{"id":636207,"date":"2026-09-26T02:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T02:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/636207\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T02:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T02:06:10","slug":"book-review-refresher-course-in-corruption-in-modern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/636207\/","title":{"rendered":"Book review: Refresher course in corruption in modern Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">\n             Exposed: Scandals that Rocked the Irish State opens with a quote from an unusual source.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Veteran journalist Frank Connolly, whose work played a key role in exposing political, corporate, and police corruption in the late 1980s and early 2000s, references a song by Gen Z darling CMAT.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n             Euro-Country is a threnody for the broken dreams of the generation who came of age during the recession, and in using it Connolly makes his intentions clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n             Exposed aims to draw a straight line from the scandals that categorised mainly Fianna F\u00e1il-led governments for two decades to contemporary hot-button issues, from housing to climate protection and even Palestine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">Connolly\u2019s reportage led to watershed moments in recent Irish history, culminating in the Mahon\/Flood tribunals into planning and payments to politicians and the Morris Tribunal into police corruption.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">Looking at modern Ireland, with a housing crisis and a resurgent Michael Lowry, Connolly feels it\u2019s time for a refresher course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">Stories of envelopes exchanged pubs and Mafiosi-like politicians are familiar, but they still shock.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">Connolly\u2019s forensic attention to detail and capacity as a storyteller translate complex graft into compelling reading.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/5236162_8_articleinline_Exposed_2C_Scandals_that_Rocked_the_Irish_State_by_Frank_Connolly.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"card-img\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">The Kafkaesque experiences of property developer Tom Gilmartin are particularly evocative.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">Hoping a donation to Fianna F\u00e1il will move a project along, he writes a cheque and asks to whom he should make it out. \u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d comes the oily reply, \u201cjust leave it on the desk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">Ultimately,  Exposed is more effective as a historical treatment than as a diagnosis of modern Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">Planning corruption is one thing, but the connection between P Flynn and the \u201ccurrent complicity in \u2026 genocide\u201d requires more than just stating it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">Connolly also leaves some of the most interesting questions unanswered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_BodyRagged\">What was it about the Ireland of the time that allowed corruption to become so endemic? And, perhaps more optimistically, how far have we come since?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exposed: Scandals that Rocked the Irish State opens with a quote from an unusual source.\u00a0 Veteran journalist Frank&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,6405,43],"class_list":["post-636207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music-movies-reviews-munster","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636207","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=636207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}