Máiría Cahill
@cahillbooks
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Writer, former Senator, waived anonymity 2014. No 1 Bestselling Book Rough Beast, Shortlisted for Non-Fiction book of the year.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Joined November 2022
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Pinned Tweet
I told the story last night of the time I entered the Martin Mc Guinness poetry competition. Here's the poem, The Fisherman.
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Announcement re Aoife Grace Moore’s recent book on Sinn Féin.
Moral of the story? Check, check again, and if you get it wrong, do the decent thing and apologise.
I've turned comments off as I am solely concerned with a dignified addressing of a very distressing episode.
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The woman on the right of this picture at the coffin is Breige Wright. She features heavily in my book as one of three IRA members who took me into a room to face my rapist.
She's just this year, been put on the board of Community Restorative Justice. Go figure.
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This all sounds lovely, and would be, if she wasn't telling IRA victims, there was "no alternative" at the same time. You cannot on the one hand say you "regret" a "loss of life" and then argue there was no other way out than for the IRA "campaign" which killed them...
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I've been thinking about this post, and to explain how ridiculous it is, it's like saying "The rapes of Máiría Cahill by an IRA man were terrible, but put them in the context of the Famine and partition."
Rape is a war crime. No ifs or buts.
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Michelle O'Neill is currently speaking about "having women's backs" in relation to violence against women and girls. Here's what she said on an IRA sex abuse case. "Not for me to say whether I believe her."
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“I don’t think you can call yourself a feminist and still support Sinn Fein while they continue to deny what happened in my case. I think that’s called hypocrisy.”
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Where to start?
In '91, the IRA killed two people by bombing Musgrave Park hospital.
They also left a bomb outside the Royal Children's Hospital on the Falls Road.
Then, the time bullets ripped through incubators in the neo natal unit when they tried to kill Nigel Dodds.
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Easter Sunday yesterday, Belfast. It's about time children were just allowed to be children.
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Here is the FM saying the Kingsmill families deserved truth and justice at the inquest. The republican movement, including members of her party, refused to cooperate with the inquest, meaning that they denied the full truth to them.
Anyone going to call out this gaslighting?
🚨FM
@moneillsf
: "I am sorry for every lost life, including those in Kingsmill disaster."
When asked if she would apologise on behalf of republican movement for killings carried out - FM also said "families deserve truth & justice."
Political Reporter
@jamesgould23
was there.
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Thank you to everyone who came to the Dublin book launch of Rough Beast, and to Olivia O'Leary who was so kind about the book. Great night.
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Here is the former Officer Commanding of the IRA in Long Kesh prison, tweeting me complaining about who he thinks turned up to my book launch.
This is what I have to put up with.
News, Flash. Youse don't scare me any more.
@splancmc
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@moneillsf
Agree. You couldn't start by exercising your own responsibility as a SF leader and admit that the IRA "investigated" my abuse, brought me face to face with my rapist, and used SF offices to question me?
You could ask your colleague Duckser. He might know the answer...
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Fair play to the man who walked into the SF shop on the Falls Road to ask if he could buy a copy of Rough Beast. He couldn't because, although they sell Ian Paisley's books (even though he removed a tricolour nearby), they're censoring mine... here it is in Tenerife instead. 😉
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If anyone else put out a sweeping sectarian statement like this, it would be called a dog-whistle. But its Joe Brolly (who incidentally believes he has a positive contribution to make to political office), and so many people just roll their eyes and go "That's Joe".
Why?
Why do Ulster Scot Protestants support genocide? The mass murder of men, women and children? Why do they champion it with such relish - crush, erase, eradicate, destroy? 8,000 murdered already. How many dead kids is enough? 10,000? 100,000? 500,000?
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I just spent time with the families of the Shankill bomb at a very moving service. I put my arms around a terminally ill mother whose 13 year old child was taken from her along with eight others that day. I watched devastation on first responders faces. Take down your tweet.
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Not sure what is going on with Joe Brolly these days, but this is really unacceptable. Perhaps if you read the book Joe, you'd think twice about your online persona, which, I'm told, is marginally worse than your offline one. I'll send you a copy if you like.
@JoeBrolly1993
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Me being questioned by the IRA in Gerry Adams' office and in other Sinn Féin offices about my abuse, has been read into the Dáil record by
@ciarancannon
Sinn Féin should answer questions put to it by journalists.
Rough Beast details the meetings and I'm glad to have it raised.
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Monday's Shankill bomb memorial service taken by their official photographer. Joe Hendron visited the road in the aftermath of the bomb to offer help to people. Now, at almost 91, he's still visiting.
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She didn't lose her life. Her life was taken from her because people chose to take it.
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In every conflict, the sense of entitlement over women's bodies means that they and children are the "spoils of war." The recent videos showing women who have been clearly raped and are bleeding being paraded through the streets, is both chilling and sickening.
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4 star review from The Telegraph for
#roughbeast
"To begin with Rough Beast reads like a thriller... Anyone who thinks Adams' party should be anywhere near power in Ireland, should read this book."
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This is disgusting. Brolly would be the first to complain if his views on anything were linked to his late father. John FitzGerald is an economist who stated on air he is agnostic on unity. He also said his father was "suffering from confirmation bias". Brolly should apologise.
The “top economist” who spearheaded the ‘research’ on a United Ireland is John Fitzgerald. He is Fine Gael royalty. His grandfather a founding member of FG. As Taoiseach, his father Garret supported Margaret Thatcher’s position on the hunger strikes. He loathed our community.
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Like anyone else who knows Jeffrey Donaldson, I am shocked by recent news. There is a court process in place, and that has to be allowed to run its course. Online speculation is not helpful to anyone, and I don't intend to add to it, but I will await the outcome of that process.
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The funeral service for Michael O'Regan was a lovely one for a lovely man. This reflection is worth sharing.
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Thank you to
@fionnansheahan
.
"Sinn Féin has ducked, dived and dodged questions for almost a decade now about whether its offices hosted an IRA kangaroo court. Imagine the outcry if a Labour Party office was used for a Kinahan Cartel meeting..."
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Here I am, late 1990s at a Sinn Féin organised protest ( later turned into a riot). I have confidence in Drew Harris and the Justice Minister, because I watched Gardaí deal with widespread disorder in a short space of time, without firing one baton round. Mary Lou is showboating.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald says she has no confidence in the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris or the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee following last night riots in Dublin city centre.
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Sweet Jesus.
Kathleen Funchion TD has called on the government to do more to meet the needs of victims of domestic, sexual and gender based violence
@Kathleensf1
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No response that I could write in a tweet is adequate.
Read Rough Beast.
Republicans have long understood the connection between Irish freedom & women’s rights. From Ann Devlin to Anna Parnell, Markievicz to Drumm, from Sheena Campbell to Mairead Farrell - an unbroken line of women who sacrificed for freedom, equality & justice
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I'm very happy at this judgement - it has been a long 4+ years case for
@malodoherty
- and it was a disgraceful case to take against him.
Other Sinn Féin representatives should drop their existing cases against journalists and stop issuing legal letters like confetti.
#slapp
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"Not since Gerry Kelly blew up the Old Bailey in London half a century ago has he caused so much damage. But whereas that explosion killed one man and injured more than 200 others, this time the damage is confined to himself and his party. "
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Great news!
Rough Beast is now available to buy in all good bookshops throughout Ireland and the UK.
Thanks to everyone who will buy a copy, or who has already pre-ordered. Very much appreciated.
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Well. Rough Beast went to Number One in the Irish Paperback Non-Fiction charts. Thank you to all who are buying the book and reading it. And who are telling your friends to pick it up too.
#roughbeast
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@chrisadonnelly
Wasn't a myth Chris. I did a series on tape of prominent SF women, one of whom was Marie Moore - then the Deputy Mayor of Belfast - who not only admitted to impersonation, but described how she voted 6 times in one day.
@SJAMcBride
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Jim Allister rightly pointing out to the First Minister her words about a rape victim, and indeed Gerry Adams' words to me.
He didn't need to use the word hypocrites on a motion on Violence against women. Have a listen.
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Am really chuffed (and overwhelmed) to say that world-renowned author and playwright Roddy Doyle has read my book, and he says it is "Shocking, important, and unputdownable." Thanks so much Roddy, I really appreciate it.
Rough Beast is available from 28th September.
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So many words, yet nothing said.
"We're sorry" might have been a start.
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Here's Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey switching on the Stormont Christmas tree lights in November, Mairéad. In 2022, there were 45,292 households on the social housing waiting list in NI.
Spotted this tree in the Dáil this evening just after speaking on homelessness in the Dáil, shame on the Government for making people homeless in the run up to Christmas, thinking of the families who can't put up a tree this year, shame on this Government
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Just to those who are running accounts with very little followers all saying the same thing.
Not my first rodeo. I now thankfully have recourse to hold abusive accounts (and those operating them) accountable.
If you had any wit you'd realise you're selling my book for me.
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"In Belfast Adams carried the Shankill bombers coffin. There is a myth, oft-repeated, that he had to, for peace. Nonsense. He chose to, and he should own the fact that he deliberately shouldered Begley, knowing the signal it would send to the bereaved."
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I'd say you slapped the bake off him
@malodoherty
. And an important victory against lawfare.
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"For instance, Mary Lou McDonald is suing RTÉ over comments made about the Mairia Cahill case, while her husband is suing Shane Ross over parts of his book that dealt with the purchase and renovation of the couple’s house."
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“I understand that people are frustrated and look for where the grass is greener..but anybody that thinks Sinn Fein is going to wave a wand and have this utopian magic united Ireland, which is going to do away with every social ill there is bonkers...”
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I'm scratching my head at the whole Pearse Mc Auley debate.
1. SF members will not go to his funeral.
2. SF members will go to Rose Dugdales funeral.
That is because SF (as I wrote previously) separate different acts of violence. Cont'd.
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Big thank you to
@StephenNolan
and his team at
@BBCNolan
for that interview.
A reminder that Sinn Féin has never admitted an IRA investigation took place, or that their offices were used by the IRA to question me.
Read the book. It's in there from A-Z.
#roughbeast
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The crazy thing about all this is that SF want Stormont funding to name a peace building in Derry – and they want Mc Guinness' name alongside John Humes. Can anyone think of a worse insult to Hume's legacy?
When I wrote the line in the McGuinness The Fisherman poem : 'He loaded the boot with a bomb and smiled for the camera', this is the film I was referring to.
Watch Martin McGuinness help to put a car bomb together, which later blows up Shipquay Street.
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The comments under this article prove my point for me. Ireland has a problem with toxic, angry men.
And racism.
Máiría Cahill: Ireland is full — full of hypocrites who don’t know their history
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Ah, sure, you have to take the selfie while you're both still sensible...
@AnPostIBAS
, here we come.
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This is two years after I was first abused, and the same year that the IRA came to me in 1999. Look how young I was. This is the young woman who walks up the street in the Prologue of Rough Beast.
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Morning. On your way to work this morning, if you're passing a wee bookshop, call in and pick up a copy of this...
#roughbeast
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My daughter Saorlaith was 13 recently. I was pregnant with her when I made my police complaint. What better way to be an embarrassing mother than to have everyone at a book launch sing Happy Birthday? (We kept her out of the room due to the sensitive content until the end.)
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In short. If you're going to complain that being called an IRA man accused of shooting someone in the head damages your reputation, probably best not to write not one but two memoirs about being in the IRA.
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The obvious question to Michelle would have been : "Have you ever instructed a solicitor to send a legal letter on your behalf to a journalist, and then not follow up with a writ?"
I know the answer, I would just like to know if it was asked. If not, people are sleeping in.
Michelle O’Neill said Sinn Fein has no “joined-up or concerted effort” to silence anybody through legal action after a party MLA was ordered to pay costs in a failed defamation action.
➡️
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At the risk of starting murder, it isn't just "British people" who call it Boxing Day. We've always called it Boxing Day in NI, and in all of my 42 years, I never heard one Irish west Belfast republican refer to it as anything else.
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Quite a lot of misogyny flying around here again, which disproves my theory that had I gone public after
#MeToo
I wouldn't have been treated as badly by republicans online.
They're just as bad, and so the only thing to do is keep plugging the book.
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Happy New Year. The first two women made my year in October, and are the kindest (and brilliant) women. The second two are wingnuts, but good wingnuts. Here's to 2024, and thanks to everyone who read the book, shared the book, or sold the book in the last one. Always appreciated.
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This review for Rough Beast gave me a smile this morning.
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I am thinking of my friends Breege and Stephen on the 16th anniversary of their son Paul's murder.
Anyone who can help the Quinn family, please do so. It's never too late.
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Before the bots fly at me, I was specifically asked "Do you think Kneecap would be treated the same if they were Loyalists? And I said "no, there would be less romanticism"..
Mairia Cahill: ‘There’d be less romanticism around Kneecap if they were loyalists’:
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"If a victim of abuse is telling you (Mary Lou Mc Donald) that the Sinn Féin party offices were used by an illegal armed organisation to question them, then you have a responsibility to do something about that."
Sinn Féin are corporately responsible.
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Thanks to everyone who has helped to get this book out there since September. All those who have read the book, bought the book, sold it, recommended it, or gifted it. All my Christmas prep is done, so I'm now catching up on reading everyone else's writing.
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Still wondering how this happened. No agent, little clue what I was doing, just me, a laptop and an understanding editor and publisher when I changed from the book I was writing, to Rough Beast.
Now, nominated for Non- Fiction book of the year.
Vote.
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Máiría Cahill: Squalid intricacies of IRA ‘freedom fighting’ laid bare as leaders lie low.
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I loved this review for
#roughbeast
"They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and Mairia Cahill has served both Adams and McDonald on ice, like 2 beautifully dressed crabs."
"If Cahill hasn't considered a career as a political sketchwriter, she really should start."
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Last night's book launch was a microcosm of NI society. There were Unionists and Nationalists, Loyalists and Republicans, people who had no position on the Constitutional question, police, lawyers, politicians and non political people.
Everyone got along. Thank you all.
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A bit of a thread as to why this case was such a head scratcher for Gerry Kelly to take.
1. He was involved in the 1983 Prison escape.
2. He was involved with Bobby Storey in a takeover of part of the prison. A gun was involved.
3. A prison officer was shot in the head.(1/3)
I'm very happy at this judgement - it has been a long 4+ years case for
@malodoherty
- and it was a disgraceful case to take against him.
Other Sinn Féin representatives should drop their existing cases against journalists and stop issuing legal letters like confetti.
#slapp
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When I wrote the line in the McGuinness The Fisherman poem : 'He loaded the boot with a bomb and smiled for the camera', this is the film I was referring to.
Watch Martin McGuinness help to put a car bomb together, which later blows up Shipquay Street.
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I interviewed Ian Bailey four years ago in west Cork for
@Independent_ie
. It remains the strangest interview I've done. I don't know definitively whether or not he killed Sophie Toscan du Plantier. But I wouldn't be surprised if he did.
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Thirty years ago today, UFF gunmen shot my classmate's mother, Theresa Clinton (34), 23 times as she sat on her sofa, killing her. She had two children. Later, a report found collusion. This is a plaque about her life. I think of her and Roseann often, but especially on the 14th.
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I wrote this piece for
#IWD
a few years ago. Rather than write another, given my view hasn't changed, I'm recycling this one.
It's for those people who call themselves feminists but cherrypick their victims, making them not feminists but hypocrites.
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As the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis gets underway, The Newsletter continues to try and get an answer from the party.
"Mairia Cahill has called for clarity over a claim in her book that the IRA used Sinn Fein offices to question her about abuse allegations."
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It shouldn't have to be said, but if you publish information which could, or is likely to lead to the identification of a complainant in a sexual offences case, it is 6 months imprisonment.
Complainants in such cases have a legal lifetime right to anonymity +25 yrs after death.
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I would expect the
@duponline
, the
@SDLPlive
the
@uuponline
and
@allianceparty
to make the obvious point.
We cannot cherry pick which women we treat properly and those we don't. Treating women properly means admitting responsibility for how they were treated.
#nocredibility
Sinn Féin will bring forward an Assembly motion to ensure the Violence Against Women & Girls Strategy becomes a priority.
Tackling violence against women & girls is essential in our community.
The scourge of gender violence & misogyny must be ended
#WorkingForAll
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Very happy to be nominated for An Post Non-Fiction book of the year.
@AnPostIBAS
@HoZ_Books
@GillHessLtd
@DubrayBooks
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@chrisadonnelly
@SJAMcBride
I give you exhibit one and two of the SF mass vote stealing machine. (And even though he's dead, this account is easily corroborated).
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Meant to post this earlier. My daughter Saorlaith is usually very cool around public figures because she's grown up around a lot of them and thinks they're her mates. I have never seen a reaction from her like the other night when she met Ryan Tubridy and
@1rorycowan
. Delighted.
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The previous link didn't work, so let's try this again.
Please give this a listen. It's my interview earlier on the Brendan O'Connor show about my book my background, growing up in west Belfast, the abuse, Sinn Féin and the IRA.
#roughbeast
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This was an important thing for me to be able to say on air – to expose the Sinn Féin nonsense statement that they regularly give to media on my case. Fair play to Times Radio for carrying it.
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Waiting 25 years on Sinn Féin to clearly apologise and admit the IRA brought me to face my rapist. Mary Lou McDonald should practice what she preaches to others.
This was an important thing for me to be able to say on air – to expose the Sinn Féin nonsense statement that they regularly give to media on my case. Fair play to Times Radio for carrying it.
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A huge thank you to everyone who has voted for Rough Beast in the
@AnPostIBAS
. Whatever happens, it has been great to be shortlisted, and I appreciate the time everyone took to vote and all the support. Thanks a million. Máiría.
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One for the
@NWCI
.
“I don’t think you can call yourself a feminist and still support Sinn Fein while they continue to deny what happened in my case. I think that’s called hypocrisy.”
#roughbeast
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The glamour of publishing. Standing getting soaked in the rain waiting on a taxi to take me to an interview because the ramp is broken in Leinster House and my car is trapped 🤣🤣
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"A dead 13 year old like Leanne Murray doesn't matter to most who will cast their ballots regardless, happy to vote for a party that thinks a plaque referring to a killer as a warrior is acceptable.
Because Ireland needs houses. Mór mo náir, mór mo bhrón."
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@JoeBrolly1993
@TCM39599285
@SeanMcC1967
Hi Joe. Not sure why anyone would think these tweets about my case - a child abuse case - is appropriate. Give your heads a shake.
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A few weeks ago at my launch, I said you know how Sinn Féin will behave once they get to power by their record in how they treat the most vulnerable in society. This is shameful. I've blanked out this man's face because he may well have a legal case here for breach of privacy.
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Still no idea what Gerry Kelly was thinking. This is just one of the events where people paid money to listen to these three have a bit of craic about their roles in the 1983 escape.
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One of the worst examples of Sinn Féin attempts at SLAPP came in relation to my case - when the party sent a solicitor's letter to Spotlight who were covering the Ombudsman report into my child abuse case - before one word had even been broadcast.
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Thanks a million to
@fhayesmccoy
and to everyone who came out tonight to the
#roughbeast
event for
@DingleLit
. Great to see everyone.
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I reserve, personally, the right to state that Mary Lou Mc Donald has never sued me. Read Rough Beast to discover why.
'I reserve, personally, the right to defend my reputation' - Mary Lou McDonald on pursuing complaints against the media
This is an interesting read, we are not above scrutiny but if you do scrutinise us we will Sue
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"Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald was nominated for a ‘bully of the year’ award by an organisation that campaigns against powerful individuals using defamation laws to silence critics, known as SLAPPS – Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation."
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I'm very happy that Rough Beast entered the Irish top ten non-fiction paperback list, considering publication day was just last Thursday.
I'm visiting bookstores in Dublin tomorrow, so call in to them for your signed copy.
#roughbeast
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Worth reminding people that after the last time Shinners photographed themselves signing a White Ribbon pledge and I complained, Women's Aid Fed ended their involvement with White Ribbon.
It's worth reading Rough Beast to find out why I objected.
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One journalist who I forgot to mention earlier was the first to cover my story in the south. Thanks Paddy.
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"For Sinn Féin there is good violence and bad violence", Cahill said.
“Was anyone really surprised when McAuley stabbed his wife and developed a problem with alcohol given his history of violence? Where does that continuum of violence stop?” she said.
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