“we” will win the league next year
A lot of the „we won’t hear the end of it” brigade secretly want them to do well.
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I thought that you were focusing on a SF objection or the fact that this is really Cabra
From the Phoenix:
YOUNG BLOOD: FINN MCREDMOND
Date: July 2, 2020 - The Young Bloods
IT SAYS much about the rightward drift of the Irish Times that a one-nation Tory sympathiser now occupies a weekly slot on the newspaper’s op-ed page. “Based in Westminster”, as the IT introduced her to readers in the first few weeks of her column, Finn McRedmond castigates most of her political targets as dangerous extremists – a tactic that simultaneously presents herself as eminently reasonable and moderate. And her passionate denunciation of British Brexiteers makes her the right sort in the eyes of Tara Street’s editorial office, although she appears to have little time for feminists.
McRedmond’s first IT column last August was a sterling defence of Leo Varadkar against the “right-wing British press”, arguing that their invective was not anti-Irish (as if), but a failure to accept the new order of things in the EU. A week later Finn (actually, it’s Fionnuala) dished it to British Labour’s then leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in a most superior piece that dismissed both British Tories and left-wing Labourites as unable to appreciate modern, EU-oriented Ireland.
So far, so centrist, with Boris, Brexiteers, Corbynite socialism and Republicanism dismissed from Westminster. But in her second month’s columnising, Finn became most distressed at the behaviour of bad Tory Boris in the House of Commons as he expelled good Tory MPs for attempting to legislate against a no-deal Brexit. Revealing a warmth and affection for the pro-EU wing of the Conservative Party she warned, “Tory rebels… may have lost their membership… but they have emerged as defenders of representative democracy, parliamentary sovereignty, and the civility of political process which the Conservative Party was once defined by… Johnson might believe he’s won a battle – but parliament and the Tory rebels will certainly win the war.” Heah! Heah!
A follow-up column indicated a near neurotic, pearl-clutching reaction by Finn, who spoke of Johnson as having “entirely lost his mind… not fit for office” and causing “total systems failure” at Westminster. Most poignant, though, was her keenly felt lament that the Tories no longer included the likes of “Ken Clark or Churchill’s grandson” among their number.
However, being a responsible journalist and mature beyond her years – somewhere in her mid-20s – the young McRedmond urged Irish readers not to laugh or exult at such anarchic British behaviour and she even ticked off Vlad for his witty remark to Boris in Dublin last September. “When Leo Varadkar deftly mocked Johnson on the steps of Government Buildings two weeks ago, offering to be the ‘Athena’ to the UK’s Herculean task, it was funny and certainly demonstrated a classical literacy Johnson so admires. But it wasn’t wise,” cautioned McRedmond, who was anxious that Anglo-Irish relations be preserved intact.
Where has this intensely political journalist come from and what inspired her to champion civilised British Tories (as opposed to bad Tory boys and girls of the Thatcherite variety)? Finn’s background is south county Dublin, where she attended the private Rathdown School for girls, Glenageary, operating under Church of Ireland management. Daddy is David McRedmond, former head of TV3 and now boss at An Post, which he has managed to turn around after heavy and recurring losses. Completing the modern, perfectly formed Irish Times family is mummy, Penny McRedmond, who was heavily involved in Fine Gael candidate Jennifer Carroll MacNeill’s successful general election campaign in Dún Laoghaire last February. Penny is also chairperson of Global Action Plan Ireland’s (GAP Ireland) board of directors. GAP Ireland describes itself as an “environmental education organisation”. In a happy coincidence, David McRedmond was selected as the IT’s business person of the month for March.
Coming from such a high-achieving family, Finn aimed high academically and she studied, or rather read, classics at Cambridge University. Her first overt Tory declaration was in college mag the Tab, where in 2015 she wrote an article headlined, “Being a Tory does not make you a bad person”. She explained, “I voted for the party that I think this country needs… I didn’t vote conservative for low taxes so I can keep my mansion while everyone else can live in a slum. I don’t even have a mansion. It’s a townhouse.”
Undeterred, McRedmond went on to the London School of Economics before working for a range of London-based mags, but mostly with the magazine Reaction. Chaired by Robert (Lord) Salisbury, former Conservative leader of the House of Lords and advisor to the Euro-sceptic Open Europe, Reaction describes itself as “pro-market but not slavishly so”.
McRedmond also focused on Labour, Corbyn and the party’s alleged anti-Semitism in Reaction, repetitively and enthusiastically in a pro-Israeli polemic that works in Blighty but not in Ireland.
Some months after McRedmond began her IT column, Reaction published an article by Sunday Independent journalist Eilis O’Hanlon, who accused Fintan O’Toole of inspiring a wave of anti-British sentiment. “I’m Irish and I reject the premise of O’Hanlon’s critique”, the indignant Finn immediately responded, with a strong defence of Fintan in the same magazine.McRedmond’s more recent IT articles have been a little out of synch with the paper’s feminist orthodoxy as she quibbled with the adulation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. Damning it with faint praise – “a nice novel” – Finn does not believe Rooney‘s writing style is that original but she does note, “That she is a young woman matters hugely in an age of marketisable feminism.”
A week later (15 May) Finn took issue with the view that “women leaders are more adept at managing Covid-19 than their male counterparts”, writing that this is “one line of thinking [that] has emerged most clearly”. A reference to any significant, even insignificant, opinion former who believes this would have been useful here. McRedmond went on to polemicise against feminists’ arguments that focus on “feminine qualities”.
Last month the Irish exile was moved to inform Irish readers that “Britain is bigger than the anti-Irishness of the Daily Express”, which had recently indulged in a bout of characteristic racism about Varadkar and Ireland. Despite the evidence of the last five years, in which Little England dominated the Brexit debate with distinctly racist overtones, McRedmond argued that only a minority of the British press was anti-Irish. She said that, in “reverting to base instincts – indulging latent nationalistic one-upmanship – we reveal ourselves to be no better than the British tabloid press”.
Despite her feisty willingness to confront base Irish prejudices against the British media, Finn came over all coy when Goldhawk rang to inquire about her journalism, saying she had a deadline to meet and suggesting a chat later that day. Goldhawk rang at the designated hour but, despite several follow-up calls and messages suggesting that she call back, no further Anglo-Irish dialogue was possible.
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I didn’t vote Tory for low taxes or to keep my mansion, it isn’t even a mansion, it’s a townhouse
In fairness, that’s genuinely funny in a Ross O’Carroll-Kelly sort of way. Is this a fictional, satirical character?
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That is some evisceration. The cap doffing West Brits won’t like that.
The Phoenix is a great old read, when they lower the blade a bit
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It’s up there with Chris De Burghs piece against an Irish times concert reviewer one time.
Lest we forget
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So the lady in red is actually the girl from golden? 
I never read the original review until now, it was pretty good too in fairness
Brilliant, I hadn’t seen that before. And I agree with @Tank very reminiscent of @Malarkey’s more fiery postings here. Maybe @Malarkey ghost wrote it for Chris.
That actually made me really like Chris De Burgh
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Same - I still wouldn’t let my daughter do babysitting for him though
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I’d let his daughter do the babysitting for me though.
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I met him many years ago when he unexpectedly came into a hospital where I was a patient. A top man back then, spent a lot of time talking to the various patients.
His missus, also a lovely woman, was expecting the young one at the time. That was before he became ultra successful and long before the baby sitter.