’Tis the Season … To Remind Everyone That George Gibney – Perhaps the Most Notorious Youth Athlete Sex Abuser Ever – Is Set for Trial in Ireland (Until Further Notice)

by Irvin Muchnick

In July, after George Gibney was finally extradited from the U.S. and indicted in Ireland for the second time, I declared myself henceforth “the Gibney whisperer.” This because the Irish news media, hamstrung by draconian defamation law, and without the First Amendment protections enjoyed by their American brethren, deem themselves not free to report further on the accused former Irish Olympic swimming coach, nor even to print or utter his name, while his case adjudicates.

Five months later, this state of affairs holds – to the continuing detriment of keeping front of mind for the public a figure I’ve been calling “the most notorious at-large sex criminal in sports history” from the moment I began covering his peregrinations in 2015.

My carefully chosen phrase was grounded in a 1998 Irish government report on widespread abuses in the country’s swimming programs, of which Gibney’s were only the most promiscuous part. That document, called the Murphy inquiry, didn’t name names but it concluded that the Gibney “alleged” victims’ accusations were now “vindicated” by findings from the investigations of the national police, the Garda.

By that point, Gibney – thanks to a mysterious diversity lottery visa – was already three years into his three-decade-long Flying Dutchman’s tour of the U.S., through Colorado, California, and Florida.

As to what exactly is going on now – who knows? It could be that the day after this post drops, there will be an announcement of a trial date. Or a plea deal. In the meantime, mum’s the word.

At the time of the July arrest and extradition back to Ireland for Gibney 2.0, I was interviewed on Prime Time, the flagship news program on the country’s RTÉ television network. I don’t call attention to the interview now for the reason that the content was anything remarkable (the producers had made it clear to me beforehand that there was no interest in airing anything penetrating or in any way outside the strict four corners of the arrest itself), but because of the news clip’s almost comically skittish fate.

Unlike almost all Prime Time segments, this one wasn’t set apart for dedicated promotion on the network website. And presenter Fran McNulty, perhaps under direction, couldn’t bring himself to share with Irish viewers that I was the author of a recently published book, Underwater: The Greed-Soaked Tale of Sexual Abuse in USA Swimming and Around the Globe, which includes two chapters raising profound questions about the complicity of two national swimming governance regimes and two national governments in Gibney’s very, very wide world of sports.

At the time, I pointed readers of this site to video of the full Prime Time episode that night. Recently, however, readers told me the link now calls up an error message: “This programme is not available.”

After some hemming and hawing, Prime Time has generously released the episode for use on this platform. (For the episode’s final segment, on Gibney, go to https://muchnick.net/muchnickonrteprimetime.mp4 and scroll to the 24-minute mark.)

An RTÉ executive told me he wasn’t “fully aware” of the reason for the takedown of my anodyne interview, nor of “why the title of your book wasn’t read out,” but noted “George Gibney has no actual convictions for sexual abuse, yet was facing charges related to it. Therefore reading out the title … could have caused us legal issues under our contempt laws here.” 

The network person added: “In most cases, we would not even name a person arrested until they are charged, so even naming Gibney was legal risk we had to decide to take at the time. Risking giving the impression – even implicitly – that they were actually guilty of the crime they were facing extradition for would have been a further step that would have had to be considered on the night close to air.”

OK then! A happy holiday season to all.