The editor of the conservative Irish news website Gript has been relieved of his duties and placed on a leave of absence for the last three weeks. <\/p>\n
Staff and contributors to Gript have been told the website\u2019s editor, John McGuirk, was put on leave by Niamh U\u00ed Bhrian, who is a director and shareholder in Gript Media Ltd. <\/p>\n
The reasons for McGuirk\u2019s leave are said to be hotly disputed. <\/p>\n
Lawyers have been engaged by both sides and sources in the organisation said they could not see how McGuirk could return to his position, given the nature of the falling out.<\/p>\n
It is understood there have been long-running tensions and disputes in Gript about its editorial direction and management reporting lines.<\/p>\n
McGuirk is the editor, while U\u00ed Bhrian is the assistant editor. U\u00ed Bhrian also has a leadership role as company director and holds 50 per cent of the company\u2019s shares. <\/p>\n
U\u00ed Bhrian ran as an Independent candidate in Dublin Central in the 1992 general election on an anti-abortion platform. She is also a director of The Pro-Life Institute, a company called Cashkoin FX Ltd and Irish Cultural, Preservation & Promotion Association, a company incorporated last year.<\/p>\n
The Pro-Life Institute has provided financial backing to Gript.<\/p>\n
The other director in Gript Media and holder of 50 per cent of its shares is Evelyn Porter, with an address in Dublin 15. Her occupation is listed as \u201chomemaker\u201d. <\/p>\n
Contacted this week, McGuirk said: \u201cI remain an employee of Gript Media and I have no further comment.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Gript spokesman said: \u201cJohn is still an employee of Gript and I am afraid I can\u2019t comment beyond that at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contacted by email, U\u00ed Bhrian said: \u201cI\u2019ve no comment to make.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well as editing the website, McGuirk wrote regular opinion pieces and issued a weekly podcast with barrister Sarah Ryan. <\/p>\n
McGuirk\u2019s last authored piece with Gript was published on March 26th and his last podcast with Ryan was released on March 20th. <\/p>\n
Last week, McGuirk published an opinion article criticising the Government\u2019s reaction to the fuel protests as an article on the X social media site. It was not published on Gript. <\/p>\n
McGuirk\u2019s X article was reposted on X by Laura Perrins, a writer with Gript, who described it as \u201cexceptional\u201d. The article was also reposted on X by Sarah Ryan. <\/p>\n
McGuirk, an economics and political science graduate from Trinity College Dublin, is a former Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael member who worked for businessman Declan Ganley\u2019s Libertas group when it campaigned against the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 and 2009. <\/p>\n
He was a spokesman for the Save the 8th campaign that unsuccessfully campaigned for a No vote in the 2018 referendum that paved the way for reform of Ireland\u2019s abortion laws.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Gript Media made an \u20ac18,000 donation to the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR) to help it host a conference in Kilkenny.<\/p>\n
On its website, Gript said it is \u201ca platform for views which challenge establishment thinking\u201d. It warns about the \u201cheadlong rush to the most extreme forms of liberalism\u201d, which it claims are being \u201cfacilitated by the stifling of any real debate\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The editor of the conservative Irish news website Gript has been relieved of his duties and placed on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[173441,175752,61,60,43,20673],"class_list":["post-397508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fuel-protests-ireland","tag-fuel-support-package-details","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-oil-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}