{"id":412286,"date":"2026-02-07T03:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T03:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/412286\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T03:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T03:38:08","slug":"what-was-jeffrey-epsteins-connection-to-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/412286\/","title":{"rendered":"What was Jeffrey Epstein’s connection to Northern Ireland?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A major Northern Ireland sports figure mentioned in the files<\/a> is former Formula One driver Eddie Irvine. <\/p>\n

He previously spoke about his friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell, external<\/a> and in 2020 said he “wouldn’t be surprised if I’m in Epstein’s black book”, adding he was unaware of their criminal activities. <\/p>\n

In 2003, prior to any of Epstein or Maxwell’s convictions, a man called David Wassong emailed the English socialite, external<\/a> asking if she was going to send him “names and numbers of people to play with in Ireland”.<\/p>\n

Maxwell responds with Irvine’s details. She also introduced the former Ferrari F1 driver to other acquaintances the same year, according to emails. <\/p>\n

In September 2003, she writes to Jonathan Keidan, external<\/a> asking if he can help secure Irvine a ticket to a Dave Matthews concert.<\/p>\n

He replies, external<\/a> they are the “hardest tickets to get” but that he’ll make a few phone calls.<\/p>\n

In a 2020 interview, Irvine spoke about attending parties organised by Epstein and Maxwell in New York and Miami. He said he saw Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s accuser Virginia Giuffre at one event, but presumed she was about 20. <\/p>\n

“I knew Ghislaine reasonably well,” he told The Belfast Telegraph., external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I spoke to her from time to time and I spoke to [Epstein] from time to time. Ghislaine was always super sweet and a super nice lady.<\/p>\n

“When I was around, it was just a normal dinner, just parties. There’d just be a party where some people would turn up and some people wouldn’t. But about that other stuff, I have no idea.”<\/p>\n

He said he has never visited Epstein’s island, his home or was on his plane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major Northern Ireland sports figure mentioned in the files is former Formula One driver Eddie Irvine. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-412286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}