Stories
Veteran journalist Sam Smyth received an outstanding achievement award at the UCD Smurfit School Business Journalist Awards 2025 this Monday for a career spanning more than five decades.
Smyth’s citation for the award, written by Barry McCall and delivered by jury chair and former Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan, recalled how he “broke a story which was to rock Ireland’s business and political establishment” when he revealed a multi-million-pound insider share deal during the privatisation of Irish Sugar into Greencore in 1991 in the Sunday Independent.
Five years later, Smyth reported that the late businessman Ben Dunne had arranged for Dunnes Stores to pay for works valued at several hundred thousand pounds at then-minister Michael Lowry’s home in Co Tipperary.
“In true Ireland-meets-Watergate fashion, the documentary evidence required to stand up the story was delivered in a pub carpark. Minister Lowry refused to comment on the story in advance of publication. He resigned 36 hours after its publication,” O’Sullivan said.
Accepting the award, Smyth, who is now a senior contributor to The Currency, said: “I’ve won other awards but I’m particularly pleased that this is a prize for business journalism.
“I was twice voted journalist of the year and both awards were essentially about scandals in business. There were stories about rich and powerful men caught with somebody else’s money resting in ther tills.
“My first collar was the managing director of Greencore. He stood down in disgrace after presiding over the first privatisation of an Irish State-owned body, Irish Sugar.
“Then again, more of you may recall that Ireland’s wealthiest businessman, Ben Dunne, secretly paid off the £500,000 debt of a serving government minister. Michael Lowry resigned two days after the story was published.
“Cynics may say that’s history, two old stories from a generation ago. And that is true… But hold on, we have a news update.
“In January of this year, 29 years after his initial disgrace, our current Taoiseach and Tánaiste chose Michael Lowry TD as their Mr Fixit for the current coalition.
“Then in February this year, 33 years after his standing down, it was reported that former Greencore managing director, the late Chris Comerford, left €11.6 million in his will.”
“We thought it was a disaster until we went around the newsagents and found that the paper had sold out in record time.”
O’Sullivan retraced Smyth’s steps from band manager in his native Belfast to music journalist at Spotlight Magazine after his move to Dublin in 1972, and soon after member of the Sunday World’s founding team.
The tabloid’s early deadline meant it missed the death of President Erskine Childers in 1974, unlike its Sunday Press and Sunday Independent rivals.
“The two broadsheets appeared with black edged front pages dedicated to the late President,” said O’Sullivan. “The Sunday World, on the other hand, had its usual front page, which in those days was as likely to feature a soft focus swimsuit as hard news…
“This turned out to be a stroke of good fortune, according to Sam: ‘We thought it was a disaster until we went around the newsagents and found that the paper had sold out in record time. People weren’t that interested in memorials to the president after all.’”
Smyth was later the leader writer at the Irish Daily Star. After he left the Independent he became a columnist with the Daily Mail, and more recently a podcast host and senior contributor for The Currency.
O’Sullivan recalled that the initial tip-off he got from members of U2 in a hotel lobby in Florida about Ben Dunne’s “meltdown” there not only led to his Lowry coverage – for which the Tipperary politician unsuccessfully sued Smyth – but also to more revelations of payments by Ben Dunne to Charlie Haughey, prompting the establishment of the Payments to Politicians tribunals.
This formed the basis for Smyth’s best-selling book Thanks a Million, Big Fella. Another best seller was Dear John, a collection of hoax letters he co-wrote with Michael Nugent to hoodwink people in power.
“The then Taoiseach Albert Reynolds was convinced to help the fictitious John seek a grant from the IDA to produce dog bowls modelled on dinner plates while Charlie Haughey expressed an interest in meeting John to discuss the funding of a ‘Bring Back Charlie’ campaign,” O’Sullivan said.
Smyth paid tribute to his “former editor and mentor” at the Irish Independent, the late Vincent Doyle. “Neither myself nor Vinnie enjoyed the privilege of a third-level education,” he pointed out – yet he was the most successful editor of a daily newspaper in Irish history.
Taking time out to congratulate the younger journalists distinguished at the awards ceremony, Smyth shared some of his lifelong experience with them: “Journalism is not a profession. It is a craft, one best learned over time, telling the truth. It is also capable of much good and even some great things.”
Further reading
Trumpism, Bezos and Watergate: When Sam Smyth met Carl Bernstein
