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Charlie Bird
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Charlie Bird
Charles Brown Bird (9 September 1949 – 11 March 2024) was an Irish journalist and broadcaster. He was Chief News Correspondent with RTÉ News until January 2009. He took up the role of Washington Correspondent, but prematurely returned to his earlier post in Ireland in June 2010. He retired from RTÉ in August 2012.
Charles Brown Bird was born in Sandymount, Dublin on 9 September 1949. He was educated at Sandymount High School.
In the late 1960s, Bird took an active interest in far-left politics, being a member of Young Socialists. In this role, along with Tariq Ali of the International Marxist Group, he attended the funeral of Peter Graham of Saor Éire who was assassinated on 25 October 1971 in an internecine dispute. A photograph of the funeral shows Ali and Bird giving a clenched fist salute at the grave.
In the early 1970s, Bird joined Official Sinn Féin (later Sinn Féin: the Workers' Party). In 1973, he was their director of elections in Dublin South-Central, but in 2022, he claimed he left shortly thereafter and had only been involved with the party for a few months. Subsequently, Bird was recruited into RTÉ by Workers' Party member Eoghan Harris in the mid-1970s.
For a period, Bird was a member of the Labour Party but left after Noël Browne walked out of the party following the 1977 Labour party conference in Cork.
Bird began his career in RTÉ as a writer responding to fan mail for a children's show, and later became a researcher before moving into a position in the newsroom in 1980. For many years in the 1990s, Bird was the only point of contact between RTÉ and the Provisional IRA. He witnessed first-hand the ceasefires and the subsequent twists and turns of the peace process. On the international front, Bird reported on the Gulf War and was in Syria for the release of Brian Keenan in 1990. He covered the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in the early 90s and the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
In 1998, Bird and his colleague George Lee broke the story about a tax evasion scheme being operated by National Irish Bank, in which the bank was offering customers looking to avoid tax offshore investment schemes in the Isle of Man. For this, both men were awarded "Journalist of the Year".
While the NIB story represented a professional highpoint, the aftermath represented a low one; "the worst time of my life" as Bird described it in 2006. During his coverage of the NIB story, Bird reported that Beverley Flynn had assisted clients of the bank in evading tax by funnelling undeclared income to Clerical Medical schemes based in the Isle of Man. Flynn denied the claims and sued RTÉ for libel. What followed was "the longest-running libel case in the history of the state". The matter went to the Irish High Court in 2001; a jury found that while RTÉ was unable to prove its case, they also stated that the allegations levelled against Flynn were substantially true. Thus, Flynn was judged to have "won" the case, but was awarded no damages. Flynn appealed the matter to the Supreme court, but lost, but continued to legally pursue the matter. The issue was never fully settled until 2007, when RTÉ agreed to settle with Flynn to the sum of €1.24 million. That became a controversy in itself, with the public outraged that ultimately the taxpayer would have to foot such a steep bill, as well as accusations that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was involved and had encouraged RTÉ to settle.
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Charlie Bird
Charles Brown Bird (9 September 1949 – 11 March 2024) was an Irish journalist and broadcaster. He was Chief News Correspondent with RTÉ News until January 2009. He took up the role of Washington Correspondent, but prematurely returned to his earlier post in Ireland in June 2010. He retired from RTÉ in August 2012.
Charles Brown Bird was born in Sandymount, Dublin on 9 September 1949. He was educated at Sandymount High School.
In the late 1960s, Bird took an active interest in far-left politics, being a member of Young Socialists. In this role, along with Tariq Ali of the International Marxist Group, he attended the funeral of Peter Graham of Saor Éire who was assassinated on 25 October 1971 in an internecine dispute. A photograph of the funeral shows Ali and Bird giving a clenched fist salute at the grave.
In the early 1970s, Bird joined Official Sinn Féin (later Sinn Féin: the Workers' Party). In 1973, he was their director of elections in Dublin South-Central, but in 2022, he claimed he left shortly thereafter and had only been involved with the party for a few months. Subsequently, Bird was recruited into RTÉ by Workers' Party member Eoghan Harris in the mid-1970s.
For a period, Bird was a member of the Labour Party but left after Noël Browne walked out of the party following the 1977 Labour party conference in Cork.
Bird began his career in RTÉ as a writer responding to fan mail for a children's show, and later became a researcher before moving into a position in the newsroom in 1980. For many years in the 1990s, Bird was the only point of contact between RTÉ and the Provisional IRA. He witnessed first-hand the ceasefires and the subsequent twists and turns of the peace process. On the international front, Bird reported on the Gulf War and was in Syria for the release of Brian Keenan in 1990. He covered the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in the early 90s and the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
In 1998, Bird and his colleague George Lee broke the story about a tax evasion scheme being operated by National Irish Bank, in which the bank was offering customers looking to avoid tax offshore investment schemes in the Isle of Man. For this, both men were awarded "Journalist of the Year".
While the NIB story represented a professional highpoint, the aftermath represented a low one; "the worst time of my life" as Bird described it in 2006. During his coverage of the NIB story, Bird reported that Beverley Flynn had assisted clients of the bank in evading tax by funnelling undeclared income to Clerical Medical schemes based in the Isle of Man. Flynn denied the claims and sued RTÉ for libel. What followed was "the longest-running libel case in the history of the state". The matter went to the Irish High Court in 2001; a jury found that while RTÉ was unable to prove its case, they also stated that the allegations levelled against Flynn were substantially true. Thus, Flynn was judged to have "won" the case, but was awarded no damages. Flynn appealed the matter to the Supreme court, but lost, but continued to legally pursue the matter. The issue was never fully settled until 2007, when RTÉ agreed to settle with Flynn to the sum of €1.24 million. That became a controversy in itself, with the public outraged that ultimately the taxpayer would have to foot such a steep bill, as well as accusations that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was involved and had encouraged RTÉ to settle.
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