Fintan O’Toole: Ian Bailey deflects us from the reality of violent misogyny

There are 40 unsolved murders of women in Ireland since 1996. The obsession with one case is a way of avoiding this truth

Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 01:00

Ian Bailey is the black hole of Irish journalism, sucking in attention and emitting nothing of any value. Photograph: Michael Mac Sweeney/ Provision

A drunken vainglorious lout. WB Yeats fashioned the phrase for John MacBride.* But it is a perfect fit for Ian Bailey, a nasty drunk, a narcissistic fantasist and a man who violently assaulted his female partner. *

And yet, over and over, journalists feed his habit. They peddle to him the drug of notoriety.