he Guardian newspaper has apologised to a girl who stated she had been raped by a member of the IRA over an article written about her by former columnist Roy Greenslade.
Mairia Cahill, great-niece of distinguished Belfast republican Joe Cahill, says she was sexually abused as a 16-year-old by alleged IRA member Martin Morris.
Mr Morris, who denied all wrongdoing, was acquitted of rape when the case towards him collapsed.
Mr Greenslade wrote a 2014 column in The Guardian which stated that the BBC which investigated Ms Cahill’s claims, “had been too keen to just accept Cahill’s story and didn’t level to countervailing proof.
“That isn’t to say that she was not raped.
“Nor does it negate her view that the IRA dealt with her grievance clumsily and insensitively.”
Ms Cahill alleges that the republican motion’s response to her claims was to topic her to an IRA interrogation.
She additionally accused Sinn Fein of partaking in a cover-up and waging a marketing campaign to query her integrity since she waived her proper to anonymity.
Just lately, Mr Greenslade wrote within the British Journalism Assessment that he backed the IRA’s armed marketing campaign whereas he was working as a journalist throughout the Northern Eire battle.
The Guardian, in an replace hooked up to Mr Greenslade’s unique 2014 piece, stated: “In March 2021, Mairia Cahill contacted the Guardian to complain that this text had been revealed and with out disclosure of the author’s political affiliations.”
It added: “The Guardian’s readers’ editor thought of the grievance and concluded that the columnist should have been open about his place.”
After issues raised by a reader following publication of the article in 2014 that Mr Greenslade had not disclosed his Sinn Fein sympathies, he began to declare his writing throughout the Nineteen Eighties for the occasion’s newspaper, An Phoblacht, together with on the finish of two extra blogs regarding Ms Cahill.
Columnists are employed for his or her opinions however the readers’ editor thought of that right here the author’s political place ought to have been indicated brazenly
The Guardian added: “He now says he regrets that he didn’t add it retrospectively to this piece and provides his ‘honest apology for failing to reveal my very own pursuits’.
“Columnists are employed for his or her opinions however the readers’ editor thought of that right here the author’s political place ought to have been indicated brazenly.
“The dearth of disclosure was particularly unfair to a weak particular person, and the Guardian has now apologised to Ms Cahill.”
