After fakePeterCollinsgate, we know that appearances can be deceiving on planet Twitter. Still, we're pretty sure there's nobody in Ireland bored enough to start a mock Ian O'Riordan account and then upload a random avatar photo of O'Riordan in what appears to be Beijing, and repeatedly post links to O'Riordan's running articles with the hopes of building up the public trust before launching a few unexpected attacks on Sunday sports journalists. So we don't have a 100% verification but we're pretty damn sure Ian O'Riordan is speaking for himself on Twitter and fired the following tweet/salvo yesterday.
This isn't the tone we'd expect from an Irish Times journalist at all. So which 'fate, vile Sunday hacks' was O'Riordan referring to? We rarely read the Sundays so we can't say for sure, but yesterday's Sunday Independent sports section did feature rather interesting column by Eamonn Sweeney about the Martin Fagan saga. of O'Riordan, as the journalist who penned the runner's doping confession, is at the heart of. You can read the article for yourself here, but Sweeney's essential point is: depression isn't an excuse for doping. That's seems fair enough perspective, agree or disagree, but then there is one paragraph in particular that might have set O'Riordran off:
There's also the odd fact that Fagan's Mea Minima Culpa routine occurred in an interview with a journalist who showed no such sympathy when Cathal Lombard was banned for a similar offence several years ago.
In fact, when the Cork athlete returned to competition after a two-year ban and won the National Inter Counties cross-country title, the client in question bleated about Lombard's tarnished pedigree in the most nauseating fashion and portrayed the runner as a pariah. Lombard retired soon after this vile personal attack. The wrath of the country's most self-righteous newspaper is a capricious thing.
Sweeney probably didn't have to bring the Irish Times into it and the manlier thing would have been to outrightly name O'Riordan, but so it goes in the cold war between Ireland's most overrated newspapers. (Listeners to Marian Finucane will have heard Geraldine Kennedy's too-soon remarks on the Sindo and Aengus Fanning.) Sweeney made his point and O'Riordan was quick to fire back. Sadly, we can't speak for Sweeney's waistline so we don't know if there's anything slightly defamatory in the Twitter jibes.
