Ian O'Doherty

BuilderPlumber

What makes this man tick (or is it thick?)? He seems to be one of these types who are controversial for the sake of being controversial. He has caused uproar with his comments about among others gays, drug users, Muslims, Steve Staunton and Barack Obama.

His latest article in the Indo about the latter shows us precisely his mixed up thinking. He first off recommends us to watch some British Mad Max ripoff from the 1980s and then somehow descends into a tirade about how 'bad' a president Obama is. He seems to have forgotten about GW Bush and the disaster that was the Iraq war. He is the typical rightwing, atheist, journo type who can see no wrong in the actions of rightwing US presidents, rightwing Israeli regimes and so on but is very quick to condemn anything other than these.

Very little of what he spouts makes sense and he only seems to make sense on minor issues like his opposition to the ban of alcohol sales on Good Friday. Most of his stuff on big issues seems to be the typical black and white 'I love the Tea Party and Israel, I hate Islam and Socialism' argument.

I would not like to see what kind of rightwing capitalist billionaire mad man Doherty would prefer as US president. Trump no doubt! Obama has left the US a better place than he found it. While not perfect, I think Obama was overall a decent president who was left a mess to clean up by his predecessor, who was THE worst president America ever had.

Doherty also takes swipes at Jimmy Carter. Carter was dealt a crisis engineered in part by his rivals in 1979. There are people in America and Iran who know the true story of why Carter was not re-elected and why Reagan was elected. Oliver North took the rap for those higher up in these devious deals. Carter was a decent president who did his best and has proven himself on the world stage ever since. Reagan developed into a good president too but his first term was shaky. He was a different and much more moderate man in his later years as president. Neither Carter, Reagan or Obama would make the mess that Bush Jr made that is certain: either would Bush's father for that matter. They all KNEW when to stop and how far to take things!

whiskeyman

He's causes no uproar with me as I don't buy or read the rag he writes for.
Problem solved

The Backwards Man

I remember when people used to watch telly on a Saturday night, nothing has emulated watching Dallas whilst doing the ironing for Mass.

kenmc

who?

Tommy Kay The DJ

kenmc wrote: »

who?

Some alco

dpofloinn

He's Ireland's very own Comic book guy worst journalist ever

Massimo Cassagrande

He struggles with his shoelaces. I believe velcro was a boon for him. Odious, springs to mind.

NachoBusiness

He always comes across to me like some coked off his tits southside spoon you'd meet in the kitchen of some party you have no idea how you wound up at.

Northsider infers southsiders are spoons!

I did no such thing.

Junkyard Tom

He's the type of guy you'd eventually tell to fuck off if he ended up joining your fireside camping session.

philstar

he's alright, he's opinionated which for some reason get up irish people's noses

ala eamon dunphy

Strazdas

He's a right wing contrarian or 'controversialist'. I remember him acting as a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

I've no particular problem with his opinions (it's a free country after all) though he does seem rather cranky and short tempered in his views.

LETHAL LADY

I don't know the chap, but if I ever meet him down a darkened lane, well he better watch out like.

donegaLroad

never heard of him.

There is an O'Doherty guy who is a comedian who has written a song about sending a text to the wrong person.. any relation I wonder?

Filmer Paradise

Say what you like lads. I think he's spot on about a lot of things.

Haven't read much of his articles lately, but when I read them I found myself nodding in agreement most of the time..

Tarzana2

Saw a documentary he did about the Muslim religion a few years back. 'Now It's Personal', I think it was called. A really odd, defensive, brittle guy. Also made a big deal about having to travel down the country, like he was being sent for torture or something.

Tarzana2

LETHAL LADY wrote: »

I don't know the chap, but if I ever meet him down a darkened lane, well he better watch out like.

There's something very Begby about this. :pac::D

speedboatchase

I like him. His views are generally libertarian and since the majority of people in Ireland don't subscribe to his views, he's seen as a 'contrarian' or 'trying to be controversial' by some. He's not, he just sees things differently from the majority of Irish columnists who spout the same opinions as one another.

Ghost Buster

He can be a bollix bet he frequently hits the nail on the head. The only exampie I can think of at 8am on a Sunday is "Travellers have as much right to be considered as a separate ethnic identity as people from Achill".

Menas

There was an Iain O'Doherty in my class in school...he as all right like, but he left early to work in a pig factory and was illiterate. Dont think it is the same fella.

Nodin

Menas wrote: »

There was an Iain O'Doherty in my class in school...he as all right like, but he left early to work in a pig factory and was illiterate. Dont think it is the same fella.

No, must be a different guy.

osarusan

If you buy that newspaper, you get what you deserve.

mr_edge_to_you

I think he's dead right about most things. I admire people who speak their minds, regardless of how politically incorrect it may seem.

People are too sensitive these days.

Ignatius in bloom

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

What makes this man tick (or is it thick?)? He seems to be one of these types who are controversial for the sake of being controversial. He has caused uproar with his comments about among others gays, drug users, Muslims, Steve Staunton and Barack Obama.

His latest article in the Indo about the latter shows us precisely his mixed up thinking. He first off recommends us to watch some British Mad Max ripoff from the 1980s and then somehow descends into a tirade about how 'bad' a president Obama is. He seems to have forgotten about GW Bush and the disaster that was the Iraq war. He is the typical rightwing, atheist, journo type who can see no wrong in the actions of rightwing US presidents, rightwing Israeli regimes and so on but is very quick to condemn anything other than these.

Very little of what he spouts makes sense and he only seems to make sense on minor issues like his opposition to the ban of alcohol sales on Good Friday. Most of his stuff on big issues seems to be the typical black and white 'I love the Tea Party and Israel, I hate Islam and Socialism' argument.

I would not like to see what kind of rightwing capitalist billionaire mad man Doherty would prefer as US president. Trump no doubt! Obama has left the US a better place than he found it. While not perfect, I think Obama was overall a decent president who was left a mess to clean up by his predecessor, who was THE worst president America ever had.

Doherty also takes swipes at Jimmy Carter. Carter was dealt a crisis engineered in part by his rivals in 1979. There are people in America and Iran who know the true story of why Carter was not re-elected and why Reagan was elected. Oliver North took the rap for those higher up in these devious deals. Carter was a decent president who did his best and has proven himself on the world stage ever since. Reagan developed into a good president too but his first term was shaky. He was a different and much more moderate man in his later years as president. Neither Carter, Reagan or Obama would make the mess that Bush Jr made that is certain: either would Bush's father for that matter. They all KNEW when to stop and how far to take things!

He would probably argue the opposite to you.

Nodin

mr_edge_to_you wrote: »

I think he's dead right about most things. I admire people who speak their minds, regardless of how politically incorrect it may seem.

People are too sensitive these days.

Odd, I've never seen you thank my posts.

suicide_circus

His Wikipedia article contains the following sentence;

"Ian O'Doherty has angrily denied that he has a drinking problem."

Nodin

suicide_circus wrote: »

His Wikipedia article contains the following sentence;

"Ian O'Doherty has angrily denied that he has a drinking problem."

I've heard him on radio panels. He actually is an ignorant over-aggressive sneering prick. I'd thought it part of the schtick of the articles beforehand.

speedboatchase

suicide_circus wrote: »

His Wikipedia article contains the following sentence;

"Ian O'Doherty has angrily denied that he has a drinking problem."

I realise that libel can be fun when posting under an alias in an internet forum, but how would him having a drinking problem be relevant to any discussions of his work?

Also, whether or not it's true, what kind of message are trying to send by bringing it up - that people with drinking problems are inferior and should be mocked?

suicide_circus

speedboatchase wrote: »

I realise that libel can be fun when posting under an alias in an internet forum, but how would him having a drinking problem be relevant to any discussions of his work?

Also, whether or not it's true, what kind of message are trying to send by bringing it up - that people with drinking problems are inferior and should be mocked?

Ummmmmmm....I just thought it was an odd sentence to have on your wiki page but your reaction makes it even funnier

Snake Plisken

Anyone can edit a wiki page, with untrue information.
For the record Ian is a breath of fresh air amongst the hand wringing, we can't insult anyone media that we have today. He is very much correct on what he publishes in his columns. And I love how he gets the usual posters on here upset!

Rabo Karabekian

O'Doherty writes like a man who has had waaay too much to drink, has found his laptop and written a long, rambling, incoherent rant and unfortunately decided to hit 'send'. What's even worse is that I imagine the above isn't true and he actually spends time on his articles and thinks that they are well-written and argued coherently.

RDM_83 again

He's a knob and not even that readable, you can hate on people like John Waters but he is intelligent* and can write.

*Intelligent doesn't mean they have to have the same views as you, some of the smartest people I have known have held rather out there opinions.

kupus

I like him as well. I've read his articles now for a long time and
At first I thought he was a bit maxim fhm, type of a journalist. But he does hit the nail on the head, and he pretty much sums up what I think and writes it better than I ever could.

Ps where has Kevin Myers gone, I didn't like half of his stuff, but I liked that he at least encouraged debate about what he wrote.

Old Jakey

A cranky auld bollocks but I like him. And anyone who can wind up the right-on pc crowd is alright in my book.

FloatingVoter

He's from the Eamon Dunphy school of contrarianism. Most of his targets are obvious and easy ones. And just because you're nodding along with his train of thought this week doesn't mean you won't be offended the next. Trick is, don't take him seriously.
As for that Wiki page, I've seen better on the back of toilet doors - he probably did write it himself to save anyone else the bother.
Actually, he probably started this ****ing thread.

Heroditas

kupus wrote: »

Ps where has Kevin Myers gone, I didn't like half of his stuff, but I liked that he at least encouraged debate about what he wrote.

He writes occasionally in the Sunday Times

FloatingVoter

Heroditas wrote: »

He writes occasionally in the Sunday Times

Yup, today it's something about how Orangemen make great GAA players. You can't fault the man - if he was 20 years younger, he'd be collecting ASBOs for trolling.

RobertKK

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

What makes this man tick (or is it thick?)? He seems to be one of these types who are controversial for the sake of being controversial. He has caused uproar with his comments about among others gays, drug users, Muslims, Steve Staunton and Barack Obama.

His latest article in the Indo about the latter shows us precisely his mixed up thinking. He first off recommends us to watch some British Mad Max ripoff from the 1980s and then somehow descends into a tirade about how 'bad' a president Obama is. He seems to have forgotten about GW Bush and the disaster that was the Iraq war. He is the typical rightwing, atheist, journo type who can see no wrong in the actions of rightwing US presidents, rightwing Israeli regimes and so on but is very quick to condemn anything other than these.

Very little of what he spouts makes sense and he only seems to make sense on minor issues like his opposition to the ban of alcohol sales on Good Friday. Most of his stuff on big issues seems to be the typical black and white 'I love the Tea Party and Israel, I hate Islam and Socialism' argument.

I would not like to see what kind of rightwing capitalist billionaire mad man Doherty would prefer as US president. Trump no doubt! Obama has left the US a better place than he found it. While not perfect, I think Obama was overall a decent president who was left a mess to clean up by his predecessor, who was THE worst president America ever had.

Doherty also takes swipes at Jimmy Carter. Carter was dealt a crisis engineered in part by his rivals in 1979. There are people in America and Iran who know the true story of why Carter was not re-elected and why Reagan was elected. Oliver North took the rap for those higher up in these devious deals. Carter was a decent president who did his best and has proven himself on the world stage ever since. Reagan developed into a good president too but his first term was shaky. He was a different and much more moderate man in his later years as president. Neither Carter, Reagan or Obama would make the mess that Bush Jr made that is certain: either would Bush's father for that matter. They all KNEW when to stop and how far to take things!

Obama is a worse president than Bush.
Obama is weak and Outin knows this and does wehat he wants,
Obama has used drone strikes far more than Bush ever did and has killed far more innocent people with this method of kiling, including hundreds of children.
Obama has been ineffective, relations have been re-opened with Cuba but that was due to the Pope intervening and making it happen.
Under Obama, we saw the Arab soring which his regime supported, all it has led to is instability, Libya worse than before and Syria even worse than Libya with terrorists controlling lands from near the borders of Turkey across Syria and into Iraq.
No middle east peace plans with Obama.

Obama will go down as one of the weakest presidents in US history, the rest of the world just ignores him, just look at the UN last week with Putin launching a full out attack on the US foreign policy while in the US and just a room away from Obama and before they met where he apparently told Obama the same.
Obama laughed at Romney in the last election when Romney said Russia were the biggest geopolitical issue, since then Russia has annexed a part of a neighbouring country, and now is openly attacking the people in Syria that the US supports.
Bush was not a good president president, but Russia didn't walk all over the US when Bush was in power.

20Cent

Dislike what O'Doherty writes, not because he's "right wing" or a "libertarian" but because it's badly written and badly researched.

Tony EH

Just a deeply unpleasant character with some column inches. That's all.

custard gannet

Nodin wrote: »

He actually is an ignorant over-aggressive sneering prick.

Are these only admirable qualities if they are used with a left wing neo liberal slant? It's just that most of your own posts come across in a similar manner towards working class Irish taxpayers.


He's a bit of a ranter but he's alright, certainly for someone working for the thinking man's Beano that is the Indo. If he is upsetting the usual "you can't say that anymore" crowd of vermin with his musings then more power to the guy.

nullzero

Ian O'Doherty and his controversial opinions that he has for money.

custard gannet

RobertKK wrote: »

Obama is a worse president than Bush.

Obama had steered the economy back near its pre recession state.

Obama is weak and Outin knows this and does wehat he wants,

Yes, because George W would have been stupid enough to threaten to nuke Russia over ownership of a small slither of land in the south and east of Ukraine.

Obama has used drone strikes far more than Bush ever did and has killed far more innocent people with this method of kiling, including hundreds of children.

What is your problem with drone strikes? They are used to kill individuals who are living in lawless territory. These people shouldn't be taking their kids along with them and attending weddings I'm afraid.

Under Obama, we saw the Arab soring which his regime supported, all it has led to is instability, Libya worse than before and Syria even worse than Libya with terrorists controlling lands from near the borders of Turkey across Syria and into Iraq.
No middle east peace plans with Obama.

I'll give you this one, his handling of the Syrian crisis was catastrophic. The West needs to swallow its pride, admit it backed the wrong horse and give Assad all the help he needs.

Bush was not a good president president, but Russia didn't walk all over the US when Bush was in power.

Russia was still reeling from the Yeltsin era when Bush was in power. They could barely afford their law in little old Chechnya at the start, never mind throwing their international weight around- the US even had bases in ex Soviet states at one stage.

NachoBusiness

Tony EH wrote: »

Just a deeply unpleasant character with some column inches. That's all.

Ah now here. What's his penis size have to do with anything.

crybaby

custard gannet wrote: »

Are these only admirable qualities if they are used with a left wing neo liberal slant? It's just that most of your own posts come across in a similar manner towards working class Irish taxpayers

Please provide some examples of Nodin attacking working class Irish taxpayers.

Such a lazy tactic of the right, accuse the left of not caring about the working class when actually all of the policies of the left are there to improve the lives of the working class. Next up you will be calling him a loony lefty or a member of the PC brigade or could he possible be part of that awful organization - the do-gooders

Boring username

So, three pages in and so far we've had:

• vague threats of violence
• accusations of alcoholism
• insinuation of cocaine use
• jibes that he might be of remedial or special needs
• various other character assassinations

And all because he arranges words in an order you dislike. Have I stumbled into 4Chan by accident?
Wait, let me guess-it's ok in this case because moral superiority or something like that....... :rolleyes:
Some of you would want to have a serious chat with yourselves.

Agricola

I read that Obama article and what I got from it was that IoD thinks he is a lesser president because he isnt a posturing macho arse like Putin. The President of Murica obviously needs to front up to Russian playacting, because ya know, there isnt enough trouble and strife in the world.

I agree with him on many topics but then he comes out with rubbish like that and you wonder is it all just hot air to keep himself in a job.

RayM

He likes puppies* so he can't be all bad.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/ian-odoherty/ian-odoherty-seriously-when-will-people-learn-that-a-dogs-not-just-for-christmas-26611895.html

*as long as they're not black, probably.

Strazdas

speedboatchase wrote: »

I like him. His views are generally libertarian and since the majority of people in Ireland don't subscribe to his views, he's seen as a 'contrarian' or 'trying to be controversial' by some. He's not, he just sees things differently from the majority of Irish columnists who spout the same opinions as one another.

I agree that it's very healthy that he goes against the left wing and liberal consensus of the Irish media (ie. anti US, pro Arab etc). Wouldn't agree with some of his more right wing views but he does shoot down a lot of Irish sacred cows (I think only yesterday he had a go at that horrible new Eircom ad and the people who made it).

Thomas998

The majority of things he takes issue with are legitimate, in my view. Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East has been awful. That's not an opinion, it's a simple fact. Ian O'Doherty's denunciation of BLM thugs was also very welcome. And so forth, really.

In what is almost a blanket left-wing and liberal Irish media, O'Doherty is the only one who actually speaks the truth. If you disagree with him, you don't have to read his articles - his is the only column in the paper that could be described as right-wing. But he's refreshingly blunt in a media that's been coated in the art of offending no-one by saying nothing.

On a side note - it's rather disgusting that you have to make slurs about alcohol and the like when you disagree with someone's views. If his ideas are so bad, then it should be easy to demolish them, and you certainly shouldn't have to resort to underhanded digs in an attempt to reduce his credibility. It's pathetic.

I hope that when you read this post and it offends you, you don't begin to imply I have an alcohol problem.

Rabo Karabekian

One of the reasons I dislike O'Doherty is that he is writing to fit an agenda (the supposedly contrarian viewpoint that actually highlights some easy hits that, for a paper like the Indo, are saying exactly what the majority of his audience thinks).

Thomas998 wrote: »

The majority of things he takes issue with are legitimate, in my view. Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East has been awful. That's not an opinion, it's a simple fact.

This is a perfect example of all that's wrong with O'Doherty. He is critical of Obama's Middle East policy (and rightly so: it's a fairly disastrous and seriously misguided one) but still writes pieces praising Bush, who not only had a worse Middle East policy, but is responsible for a lot of the chaos that's endemic in the region at the moment. Indeed, as far as I recall, O'Doherty was a big supporter of that war.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

suicide_circus wrote: »

His Wikipedia article contains the following sentence;

"Ian O'Doherty has angrily denied that he has a drinking problem."

speedboatchase wrote: »

I realise that libel can be fun when posting under an alias in an internet forum, but how would him having a drinking problem be relevant to any discussions of his work?

Also, whether or not it's true, what kind of message are trying to send by bringing it up - that people with drinking problems are inferior and should be mocked?

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Anyone can edit a wiki page, with untrue information.
For the record Ian is a breath of fresh air amongst the hand wringing, we can't insult anyone media that we have today. He is very much correct on what he publishes in his columns. And I love how he gets the usual posters on here upset!

Actually, they provided a source, if you'd bothered to check.

And it's rather funny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4tgWDHwmn8

Ian O'Doherty is a terrible writer and seems like a very childish irrational person most of the time. Probably not the result of a drink problem, just of him being a fool.