Granard Booktown Festival: Award winning journalist Mark Tighe looking forward to Longford conversation with Rick O'Shea

The story that sparks the public imagination, filling reams of paper, discussed in high office and low corners.

The type of story that comes about when envelopes are passed over in the dark multi-story car parks in the dead of night. Woodward and Bernstein stuff.

Mark Tighe is one of the few journalists who know what that really feels like. Starting in 2019 Tighe, along with fellow journalist Paul Rowan, published a sequence of stories in the Sunday Times containing damaging revelations about the parlous financial situation of the FAI.

The story centred on John Delaney, the capo dei capi of the Football Association of Ireland. It was a story that had everything.

Now a senior news reporter with the Sunday Independent, Mark covers legal affairs, specialising in investigative reporting. He has a solid pedigree, having won six Justice Media awards from the Law Society for his legal reporting. He also won two Smurfit Business School journalism awards for his reporting on business stories.

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This weekend will see Granard transformed into a literary hub as the north Longford town hosts the country's first Booktown Festival.

 

A native of Donegal Mark, along with his colleague Rowan, penned the 2020 Irish Sports Book of the Year 'Champagne Football' , an examination of the John Delaney story. A read described as “gripping” and “astonishing”.

On Sunday, he will be in Granard as part of the Booktown Festival to have a sit down chat with Rick O'Shea about his work.

“It will be about turning journalism into a readable book. The process of putting together something people will want to read, and the risks involved,” Mark said of his Granard date, “I will talk about how hard it is in Ireland, navigating the defamation laws.”

Champagne Football was an instant success in Ireland: “It was the best selling Irish published book in 2020. A lot of people who read it told us they hadn't read a book in 20 or 30 years. It is great to hear that. It was described to us as a “hate” read. People get angry because of what's in it.”

Telling a story that captures the public imagination is no easy craft. Having exciting source material, even if it requires a lot of work to mine, made that task somewhat easier: “It's a rip-roaring read. We just wanted to take a step back and tell the whole story. It starts with the fall of Joe Delaney, then the rise of his son. You could not script something like that, it's almost Shakespearean. The fall of a family involved at the highest echelons of Irish football.

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“If you wrote it out as a piece of fiction you would think it was too far-fetched. His father exposed by Veronica Guerin, all the shenanigans around hundreds of thousands of FAI money.

“His own personal money going to George the Greek. Then years after his father is kicked off the Board of the FAI John becomes the Chief Executive Officer.”

The son redeeming himself as one of the best paid executives of a soccer federation in the world has a particularly Irish flavour to it: “I suppose we admire a cute hoor, guys who can get things done. He was embarrassing, uncouth, but he seemed to be effectual. He got in Trapattoni, Martin O'Neil and Roy Keane and then Denis O'Brien's millions.

“He was also buying loyalty from the grassroots clubs, albeit with their own money, getting 10 grand to build a stand, astro pitches, lights; that sort of thing. He was a consummate politician, he would get briefing notes before he visited any club.”

Following up on Champagne Football is not easy. Getting subject matter that equals John Delaney's story is difficult: “It's high profile, it's colourful character and football is the number one sport in Ireland.

“That made it unique in terms of the appetite for the story. There are a lot of stories out there.
“ In the Independent we are writing stories about accusations of horse welfare abuse by the Irish Olympic Eventing teams, and scandals in Cycling Ireland, but they don't lend themselves to a book.

“I think football is unique in that regard, it has such wide mass appeal. I think there is a story about Irish rugby, but it will be a very different kind of book. Not with the corruption, but with the power games that go on,” Mark concluded.

As part of the Granard Booktown Festival, Mark will sit down with Rick O'Shea to discuss his award-winning book Champagne Football and other related topics at Granard Library on Sunday, April 23 at 3:30pm.

Check out the Granard Booktown Festival prrogramme HERE