How Magill Magazine Exposed A Darker Side To Institutional Ireland
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What was Vincent Browne’s role in founding and shaping Magill magazine?
Now, before Vincent Brown
was a television presenter, and lots of you might know him from his time presenting The Tonight Show on TV3, He was a newspaper editor and he was also a magazine editor and proprietor. And that time, as editor of McGill, is the subject of a really, really fascinating new book by Kevin Rafter. It's called Fearless, Vincent Brown's McGill and Ireland in the 1980s. And Kevin, I think that's the important bit, and Ireland, because McGill was an incredible window into an Ireland that perhaps has been under-reported otherwise.
Yeah, the first run of McGill, when it first published in 1977, runs to 1990. It comes back after that. But the book is focused on 77 to 1990. And it's, I suppose, an opportunity to look at that decade and all the big debates and the rows and the controversies, Ireland going through a huge transition. And it's an opportunity that I took to look at that Ireland, but through the prism of McGill magazine, which was an influential current affairs magazine. And I'm not saying it was the most important media organisation at the time, but it was an alternative voice. And it certainly kicked out in the way that maybe the national newspapers and a much smaller broadcast world did at that time. with people like Vincent Brown, Colm Tobin, Fintan O'Toole, John Waters, and a cast of other great writers who were delving into those stories and those controversies.
So McGill is a useful way, and I thought it was a useful way, and I think it is, to look at Ireland in the 80s.
But yet Vincent Brown is all over it because it was his magazine, his creation. And even when he wasn't editor, he was proprietor. And we had a succession of editors who quit because they found Vincent's presence a little bit overbearing, shall we say.
Yeah, he's the dominant figure because he's the founding editor and he's the proprietor. So he comes from the world of newspapers.
How did the magazine’s editors, like Colm Tobin and Fintan O’Toole, influence its editorial direction?
He was a correspondent in the North in the 1970s and then writing for the Sunday Independent, political journalist, huge contacts, big beast, big name, founds McGill magazine and he's the founding editor. And when he went off then with the Sunday Tribune newspaper in 1983, Colm Tabine came in as editor and he was succeeded by Fintan O'Toole, Brian Trench, John Waters. But Vincent Brown is the owner, he's the proprietor. So that puts him in an influential position vis-a-vis the magazine itself. But he's also a dabbling proprietor and owner in the sense that he retains a veto on the cover. And as you know from your time in newspapers, if somebody else has a veto on the cover, they have a say over the lead story.
And he would frequently come in on the monthly deadline date as the magazine has been prepared and ready to go to the printers, and he'd upend everything. And sometimes this could be very late at night, and the magazine cover would be changed, the lead story would be changed. So even though he's not the editor in that period from 83 to 1990, his fingerprints, yes, they're all over the magazine.
There's so many things in this book that I want to talk to you about. Colm Tobin, I think a lot of people would know him as one of the premier novelists, but he was quite a brilliant journalist in his own right as well. But there's a really interesting story as well in the book, and there's a couple of stories about the tapping of the phones at McGill. And in one case, when Vincent rings Sean Doherty as Minister for Justice about rumours about Doherty's personal life and Doherty won't talk to him and gets irate. And as Brown discovers afterwards, because Doherty knew that there would be transcripts of the conversation he was having with Brown. But I think more seriously, Colm Tobin at the time was afraid that he would be outed because he hadn't come out as gay at that stage because of the taps on the phones.
Yeah, Colm Tabin, who listeners will know as the author of novels like Brooklyn and Long Island, but as you quite rightly say, hugely important journalist and writer.
What were the phone‑tapping scandals at Magill and how did they affect journalists like Colm Tobin?
And when he came in as editor of McGill, he wanted to inject into greater writing and new journalism in terms of
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was Vincent Browne’s role in founding and shaping Magill magazine?
0:00–2:09
2
How did the magazine’s editors, like Colm Tobin and Fintan O’Toole, influence its editorial direction?
2:09–4:25
3
What were the phone‑tapping scandals at Magill and how did they affect journalists like Colm Tobin?
4:25–6:27
4
How did Magill’s long‑form reporting on the Kerry Babies tribunal set new journalistic standards?
6:27–8:34
5
Why did Gene Kerrigan’s investigative pieces provoke a direct response from Judge Lynch?
8:34–9:53
6
How popular was Magill in the 1980s and who comprised its readership?
9:53–11:28
7
What impact did Vincent Browne’s mercurial ownership have on the magazine’s stability and legacy?
11:28–13:05
8
Why is Kevin Rafter’s book ‘Fearless!’ considered essential for understanding 1980s Ireland?
13:05–14:17
Speakers
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