Michael O’Toole
@mickthehack
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Following
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Media
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Crime and Defence Editor, @isfearranstar and @irishmirror w/ @reach_ireland . Linguist: 🇮🇹🇫🇷🇪🇸🇸🇦. Crime novelist, too. See my pinned tweet. #MCFC fan.
Ireland
Joined February 2009
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How to contact me securely:
-Threema, which is anonymous. My ID: XSTX4UW6
- Snapchat (messages disappear): mickthehack
- DM me for
@signalapp
number - a secure messaging app.
- Confidentiality of DMs here is sacrosanct
- Email: mickthehack
@protonmail
.com
Let it out.
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In March I’ll have done 20 years as a crime reporter in Dublin. Have, conservatively, covered 600+ murders in that time. Thought I’d seen it all, including bodies being dismembered. But the murder of Keane Mulready-Woods changes everything. Hard to believe, to be honest.
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I’ve had more than a few guards tell me this. Some people will undoubtedly disagree, but that’s grand, I think it’s important you know what they’re thinking.
They genuinely applauded the Brazilian hero Caio Benicio for smacking the knife attacker hard with his helmet, but they…
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Three heroes who risked their lives to tackle Dublin creche knifeman
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Hero school worker who put life on the line to save kids out of intensive care
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Kudos to the RTÉ staff working on
#GE2020
tonight - it can’t be easy for them after the loss of their much admired colleague Keelin Shanley earlier today.
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The family of the lady killed in Wednesday night’s hit and run in central Dublin have released this photograph of her, through
@gardainfo
.
Her name was Carol Seery.
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A lot of cops really can’t believe the way many Irish people have acted today. These are police officers who are quite cynical and have seen it all. They’re shocked at the amount of people congregating, from what I’m told. Lot of anger about it, to be honest.
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Still the highlight of the UK general election campaign. It’s a crazy plan, but it might just work...
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A word for all the gardai involved in the quest for justice for Ashling Murphy.
They got their man.
And also for prosecutor Anne Marie Lawlor SC, who played a blinder.
It was clear from her opening that Puska was done for - it was devastating.
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Expect lots of arrests soon enough…
Riot thugs being shopped to gardai by 'disgusted' family and friends
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Those bloody foreigners, coming here and brining our babies into the world...
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Am told the
@gardainfo
member facing a disciplinary for giving a pensioner a bicycle has been fully exonerated.
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Just back from a great week in Italy. But Jeez did it open my eyes about prices in Ireland. We went to this big shopping mall called Il Centro in Milan yesterday, a bit like Dundrum.
A latte and a cappuccino cost €3.
All in, not each.
Porca miseria!
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@teflondub
Ok, Tony. I’ll explain this again. This ia what gardai are saying. Don’t pick a fight with me over it.
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Good news:
@gardainfo
say the child missing in Leixlip, Co Kildare has been found safe and well
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People think they can do what they want to journalists and snappers. They just do. I see it and experience it regularly. Hope the lads are okay.
Anyone know who this Dara O'Flaherty wannabe is? Another out of control fascist, attacks on TDs and the press in 24 hours.
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Cops are sending each other this, if anyone wants a giggle: “If the Guards were doing the testing we would have at least 1 million done by now. 😂”
#Covid19Walkout
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There’s a major operation off the coast of Wexford involving the Coast Guard,
@IrishAirCorps
and
@gardainfo
- oh and probably millions and millions and millions of euro worth of cocaine in bales bobbing in the sea.
More as we get it.
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As a small gesture of solidarity with Italy, I subscribed to a paper in Bergamo, one of the areas worst affected. Not much, but something. I'll be honest, it's grim. It was that paper where the video went viral of all the death notices. I counted 13 pages in today's edition.
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Reporters are doing a great job at the count centres for
#LE19
and
#EP2019
all over Ireland. But notice the excellent service from, specifically, local newspapers. We’ll miss them when they’re gone, you know.
#buyapaper
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I think it’s best, on reflection, that I don’t live tweet from the Ana Kriegel trial. The comments to the tweets are too close to the bone.
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Yet again, a gentle reminder that the Tallaght case is now sub judice.
Please don’t comment on the case online.👍
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There you go
@Carra23
there’s an answer to your question from last week - it’s not about City fans being “so unhappy”, it’s that the media refuse to let us enjoy it. I say that with sadness as a journalist myself. The attacks are constant.
Does anyone at The Guardian sports desk even enjoy watching football any more? The likes of Liew, Wilson and Ronay seem to derive zero pleasure from the sport they are paid handsomely to cover, but try to impose their misery on the rest of us. Every fucking week.
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Suspected attacker tackled by a passerby at the scene.
This incident in Parnell Square is obviously very serious. Gardai from all over the city being deployed to the scene.
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Have gardai ever kept news of a homicide from the public?
I’ve been covering crime since March 2000; have covered hundreds of killings, probably 500+.
Gardai have not suppressed news of a single one.
I genuinely don’t know how they could. Ireland’s too small.
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I don’t have the exact quote, but there was a killer line from Mary Lou McDonald, along the lines of: "Those who keep referring to the past seem not be be interested in the future”.
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Fifteen years ago today, Joe O’Reilly murdered his wife Rachel at their home in Naul, north Dublin. RIP.
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Here it is, the best response to an interview request I’ve ever had...
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Jesus Christ. You do a TV ad and the next thing you know you’re getting a death threat.
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This is, unsurprisingly, wrong. Garda Tony Golden was murdered in October 2015. Det Gda Colm Horkan was murdered in June 2020 (the low blow about his own gun: He was assaulted and had the pistol taken from him).
And, as an aside, some 250 gardai have been attacked since 2021.
In the past 8 years one Irish cop has been killed on duty. And that was with his own gun.
If you have a child who cycles to school they are taking a bigger risk than a Garda going on duty.
Literally the only thing Gardaí are at a grave risk of in 🇮🇪 is being depicted in artwork
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I wish I could say that Puska looked monstrous when he was in the dock.
He didn’t.
He looked quite normal.
But that’s the banality of evil.
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The best of news. RIP Ashling.
BREAKING: Jozef Puska has been found GUILTY of the murder of Ashling Murphy.
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Thinking about what
@paddycosgrave
said, might be worth hacks telling our stories. I’ll start. Working class Belfast. Family first generation to go to college. Not in any party. No family link to journalism. No connection to Dublin 4. Knows apostrophe rule 😂.
#notalickspittle
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I dunno. On a personal level, fair play to someone getting a well paid job. But I really don’t like the idea of a hack going from holding ministers to account to defending them.
I’m sure other hacks will disagree with me, but that’s my opinion.
And I know some hacks do agree.
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BREAKING: three people dead in another road crash in Co Tipperary. One is a young child. Accident happened in Cashel area.
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When I used to drink I would occasionally sing My Way (very badly).
But I wasn’t dying, or approaching the end of my life.
It was just a song. Like Zombie. No need for navel gazing over analysis.
Same goes for the kids singing Up the Ra with the Wolfe Tones.
They’re kids.
I…
WATCH: Aoife Moore reacts to controversy over the singing of 'Zombie' by Irish rugby fans in France
#TonightVMTV
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Yikes; just realised I’m 30 years a hack this month. Were I a garda, I’d be able to take the half sheet and retire with a pension now.😀
But I’m not, so I won’t. Long time, though, to be a frontline reporter.
Anyway, onwards.
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BREAKING: Richard Satchwell has now been charged over the murder of Tina, his wife..
He is for court tomorrow.
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BREAKING: Major development in Kerry babies case:
@Gardainfo
detectives have today arrested a man and woman on suspicion of murder of Baby John, killed in April 1984.
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I'm at court 13 of the CCJ, where Jozef Puska (33) of Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly is on trial for the alleged murder of Ashling Murphy (23) in Tullamore on January 12, 2022.
He denies the charge.
The jury of three women and nine men was selected yesterday.
The trial…
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The suspicion is *up to* two tonnes of cocaine were on the trawler and the bulk of it is now in the sea.
But time will tell, it might be less.
However, two tonnes would be worth €140 million.
Which is a lot of cocaine, in fairness.
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Eh, don’t shoot the messenger, but...A rather frustrated garda has been in contact to point out strongly that leaving your house to go out sunbathing in a public area is not an essential journey. Nor is it exercise.
#StayAtHome
#Covid_19ireland
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Retired judge calls for Drew Harris to be sacked after garda suspension scandal
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Couple of things, Paddy. The Commissioner was a woman. She did not say the IRA had disbanded. She said its military departments and other IRA structure had been disbanded. Ask yourself this, if it had been disbanded, who or what is “maintaining” further down in her letter?
In 2015 the then Garda Commissioner said the IRA had “disbanded” and no longer maintained a “military structure”
This he added was the view of the International Monitoring Commission based on PSNI intel, as well as UK, US & Irish intelligence
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One thing I hope for next year is that all newspapers - broadsheet, tabloid, whatever - stop using the term “child porn” (yes, I know what the act says). We really do need to move away from that. It’s child abuse material. And it’s horrific.
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It’s quite remarkable: We’re almost in October and, according to my records, there hasn’t been a single gangland gun murder in the Republic this year.
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“IS THIS WHAT PADRAIG PEARSE DIED FOR?” No, kid, he did not die for pork. Muppet.
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BREAKING: shooting incident in Blanchardstown, west Dublin. One man seriously injured.
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Yesterday’s murder was the eighth of a woman in Ireland this year. In all but one of them (Lyra McKee), a man known to them is the suspect, or has been charged. Twenty eight homicides so far in 2018.
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On a serious note, most Irish journalists earn under €40k and are as overworked and goosed as everyone else.
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Somebody somewhere hasn’t seen this. They need to see it.
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Simon Harris has just said on Prime Time that he will be signing regulations tonight that give
@gardainfo
more powers over
#COVID19
. Powers include travel restrictions.
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I’d love to know why you picked your job.
I’ll start. I’m a reporter
I watched All The President’s Men when I was a kid, and went “That’s it.”
Best bit: knowing things before almost everyone else.
Worst: waking at 4am terrified you’ve made a mistake in copy.
#meandmyjob
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Is it too early to say Sarah McInerney would be a great replacement for Sean O’Rourke?
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Quite interesting the number of tweets and chats I have showing a good number of people in Ireland listen in to
@lbc
and
@mrjamesob
on a regular basis. I certainly do.
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I can’t stop thinking about Private Seán Rooney and Trooper Shane Kearney.
The Defence Forces are the best of us - I see that at first hand, at home and overseas.
We’re lucky to have them.
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This is, offuckingcourse, doing the rounds on Facebook.
@defenceforces
have a ship moored on the quays for use in testing people. They’re tweeting about it. It’s nothing to do with any lockdown. What are they going to do, put all of Sheriffer in a tent?🙈
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A week after he was given a two year sentence for dragging his dead uncle to a post office to take his pension, Declan Haughney has been released from prison.
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I am going to respectfully disagree with this. It was in a public arena and he is Taoiseach in a matter of days.
If this happened in Britain it would be front page news.
I know others will disagree, but that's my opinion.
Politicians are entitled to their private lives. The video of Leo Varadkar is an intrusion into his private life. Voyeuristic. The Valley of the Squinting Windows lives on.
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Merry Christmas. Switching off after last night.😬 Thinking of all
@gardainfo
@defenceforces
@IrishPrisons
@DubFireBrigade
@HSELive
and other emergency services workers on today.
And all the hacks working as well.
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Can Boris not take an appeal to the European Courts?😀
No further appeal. It is over. Unanimous ruling. They have destroyed the government's case.
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Can I also add that many of you need to take a good look at yourselves. The abuse reporters get here for writing legitimate stories is a disgrace. Getting called a c**t because you wrote a story some flute doesn’t like is not cool. You’ll drive young hacks out of the trade.
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I could cry for Italy. I've loved the place since I first went there in 1981. Spent a year there; spent 10 years studying its beautiful language. This is a disaster.
Germans sing the Italian resistance song ‘Bella ciao’ from their rooftops in solidarity with Italians living under coronavirus lockdown.
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😂😂😂 I was sent this. It’s doing the rounds. H/t to whoever it was.
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There have been no complaints to gardai of any sexual assault in Dublin that matches the claim about a youth being raped by five foreign nationals.
Surprsing, I know.
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BREAKING: An on duty garda has been seriously injured in an incident near Youghal, Co Cork tonight. He was assisting a motorist who had broken down when he was struck by another car. Happened on the N25. Officer was treated at the scene, before being rushed to hospital.
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BREAKING:
@gardainfo
say they have arrested 10 men in an operation in Co Cork. All are being held on organised crime legislation. The operation has been going on all day. Suspects are aged from 20s and 50s and are mostly foreign.
They're not saying much - but it is about the…
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Was there media coverage of the Black and Tan commemoration idea? Why, yes, yes there was.
Was there media coverage of David Cullinane’s “Up the ‘Ra” comments? Why, yes, yes there was, too.
I hope this helps clear things up.👍
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