Irish Celebrity Designer: I Distinctly Remember George Gibney Coming into the Girls’ Changing Rooms at Newpark School
November 3, 2024The full George Gibney story is told in two chapters of the new book UNDERWATER: The Greed-Soaked Tale of Sexual Abuse in USA Swimming and Around the Globe.
PREVIOUSLY: “Irish Celebrity Designer: I Distinctly Remember George Gibney Coming into the Girls’ Changing Rooms at Newpark School,” November 3, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15916
by Irvin Muchnick
I don’t mean to be picking on the Irish Independent for not keeping front of mind the supposedly imminent extradition from America of George Gibney, the most notorious at-large sex criminal in sports history.
For one thing, Justine McCarthy, then of the Independent, was one of the top core reporters on Gibney and the entire range of the Irish swimming scandals of the 1990s. She later wrote a good book about it, Deep Deception.
For another, the Independent has been far from alone in raising the prospect of Gibney’s extradition last year — then doing nothing further in the way of journalism. Take, for another example, the Irish edition of the Times of London.
On November 2, 2023, I received an unsolicited email from Michael McNiffe, an associate editor of the Times. Gibney was “in the news here in Ireland again today following a new Garda investigation into fresh allegations of historical sex abuse. Just wondering if you had an up to date address for him in Altamonte Springs, north of Orlando, Fla.,” McNiffe wrote. If I could help them “find Gibney, full address, phone number, etc., we’d obviously credit you and pay you for your time.”
I told McNiiffe that getting paid for such a task was not seemly to me. I voluntarily gave him the address I had for Gibney on Breakwater Drive in Altamonte Springs. I added that the person answering a knock on the door would likely be a character named Pedro Colón, Gibney’s housemate and fellow denizen of the Knights of Columbus community in central Florida.
I suggested that the Times consider letting me have an op-page essay slot in which I could develop the story for their readers in more analytical depth. I also mentioned that I would have a book coming out this year on the global issues of coach sexual abuse in swimming, and hoped the Times would consider reviewing or covering it in some form when the time came.
With respect to the former, there was no response from the Times. And if the newspaper has so much as mentioned the existence of a book entitled Underwater, I’ve missed the reference. (The one and only acknowledgment of the book over there has been an interview of me by the sports news site The 42.)
On November 5, 2023 — one year ago yesterday — the Times ran a story under the byline of Jacqui Goddard, headlined “George Gibney has nothing to worry over, says Florida housemate,” https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/george-gibney-has-nothing-to-worry-over-says-florida-housemate-qnfxhvvzm. The subhead: “Friend stands by former swimming coach as file is submitted to DPP over historical sex abuse allegations.” There was a photo of Gibney, in the passenger seat of a car, accompanied by Colón behind the wheel.
Since then, not a peep from the Times — or any other news outlet in Ireland.
