should not have been published” and said that Myers “will not write again” for the paper.
The newspaper, however, is a patron of the museum where Myers is expected to speak later this month. Neither the newspaper nor the museum responded to a request for comment by press time.
On February 21, Myers is slated to appear as part of a lecture series at The Little Museum in Dublin, speaking on “Contingency Governs All – the role played by chance in Irish history.”
In August, just a few weeks after Myers was fired, he withdrew from moderating a talk on censorship in Limerick, Ireland. Last month, however, he attended Dublin’s annual Holocaust Memorial Day Service.
In a TV interview in December – his first since the scandal – Myers slammed his dismissal and what he saw as the destruction of his reputation.
“I was fired without explanation,” he told interviewer Claire Byrne on RTE. “No one has the right to say this man will never be employed again... my reputation was destroyed.” Myers added that today, “If you are perceived to be wrong, you’re not contradicted, you are destroyed.”


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