The persecution (and vindication) of Kevin Myers is a parable of our times

It seems seasonably suitable to celebrate good news. Unfortunately, as in most serviceable stories, for something good to happen, something bad had to happen first.

Though we’ve only been in sporadic touch since, I met Kevin Myers three decades ago at a boozy lunch in Dublin. He was already a journalistic institution. By his own estimation, he’s published roughly 7,000 columns, largely for the Irish Times and the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, totalling some five million words. He’s regularly stuck up for Israel, a state no more popular among Celtic worthies than among the Momentum sort. He also built his once-prodigious reputation by opposing the IRA, which at the time was not good for your health. He was twice assaulted by terrorists with AK-47s, one of which was shoved in his mouth. Yet 2017’s assault of a more metaphorical sort, he says, was actually more traumatic.

Two years ago, Myers wrote 17 words that outweighed the other 4,999,983.