Ireland disgraces itself over the most notorious at-large sex criminal in sports history. By Irvin Muchnick George Gibney, the story that won’t die, is also the story that won’t live – or at least isn’t given the oxygen to breathe. The latest example follows last November’s headlines about the status of investigations by the Garda and the Director of Public Prosecutions. They suggest that this Olympic year could be the one that finally delivers justice in the excruciating legacy of Gibney, whom I call the most notorious at-large sex criminal in sports history. But that probably won’t happen if the authorities are under no pressure to drop the other shoe. The grain of Irish journalism custom and draconian defamation contribute to the whole history of Ireland’s failures to and root out sexual abuse scenarios in high places in real time, and not just in sports Only constant reminders of the range and tawdry depths of this scandal have the promise of holding government officials’ feet to the fire and ensuring that the current prospective new Gibney prosecution doesn’t fizzle, in the manner of multiple previous initiatives. Unfortunately, constant reminders are precisely what the Irish news media, simply waiting on an announcement by the DPP that a Gibney prosecution 2.0 will proceed, aren’t equipped to provide. Such an announcement could take many more months or even years, especially in the absence of aggressive reporting at intervals of official responses to follow-up queries, and of informed and responsibly labelled speculation and analysis. All this would go against the grain of Irish journalism custom and practice, as well as the country’s absence of an equivalent to America’s First Amendment and the resulting presence of a draconian defamation law regime. These contribute to a regime of passive waiting – followed by lapsed public memory. Indeed, they contribute to the whole history of Ireland’s failures to expose and root out sexual abuse scenarios in high places in real time, and not just in sports. In my analysis, the current Gibney initiative could actually, finally, be the real deal. I say this because of reports that gardaí are confident, should the DPP pull the trigger, that the US will cooperate in extraditing Gibney for trial. There appears to be significant movement behind the scenes in both countries. I’ve never seen that element in past major reporting clusters on bringing Gibney to justice, the last of which was in 2018, in the wake of the resolution of my Freedom of Information Act case against the US Department of Homeland Security, which partially daylighted Gibney’s immigration records and raised key questions surrounding them. The grain of Irish journalism custom and draconian defamation contribute to the whole history of Ireland’s failures to and root out sexual abuse scenarios in high places in real time, and not just in sports Clearly, the 2020 BBC/Second Captains podcast series Where Is George Gibney?, for all my criticisms of its shortcomings, changed the dynamic. Podcaster Mark Horgan introduced the voices of fresh Gibney accusers. What this means is that the Garda and the DPP no longer have to tussle with the problem of trying to revive old cases that got quashed by a controversial Irish Supreme Court procedural ruling 30 years ago. Instead, the criminal justice authorities can advance entirely new cases. And they have the wind at their backs because of more recent Irish case law on historical abuses, which is now less friendly to defendants. In urging on the Irish media, I don’t mean to suggest that their First Amendment-fortified American counterparts have fared any better. Many of the 5 million denizens of the Republic of Ireland are well familiar with the Gibney agony. However, even though this head coach of the Irish Olympic swimming team in 1984 and 1988 has been a US resident alien for nearly 30 years, few of the 35 million members of America’s Irish diaspora so much as know who he is. American journalists are guilty of the same flawed method of not staying on top of important criminal investigations and informing news consumers as to how they resolved, or if they remain open and why. (Last year Preet Bharara, a former federal prosecutor, wrote an essay in the New York Times arguing that it’s unfair – to investigative targets as well as the public – for the government to fall permanently silent on high-profile investigations. Bharara urged a prospective practice of affirmative announcements by prosecutors of the ends of investigations.) In 2014, USA Swimming’s long-time chief executive, Chuck Wielgus, stood down from induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in the face of a protest petition organised by survivors of sexual abuse by their coaches. In 2017, Wielgus died. The next year American newspapers, in their usual atomised way, reported that there was a grand jury investigation of USA Swimming for decades of insurance fraud and cover-ups of abuse cases, but connected none of the dots. Thus, in the same manner as that of umpteen supposed new runs at a Gibney prosecution, that story was “one and done” in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other outlets; it faded away. In both Ireland and America, standard media accounts of Gibney omit critical context. Missing elements include the mystery of Gibney’s American green card; the collusion by American swimming authorities that contributed to his ability to abscond to the US on a diversity lottery visa; and the overall horror show that is underage athletes’ past and ongoing exposure to the predation of bad actor coaches in Olympic sports – everywhere. Gibney was indicted in Ireland in 1993 on 27 counts of indecent carnal knowledge of swimmers in his supervision. That prosecution, however, got barred by a controversial Irish Supreme Court ruling that the passage of time had prejudiced his ability to mount a fair defence. Gibney was released. He repaired first to Scotland and then to the US. In 1995, Gibney lost his last coaching job, for a USA Swimming-sanctioned club in Colorado,
