(Revised 4 July 2019)
30-minute read
Dermot Feenan
LLB MA LLM Barrister-at-Law FRSA
Warning: This article contains language that some readers may find offensive
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Introduction
A rugby union football club in England has set off an unprecedented storm of controversy by signing a player acquitted of rape in 2018.
London Irish Rugby Football Club announced on 7 May 2019, that Paddy Jackson, one of the defendants in what became known as the Belfast Rugby Rape Trial, had joined.
While the signing was welcomed by some, it led to a surge in protest by others. Mr Jackson had been vilified alongside three other accused men in the trial. Part of the concern arose from both misogynistic messages about the female complainant that were communicated in a WhatsApp group used by the accused men, and Mr Jackson’s apparent lack of remorse.
I elaborated on some of these concerns in an article that I published shortly after the trial, ‘The Belfast Rugby Rape Trial, Misogyny, and Justice in Northern Ireland’.
When the announcement of Mr Jackson’s signing was made, I immediately joined others on Twitter in raising concerns. I subsequently announced that I had sent letters of concern to sponsors of the club and the club itself. Shortly afterwards, I relayed news that one of the sponsors had withdrawn from sponsoring the club. The reactions to my tweets from those in favour of Mr Jackson’s signing are troubling.
Aim and objectives
In this article, the first of two on the signing of Mr Jackson to London Irish, I address a number of the hostile reactions against those concerns. Some of these reactions were directed at me following the announcements, but the hostility is evident elsewhere on Twitter in reactions to other people’s posts protesting the signing.
The purpose in collating and examining these reactions is twofold. First, to expose and name the types of reactions as part of a pattern of problematic defences of Mr Jackson. These defences include personal (ad hominem) attacks and stereotyping attacks. They also include other techniques to avoid the problems posed by Mr Jackson’s signing: ‘whataboutery’, and distortion, minimisation or selective narrowing of concerns. This exposing and naming is intended to assist those who might worry in light of those reactions that they should have to accept some personal shame for, or back off from, protesting the signing.
The second purpose is to identify common characteristics among the authors of these reactions. These shared characteristics include their gender (men), politics (being on the right), and sense of entitlement to engage in abuse by trolling others online. The abuse varies, but it includes, variously, misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, anti-feminism, and homophobia. I argue that these troubling characteristics necessarily adhere to the signing of Mr Jackson, making the issue of the signing much more problematic for the club, Mr Jackson, and remaining sponsors of the club.
In a second, separate, follow-up article, I elaborate on problematic aspects of the conduct of Mr Jackson and others which give cause for concern. I seek to explain that conduct within the context of concerns about rugby culture and attitudes to women. I then re-visit the characteristics of the Twitter reactions to explore the relationship between prejudicial attitudes towards women and others who have been historically disadvantaged, including with reference to race, religion and sexual orientation. Understanding social life requires paying attention, where necessary, to online activity in everyday lives. In doing so, I also reflect on the role of legal representatives in addressing some of the contextual issues which lie beyond matters of guilt or innocence in a trial of rape and sexual assault.
Before proceeding to set out the announcements and the reactions to them, it is necessary to repeat briefly some of the facts from the trial and its aftermath.
Paddy Jackson and the Belfast rugby rape trial
Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding both played rugby for Ulster and Ireland. They were found not guilty on 28 March 2018 at Belfast Crown Court of rape at a party at Mr Jackson’s house in the early hours of 28 June 2016. Mr Jackson was also found not guilty of a further charge of sexual assault.
At the time of the party, Mr Jackson was 24 years old; Mr Olding was 23.
A series of messages shared between the players were reported as part of the trial proceedings. Mr Olding messaged in a WhatsApp group the morning after the party: “we are all top shaggers” and “there was a bit of spit roasting going on last night fellas”. Mr Jackson replied: “There was a lot of spit roast last night”. Mr Olding responded to a friend who asked about the complainant: “she was very very loose”.
Mr Jackson posted photos to the group which had been taken at the party. One image showed another one of the accused, Blane McIlroy, on a sofa with three young women. A friend asked: “Who are they, brassers?” (‘Brassers’ is slang for loose women or prostitutes.) Mr McIlroy responded: “Aye”. Another member of the group replied: “Fucking Fantastic”. Mr McIlroy replied: “Just a sample of how loose JACOME will be”.
A member of the WhatsApp group, referred to as AA, messaged at 1.45pm: “Boys, did you pass spit roast brasses [sic]?”
At no point did Mr Jackson intervene to challenge other members of the group on the use of the word “brassers” or otherwise.
Mr Jackson reportedly stated in court in response to questioning about the complainant’s evidence that she had been distressed when she left his house on the night of the alleged offences: “The last thing I would want is a girl crying and leaving my house […] I would have gone to help her. If I had known she was upset, I would have tried to contact her.”
Immediately after his acquittal, Mr Jackson did not respond to the evidence of the complainant’s distress. Mr Olding did, however, apologise for the hurt caused to the woman in a statement read outside the court after his acquittal. He said: “I want to acknowledge that the complainant came to court and gave evidence about her perception of those events. I am sorry for the hurt that was caused to the complainant. It was never my intention to cause any upset to anyone on that night. I don’t agree with her perception of events and I maintain that everything that happened that evening was consensual.”
In the wake of the acquittals of Mr Jackson and Mr Olding, a photograph appeared in the media of two players from Malone Rugby Football Club in Belfast wearing names ‘Stuart Olding’ and ‘Paddy Jackson’ respectively with a trophy between their groins. The photograph was taken in the changing rooms of Kingspan Stadium, the home of Ulster Rugby, after Malone won a rugby competition for the McCrea Cup.
The competition trophy is held horizontally, its neck and base opening directly in front of the groin of each man respectively. In view of the widely-reported messages at trial regarding ‘spit-roasting’, the image mimics and valorises Mr Olding and Mr Jackson. It suggests that Mr Olding and Mr Jackson got their ‘trophy’ that night – with all its equally problematic connotations, including objectification of, and victory over, a woman.
Early in the morning of 6 April 2018 the Belfast Telegraph newspaper published an ad paid for by 139 “concerned fans” of the IRFU and Ulster rugby. It included the statement: “The content of the social media exchanges involving Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding was reprehensible. Such behaviour falls far beneath the standards that your organisations represent and as such we demand that neither of these men represents Ulster or Ireland now or at any point in the future.”
Mr Jackson issued a statement on 6 April 2018, first reported at 1.41pm on BBC News NI, in which he apologised ‘unreservedly’ for “degrading and offensive” WhatsApp conversations about the incident. He stated that public criticism of his behaviour was “fully justified” and he had “betrayed the values of my family and those of the wider public”.
Mr Jackson’s apology was not issued until nine days after the trial ended.
Mr Jackson has previously engaged in other problematic behaviour. In 2012, at a time when he was playing for Ireland and Ulster, he was caught on camera with other Ulster Rugby players posing ‘blacked up’, apparently as a slave as part of an “Olympic-themed fancy dress party”. Then, Ulster Rugby apologised “unreservedly for any offense”. It added: “it was not the intention of the players to cause upset”. I have found no report of Ulster Rugby taking any disciplinary action against Mr Jackson or other players. I have found no evidence that Mr Jackson apologised for this conduct.
A survey in Ireland by Amarach Research reported on 9 April 2018 that 55% of people would not like to see Mr Jackson and Mr Olding play for Ireland again. Only 26% said they would like to see them do so.
On 14 April, the Irish Rugby Football Union and Ulster Rugby stated that “[f]ollowing a review” they “have revoked the contracts” of Jackson and Olding “with immediate effect”. It added: “In arriving at this decision, [we] acknowledge our responsibility and commitment to the core values of the game: Respect, Inclusivity and Integrity.”
The statement concluded: “It has been agreed, as part of this commitment, to conduct an in-depth review of existing structures and educational programmes, within the game in Ireland, to ensure the importance of these core values is clearly understood, supported and practised at every level of the game.”
Following rumours that month that English rugby club Sales Sharks were ready to sign Mr Jackson and Mr Olding, local MP Barbara Keeley stated that it would send “entirely the wrong signal to fans and to the local community.”
In June 2018, it was announced that Mr Jackson had been signed to the French club Perpignan. For some, the fact that he was out of sight meant that he was also out of mind. Then, in May 2019, it was announced that he would return to the United Kingdom. The fact that he had signed for a club bearing the name of the Irish abroad was troubling enough. That he was featured in the announcement wearing an Ireland jersey some thought unacceptable.
And, I, like many others, raised concerns about Mr Jackson’s signing with London Irish and sponsors.
The announcements and reactions
I set out in this section the five announcements which engendered reactions which will be the subject of this article.
The first announcement, on 10 May, raised concern about the announcement that Mr Jackson had been signed to London Irish (see below). I indicated that I was appalled with the signing for reasons obvious from my blog ‘The Belfast Rugby Rape Trial, Misogyny, and Justice in Northern Ireland’. I added that I intended to write to the club and sponsors to convey my concerns and announce a boycott of the sponsors’ products.
On 11 June, I announced that I had written to Diageo, a sponsor (though its product Guinness) of London Irish, to communicate my concerns about the signing and to advise that until I was assured that the company would no longer be associated with the club during Mr Jackson’s current signing that I would boycott Diageo’s products (see below). This was not an easy decision. I had spent some time reacquainting myself with the press coverage of the case and considering how best to proceed.
I announced on Twitter later that day that the content of that letter had been published on my blog.
On 12 June, I announced – in a 3-tweet thread – that I had written to London Irish directly to raise concerns and queries regarding the signing (see below).
On 13 June, I relayed news that Diageo had withdrawn from sponsoring the club because the signing of Mr Jackson was not consistent with its values, in line with the concerns in my letter (see below).
Each of these tweets received a series likes and replies. Some of the replies were appreciative, but a majority were hostile. I noticed that most of the latter also posted hostile replies to other people’s separate tweets on the issue of Mr Jackson’s signing.
Hostile responses
Seventeen people in total replied to my primary tweets. Four people’s replies were positive, twelve were hostile (two of the latter replied to two primary tweets), and one (which was later deleted) was largely neutral. There were an additional two people who tweeted hostile replies to my replies. The total number of people tweeting hostile replies to all my tweets was fourteen (all their names and Twitter handles are listed in the appendix). The Twitter account of one person (‘SammaC’) became unavailable at the time of writing due to the account being made private.
I focus in my exploration of these fourteen people’s hostile replies on the principal characteristics of the replies. I also refer in passing to apparent characteristics of those people based on their Twitter activity. This exploration is based on information gathered online between the date of the first tweet (10 May) and 26 June 2019.
In preview, the most significant feature of these fourteen is that thirteen are men, in so far as it is possible to tell from their names and Twitter activity. Most do not provide full names. Many hide behind anonymity.
The hostile responses that I received to my announcements can be grouped into two principal categories: direct, personal attacks and stereotyping attacks. In addition, I set out their range of avoidance techniques: ‘whataboutery’, and distortion, minimisation or selective narrowing of concerns.
Personal attacks
Attacks on the person rather on the substance of an opponent’s position or argument is a common argumentative technique. Such attacks, known also by their Latin name ‘ad hominen’ attacks, can, in some instances, be effective, as noted by Professor Douglas Watson, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric at the University of Windsor, in his book Informal Logic. However, an ad hominem attack is not persuasive where it seeks simply to demean an opponent. The anonymity and hit-and-run character of Twitter (and other social media platforms) has increasingly made the ad hominem attack a close cousin of personal abuse, as the following account of the hostile responses to my announcements show.
One of the most overt and precise ad hominem attacks came from ‘Wes’ in reply to my tweet announcing that I had written to the CEO of Diageo. Wes started with this insult: “You absolute vile man” (see below):
Wes, who appears to fancy himself as a superhero given his appropriation of an image of Batman for his profile picture, starts off his attempt to persuade me on what many would probably agree is a bad footing. However, I’ve taught hundreds of law students over decades, including some from the somewhat tougher streets of Belfast than the fanciful highways of Gotham City, so, I indulged Wes for a while in argument but he, perhaps unsurprisingly, got into a flap and flew off into the night.
In reply to one of Wes’ tweets, ‘Billy King’ tweets: “Feenan needs to apply to the Iranian Morality Police he sounds like a pure creep” (emphasis added).
Another ad hominem attack, although like Wes’s, embedded within apparently splenetic question-begging, came from – this time a named troll – called ‘Kevin Kelly’. Mr Kelly responded to my tweet announcing the decision of Diageo to pull sponsorship of London Irish on the basis that it was not consistent with its values, by tweeting: “Diageo values?? What are they exactly? Responsible drinking 🤔 You for real…tool” (emphasis added). Mr Kelly, to be fair to him, had been going quite well up until his emoji.
These three tweets were perhaps the most direct attacks. Many of the others were also ad hominem attacks but they involved a more oblique attack on motive, character or professionalism.
‘Alan O’Connor’, who again appears to have fancied himself as an enforcer given his Twitter handle @The_Sheriff_10, tweeted in response to the same announcement: “What an utter cry for attention. Give it up Dermot” (emphasis added).
Similarly, ‘Rich’ (@66Rich) tweeted in reply to the announcement that I had written to the owner, president and director of London Irish: “Would you be writing this if it was a member of your family? All involved have regrets over this incident and bandwagon jumping [sic] twats like you don’t help anyone. Social importance is helping all involved not self promoting [sic] tweets. If I was Mick Crossan I’d tell you to get to fuck” (emphasis added) (see below).
Another tweeter, ‘SammaC’ tried a technique well-known to many people, and very likely to anyone who has lived in or studied Ulster – the personal attack that attempts to shame the opponent: “Shame on you Dermot. Using a young man this way to promote yourself online. You have no interest in the trial or you’d know the facts. Get a life or a job. See you’ve tried a few…”
While shaming can sometimes be used, as Professor John Braithwaite argued in his landmark book Crime, Shame, and Reintegration, to reintegrate an offender into the community against which the offence is deemed to have been committed, this is not the sense in which SammaC uses the term. Rather, it is used – as the whole context of the tweet makes clear – in the way that psychologists will recognise: to try to make the target feel worthless. A similar motivation is evident in the tweet from ‘Toffee’, in reply to my first tweet: “Well done Dermot. I am sure your littke [sic] moral crusade will go far. Are you really so naive to think that plenty of other rugby players of teams you have supported have not behaved in similar ways” (emphasis added). Similarly, ‘SteK’ replies to the tweet announcing the letter to Diageo: “Surely you have better things to do, Not guilty in the eyes of the law, let the man get on with his life” (emphasis added).
This belittling or demeaning approach was echoed in the reply from ‘Pinky_p’, a follower of SammaC, who appears to have at least taken the trouble to read my Twitter profile (though not, as invited several times, the content of my letter or accompanying blog): “Thank god your [sic] a non practicing [sic] barrister. Not guilty so why should he not work again mr barrister? Misogyny? Can you elaborate please?”
A further personal attack that attempts to insinuate personal malice came from ‘1000yardsrushing’, who tweeted in response to the same announcement: “You have spent quite a bit of time collating the details of that message. Which makes me think ypi [sic] have a personal axe to grind with Paddy Jackson.” Aside from the illogicality in the tweet – the idea that taking time to carefully set out facts entails bias – the tweet is typical of many such tweets in that it attacks the messenger rather than the message. All of these attacks are from people who do not follow me or otherwise engage with me. Most of the attacks are by individuals who hide behind anonymity.
Certainly, some of these reactions are not simply attacks, they involve rudimentary forms of argumentation; often question-begging. Some, such as the reaction from ‘SteK’ and ‘1000yardsrushing’, may involve elements of psychological projection: possibly, they would never think about spending their own personal time addressing a matter of public interest and then publicising their position. To do so could lead to ridicule in some communities. So, anyone who takes time to address a matter of public importance in such a way must, according to such a view, be wasting their own time, pursuing a personal vendetta or seeking attention. In an inversion and paraphrasing of the feminist insight, for them the political is personalised. I was, as an academic, not used – at least in public forums and in previous communication on Twitter – to anything other than largely civil and reasoned discussion.
Twitter (and other social media) has provided new opportunities for academics (and others) to share (and receive) information, but its connectivity also exposes them to potentially vast amounts of hostility and abuse. I will return to some of the implications of this, especially in terms of understanding the broader context of the controversy surrounding Mr Jackson (and others), in the follow up to this article.
Stereotyping attack
The second type of attack is related to the first type of ad hominem attack. It involves attacking the person by stereotyping them, using gross generalization to lump the opponent into a group which can then be dismissed. This technique can be seen in the tweet by Rich, above. Rich refers to me as a part of a group of what he terms “bandwagon jumping [sic] twats”. Rich also engages, as noted above, in personal attack here and elsewhere in his tweet. This is not an unusual feature in Rich’s Twitter discourse. Elsewhere, he likes the following attack on Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian Prime Minister and European Parliament’s negotiator on Brexit, as follows: “Fuck off Son of Hitler you lying arsewipe” (see below).
The stereotyping attack is characteristic of many who appear to believe that Mr Jackson should have been allowed to remain in the Ulster and the Ireland teams after his acquittal. Despite the heterogeneity of backgrounds and viewpoints among those who opposed that return, a distinctive feature among a considerable number of the online supporters of Mr Jackson is to treat those who retain concerns about his signing at London Irish as uniformly bad.
One of those who joined a reply to my announcement that Diageo had withdrawn Guinness sponsorship from London Irish stated: “I don’t agree with what Guinness have just done. It’s simple bowing to the PC world.” ‘PC’ here refers to either ‘politically correct’ or ‘political correctness’. It is a dismissive term.
This type of attack, using a framing device of the homogenous unreasoning group, is conveyed also in the depiction of those raising concerns about Mr Jackson’s signing as a ‘mob’. Typically, this is embellished to suggest that those people are dangerous. This is evident in the use of the term “lynch mob” by journalist Siobhan O’Connor or “pitchfork brigade” by journalist Larissa Nolan. Nolan deploys a further delegitimising device in her attempt to denigrate those who express concerns by referring, in infantilizing terms, to their “new toy [sic], cancel culture” and “tantrum” (Larissa Nolan, ‘Paddy Jackson Has the Right to a Rugby Career’, The Times, 16 June 2019).
Some of these attacks are also misogynistic, referring to those who express concerns about the signing as ‘hypocritical women’ or ‘feminazis’ (a theme to which I return later in this article).
Such denigratory terms do not, of course, serve Mr Jackson well. Not only do they inflame polarised opinions, but they necessarily attach themselves to an image of Mr Jackson that has taken shape in public. By not effectively disarming opponents and rendering unnecessary such defenders, Mr Jackson’s public image becomes, to some extent, tied up with these hostile views.
Avoidance techniques
Whataboutery
Personal and stereotyping attacks were the most prevalent hostile reaction to my five announcements. Before examining the characteristics of those who sent those hostile tweets. A further feature across the responses was ‘whataboutery’, which seeks to avoid attention on the substantive issue under consideration by shifting attention to a different matter.
Apparently, the term – which has now penetrated public discourse widely – emerged in the United Kingdom during the period of violent political conflict in the north of Ireland which became known euphemistically as ‘The Troubles’. According to this device, an intervention – perhaps calling for action – would be dismissed on the basis that the advocate was not addressing another matter. The response ‘what about that [other matter]?’ was used to stall any action. As such, it is a device that tends to preserve the status quo. I will return to the significance of this approach with reference to the Paddy Jackson matter in the follow up to this article. It is perhaps not surprising given this genealogy that those who engaged in whataboutery were both from Ireland.
The tweeter called ‘1000yardsrushing’ asked, provokingly: “Are you hounding the other members of the group who texted worse messages.”
A similar approach was taken by ‘Len Dowling’, who wanted to know whether I had written to the employers of all of the people who were party to communications in the WhatsApp groups:
Whataboutery can also involve false equivalence, using an ostensible equivalent to shift attention away from the original issue. In the Jackson case, this is sometimes tried by those who refer to the fact that the complainant in the rape trial referred to other women at the party as starting to get ‘slutty’. According to this approach, this fact seeks to invalidate any concern that one can have about the misogynistic communication by the accused. This ignores not only that the complainant has no public identity and is not working in a public or representative role, but also the disequilibrium of power in gender relations. It is precisely because misogyny functions within a broader system of oppression of women that it is rightly regarded as problematic. There is no equivalence between a female complainant in a rape trial and a group of men accused of sexual offences on the complainant. Additionally, for a member of an oppressed or disadvantaged group to use the language of the oppressor against one of their own does not relieve the oppressor (or the oppression). In fact, it requires analysis of the conditions that give rise to such usages, including the internalizing of misogyny in a male-dominated society which regards women enjoying sexual activity on their own terms without harming others as bad.
This is a common feature elsewhere in the reactions against those raising legitimate concerns about Mr Jackson.
Ultimately, the reactions are deployed in opposition to those who raise concerns about the signing of Mr Jackson to London Irish.
Minimisation and distortion
Some of the reactions engage in minimising and distorting the nature of the conduct by Mr Jackson and others, for example by treating the misogynistic communication as ‘crude messages’ (‘1000yardsrushing’) or stating that “his attitude in text messages towards women weren’t [sic] good” (‘Wes’).
Selective narrowing of concern(s) as avoidance technique
Some of the reactions focus exclusively on one or two matters and avoid consideration of other concerns. This is evident in the focus only on the acquittal of Mr Jackson or the fact that he sent one message.
One of those who replied, who I have not yet referred to, is ‘Hamish’. He replied to the tweet announcing the letter to Diageo as follows: “Pathetic. He was acquitted. Do you know the girl involved? She had the best defense money could buy and the jury still had no evidence. Emotional trial by social media does not mean he did anything wrong.” Like the attempts at ad hominem attacks, Hamish starts with an insult – though this may be directed more at the nature of the statement than at me personally – before moving into whataboutery. His response does illustrate, though, the prominence given to the ‘acquittal’ rejoinder, by which supporters of Mr Jackson often refer to the fact that he was acquitted and do not engage with the arguments or the broader concerns or issues.
Characteristics: Some of the People Sending Hostile Responses (and their Likers)
In order to deepen the profile of those who oppose others who have concerns about the signing of Mr Jackson, it is necessary to look more closely at the broader attitudes of those who engaged in hostile responses and those who liked those responses. Among the fourteen who sent hostile responses, there are instances of misogyny/sexism, racism (including Islamophobia), homophobia, and anti-feminism. Not all of the fourteen engage in such communications, but the majority (71%) display at least one of these attitudes. I look at each in turn. I also note in passing where there is any evidence that those who like posts by those individuals share similar attitudes.
Misogyny/ sexism
This is the most prevalent feature among those who engaging in hostile responses (and their likers). ‘Toffee’ engages in misogynist trolling. On 19 April, ‘Sarah’ tweets about having drunk three glasses of wine and feeling sad that people were being hateful about the actress Emma Thompson when she attended the Extinction Rebellion protests that day in London. Toffee comes onto Sarah’s timeline, and refers to her “inability to drink wine and tweet some sense.” He then concludes: “Please don’t drink and tweet again. #thankyou”. Sarah retweets, not unreasonably:
“*enjoys wine and has an opinion*
Men who think they’re superior for no particular reason”.
Toffee then escalates his sexism by abusing Sarah: “You tweeting bollox has nothing to do with superiority/ men or misogyny. It has everything to do with your ridiculous tweets.”
Similarly, Toffee likes a tweet denigrating a woman who, not unreasonably, raised concerns about a male manager’s humiliation of her in an interview. She had rightly drawn attention to the distinction between criticism and attack. It is noteworthy that Toffee has 39 followers, only one of whom is female – a girl called ‘Amor’ from north-western Venezuala. Toffee has 11 followers, none are female.
SteK seems equally compromised in his follows. He follows 88 accounts, none are of females. He has 11 followers, one of whom is female. On 11 May 2019, SteK joins a thread in which a female commentator and former footballer, is spoken about favourably by a number of men. He is asked by one of the men to clarify his position on whether women can only commentate on women’s sports and men on men’s sports. SteK replied: “Women’s and men’s football are different sports, different standards, different work ethics!!”
Similarly, Kevin Kelly weighs in on 20 January 2019 with other misogynists in response to a tweet from a female PhD student at the London School of Economics who tells a story about a woman walking out on a Tinder date leaving her male date “with his patriarchy looking stunned”. Mr Kelly tweets: “We all know that ‘Tinder Date’ never happened, but sounds like a good story for the feminist Twitter brigade. Sad, almost as sad as the advert itself! Imigine [sic] the uproar if roles were reversed, false claims, female teachers sleeping with their students etc. You should know better” (emphasis added). The instant dismissal of a woman’s story, false attribution of motive, and then condescension are classic misogynistic tropes.
Like many of those who trolled up on my timeline, ‘Rich’ is both a misogynist and a racist. On 9 April 2019, he tweets: “All the grovelling that @theresa_may has done has given her bigger carpet burns on her knees than a two bit [sic] hooker.” A few months later, he tweets: “People who believe fat birds are easier to pull clearly have no understanding of the laws of physics.” The play on the idea of physically pulling women is of course repellent, but indicative of a type of man who regards physically manhandling women and dehumanising women acceptable and treats Mr Jackson’s reinstatement as important and necessary.
‘Billy King’, another of those who sent a hostile reply, responds to a tweet by a woman he does not follow. The woman refers approvingly to a woman on public transport challenging her male companion on his attitude to Paddy Jackson. King replies that she sounds “like a feminazi”. King’s unsolicited and misogynistic intervention is invariably linked to anti-feminism (see further below). It is also noteworthy that King ends his tweet with the frog emoji, increasingly used by those on the alt-/far-right. He regularly hashtags the far-right, convicted offender Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon).
Two of those liking hostile responses are Noel Kelleher and Micheal Gormley. On a number of occasions, Gormley refers to women as ‘tail’. Kelleher describes someone ‘bitch like a little girl’. Both expressions denigrate women.
Racism
The next most prevalent response among some of the people issuing hostile responses is racism. ‘SteK’, refers to an incident on 2 April 2019 when Moise Kean, a black player in Juventus, was subjected to monkey chants from supporters of Caligiari in Itay. SteK ignores the obvious racist component of the chanting by stating in a series of tweets: “Racism is obviously bad I can’t quite comprehend the reaction from last nights [sic] events. […] The duty of the fan is to create an atmosphere, create a hostile environment for the visiting team. And my question is how far do we take this??? Are fans no longer allowed to abuse other fans or players? Are chants about region now banned? Racism isn’t just Black vs white […] I personally believe fans can do whatever verbally to try to get one over on the opposition.”
On 7 September 2018, Alan O’Connor tweets: “The Welsh are worse than the English, always were. Smarmy, fuckers with an arrogance and sense of entitlement. Just look at the likes of [he then refers to three sportsmen] throw Tom Jones in there too. Total dickheads.”
‘Rich’ employed the racist trope of camel-fucker and an ascription of homosexual incest to describe Mo Salah, the Egyptian footballer.
‘Pinky p’, who is a prolific defender of Jackson, shows her ignorance of racism by dismissing the significance of Jackson’s use of blackface in a group by tweeting on 13 June 2019: “5 yrs ago”; “all apologised”; “he’s played with and friends with POC who seem to have forgiven him and judged him not to be racist”. Pinky p then engages in aggressive deflection by adding in her reply to someone who has raised a concern about Jackson’s conduct: “I hope u voiced ur outrage to all involved”. The additional and unwarranted use of ‘outrage’ is also significant.
Combined, these reactions reflect significant resistance to addressing legitimate outstanding concerns about Jackson’s conduct.
A form of racism more localised to the north of Ireland is the stereotyping by Unionists and Loyalists directed at Ireland or the Irish. This can be seen in the activity of ‘1000yardsrushing’ who likes two tweets in 2018 referring to the Jackson case: “This case highlights how backward Ireland still is. Men hounded out of their jobs in N. Ireland and the driving force for that came from the South of Ireland where the accused in rape trials have anonymity. You couldn’t make it up” (emphasis added). The other liked tweet states in part: “The aggravation towards Paddy [Jackson] and Stuart [Olding] has nothing to do with their behaviour but more to do with Irish politics, rugby politics and the feminazis” (emphasis added).
The blaming of people from the ‘South of Ireland’ (which means not Northern Ireland), is of course misplaced. Significant concerns were raised in Northern Ireland, Ireland and elsewhere. A protest outside Kingspan Stadium after the acquittal was organised by the Belfast Feminist Network. Shortly after Ulster Rugby stated that they would conduct a review, the official shirt sponsor of Ulster Rugby, Bank of Ireland, referred to “the serious behaviour and conduct issues” raised in the trial and said it “expect[ed the] review to be robust”. The Northern Ireland branch of the bank is headquartered in Belfast. The bank trades on the London Stock Exchange. The bank’s chief executive, Francesca McDonagh, was born in England, educated at the University of Oxford, and had worked all of her life previously in England. She had reportedly been at the forefront of the gender equality agenda in recent years. McDonagh was reportedly personally involved in approving the bank’s statement. The statement, which very likely played some role in the decision-making by Ulster Rugby, reflected a corporate position – not a view from the ‘South of Ireland’.
The anti-Irish view from ‘1000yardsrushing’ treats with prejudicial suspicion facts that may be entirely innocuous. So, ‘1000yardsrushing’ also posts such a tweet after the trial which shows a photo of Sir John Gillen, the judge leading the post-trial inquiry into the law and procedure on serious sexual offences in Northern Ireland. Sir John is sitting with Geraldine Hanna, CEO of Victim Support Northern Ireland and member of the Gillen panel. Both are holding up a local newspaper carrying on its front page on 20 November 2018 a reference to a principal recommendation from the inquiry’s preliminary report. The paper is the only newspaper to carry news of the inquiry so prominently above the fold on that date. The paper happens to be the Irish News, a paper long-popular within the Catholic, nationalist community in the north of Ireland. The photo was taken in the waiting area of the BBC News studio in Belfast, where Sir John was interviewed early on 20 November. Based on my experience, the paper would have been one of a number of papers available at the BBC that day. It is unclear where ‘1000yardsrushing’ sourced the image, as there are no publicly available copies online. However, the front-page coverage of the review in the Irish News would have made an obvious photo opportunity. Still, ‘1000yardsrushing’ states: “Strange to see Lord justice Gillen brandishing a selected newspaper – @irish_news, given his influential position.”
The reference to ‘selected’ newspaper suggests bias which would compromise his ‘influential’ position. Not only does the statement reflect an anti-Irish prejudice, but it is also a smear against Sir John; 29 years a barrister and 18 years a judge before his retirement.
This type of smear will not be unusual to seasoned observers of narrow-minded political bias and religious sectarianism in the north of Ireland. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the people who liked replies by ‘1000yardsrushing’ include ‘John’ (@johnblues123), ‘Sharon Harpur’ (@Streamsidelife), and ‘Geoffrey Vance’ (@VanceGeoffrey). John follows Nigel Farage, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson and Linfield FC (whose nickname is ‘The Blues’). Like others intervening on the Jackson matter, he follows no women (out of the 31 people he follows). He appears to be anti-feminist and Islamophobic. On 6 June 2018, he liked a tweet that states: “Feminists have used the misogyny card far too much that it is now meaningless. #FeminismIsCancer”. On 3 June 2019, he liked a tweet that refers to the Mayor of London, former solicitor Sadiq Khan, as follows: “Khan is a Pakistani cab driver elected by neutered Londoners for his race not merit. Dude has been a total flop, and London, despite being one of my favorite big cities, is falling if not fallen.”
Sharon Harpur liked and retweeted a tweet from ‘Jon Mac’: “It’s important that we look to securing some more special events annually for Ulster Day so the whole province can celebrate the birthplace of the state #UlsterDay #UlsterDay2018”. The tweet is also liked by “Geneyes #FreeTommyFB” (@jeanwallace27), who joined the Tommy Robinson campaign to elect him as a member of the European Parliament. The idea that “the whole province” [of Ulster] would wish to celebrate the creation of Northern Ireland (which comprises only six counties of the Irish province of Ulster) reflects a key strand of Ulster Loyalism, cleaving to an imagined uncontested space and polity that is, at least, at odds with the identifications of a fifth of the population in Northern Ireland who regard themselves as nationalist according to the latest Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey.
Geoffrey Vance, who liked both of the replies from ‘1000yardsrushing’, is also from Northern Ireland. Following an ITV News tweet “IS Bride Shamima Begum insisted she is not ‘a threat’ to the UK and has spoken of her regret at joining the jiahdi fighters in Syria” (18 February 2019), Mr Vance tweets: “you should be ashamed @itvnews. giving her airtime. fuck you”. This was a widespread view at the time by many on the right. Mr Vance is a supporter of Nigel Farage and Brexit. And, like a number of those who engage in hostile tweets and likes has very few female followers. In fact, at the time of writing, Mr Vance had 28 followers, of which only two were women: the first is ‘Yen Nhi’, whose Twitter handle includes: “#Girl #hotgirl #babygirl #missgirl #sexygirl #vietnamese”. The second is ‘XX6 @Dahtsuperqueen1’, whose Twitter banner is ‘Miss kitty’ and whose handle includes “being bad keeps me motivated.” It seems highly likely that the first of these two, given the hashtags, retweets (with images and hashtags such as “#analdildo #teen sex #publicsex”) and embedded links in her timeline, is engaged in some form of online porn; and the other is demonstrating that she buys into the idea of a ‘bad girl’ and self-objectifies with ‘Miss kitty’. These are the ideas of women that one of Jackson’s supporters apparently approves. Mr Vance, like a number of other tweeters mentioned above, also appears to be a Democratic Unionist: following on Twitter a series of Democratic Unionist Party politicians.
Islamophobia
Some of the racist responses are also distinctively Islamophobic. Billy King, who describes himself as ”Free Speech Brexiteer Democrat”, liked a tweet from ‘Darth Frog’, 21 June 2019, that sets out an array of photos of what appear to be brown-skinned men: “If only there were a pattern, something linking these crimes maybe….”
The tweet is consistent with far-right attempts in the United Kingdom to demonise all Muslims on the basis of stereotypes about Muslim ‘grooming gangs’. The Twitter handle ‘Darth Frog’ is not surprising: playing on both the name ‘Darth’, ‘dark lord’ in the Star Wars film series, and the alt-right symbol of Pepe the Frog. Both the content of the tweet and the identity of the sender appear to be consistent with Billy King’s taste in those he follows. These include Gerard Batten, leader of the increasingly far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP); the German extreme right party AfD; and Count Dankula (Markus Meechan). Meechan was convicted of ‘grossly offensive’ communication under the Communications Act 2003 for posting a video in which showed a dog, which Meechan had trained, raise his right paw in the manner of a Nazi salute when prompted by Meechan’s command ‘Sieg Heil’. The video shows the dog appearing to watch a speech by Adolf Hitler and responding when Meechan asked if he wanted to gas the Jews. Meechan was an unsuccessful UKIP candidate in the European elections in June 2019.
SteK, who has already been identified in relation to misogyny and racism, likes a tweet from Gerard Batten in which Batten comments about ‘Islamisation’ following the Football Association’s decision not to offer champagne to the winning team “in deference to players whose religion forbids alcohol diversity”. The FA’s decision is not unreasonable where the existence of a plurality of beliefs requires a common denominator of respect that doesn’t needlessly offend all.
Homophobia
Tony Galwey (@tgalwey), another of those who sent a hostile tweet (“I see you’re a man that does not believe in second chances, reformation of character or a chance to atone for ones [sic] mistakes or character flaws? But you’re ok with a social media [sic] witch hunt and prersecution [sic] of a man trying to make a living and trying to get on with his life.”), has engaged repeatedly in homophobia, an element of which includes misogyny. On 20 June 2019, he retweeted the following: “LGBT movement has morphed from being a (once necessary) pressure group to being an aggressive recruitment campaign, with more than a hint of the emergence of a paedophilia agenda.” On 12 June 2019, around the time of Gay Pride marches, he liked a tweet from someone called ‘Liz O’ saying that she remembers when pride was a sin. He also liked a photo of female baboons walking into the distance, their rear ends red and swollen during ovulation, with the caption “Gays on their way home after Pride Weekend”. Mr Galwey’s homophobia took a misogynistic turn following the reports of assaults on two women, a lesbian and bisexual woman, on a bus in London in early June 2019. Both women had, not unreasonably – in view of reliable corroborating evidence, attributed the attack to an increase in hatred following the vote to leave the EU in June 2016. Their views were reported in a number of national newspapers. Tony liked a tweet from Jon Holbrook, Brexiteer and writer for right-of-centre online magazine Spiked, who stated: “Being a lesbian couple attacked on bus shouldn’t entitle anyone to a headlined political opinion. When did you last read a headline: “Elderly white man attacked on bus [gives political opinion]”?
Anti-feminist
A number of those expressing misogynistic views also express, not surprisingly, anti-feminist views. Hamish tweeted in response to a woman commenting on the Jackson matter: “She doesn’t care. She is following the feminist mob” (emphasis added). This idea of the ‘feminist mob’ – which, as noted in the first part of the article, represents a stereotyping attack – is repeated by Hamish. Elsewhere on Twitter, he states: “Most of the real female Ulster fans were disgusted when he [Jackson] left the club due to the hate from the feminist mob” (emphasis added). Hamish seemed troubled – if you will recall – that anyone would engage in what he termed “emotional trial by social media”, and yet on 13 March 2019, when the media reported that Shamima Begum, a British citizen who had left the UK when she was 15 years-old to join ISIS in Syria, and was, after leaving ISIS, seeking to return to the UK to give birth a child, tweeted: “She saw severed heads in bins. It didnt [sic] phase her. Listen to her interview. No regret. Her head should be added to the bins.”
Conclusion
What can be seen from the sample of people who sent hostile responses (and liked those responses) is a disturbing side to how some people respond to the Jackson matter. Those supporting Mr Jackson’s signing online tend to be men; often politically on the right, who support rugby and feel entitled to engage in abuse by trolling others – often women and girls – online. The abuse varies, but it includes, variously, misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and anti-feminism. The pre-eminence of misogyny among those who engage in hostile replies (and their likers) is consistent with data elsewhere on the high level of misogyny on Twitter – as reported by Demos in 2014. A number of the hostile tweeters (and likers) do not follow women at all on Twitter or if they do it is in small numbers. Their hostile responses vary in degree of hostility, but most involve personal (ad hominem) attacks and/or stereotyping attacks. They also include other techniques to avoid the problems posed by Mr Jackson’s signing: whataboutery and distortion, minimisation, and selective narrowing of concern.
This article provides detailed information that can also inform an understanding of the resistance to examining and preventing misogyny and associated harmful behaviours. This information may reassure those trolled by these people that they need not take the attacks personally. The hostile responses are generally not intended to address constructively the issues at stake and need not necessarily warrant engagement. The hostile reactions stand in the way of any rapprochement between those holding opposing views. The associated racism, misogyny, homophobia contaminates debate. Unfortunately, it makes closure of the issues raised by Mr Jackson’s conduct unlikely. The troubling characteristics of those engaging in such hostility adhere to Mr Jackson, making the issue of his signing to London Irish much more problematic for the club and for Mr Jackson. The characteristics are also concerning for rugby because they fail to address the wider cultural problems that gave rise to concerns about the conduct of Mr Jackson and others. And, they are concerning because they show no appreciation of the broader need to reform the criminal justice system so that future defendants and complainants might potentially avoid the problems associated with the Belfast Rugby Rape Trial. It is to these other concerns that I return in the follow up to this article.
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Appendix
Table: List of people engaging in hostile reactions
| Name | Twitter handle |
| Toffee | @Toffee1995 |
| Wes | @weser111 |
| Hamish | @ovalshapedball |
| SteK | @AnotherPositive |
| SammaC | @samma_c |
| Pinky p | @quinnty_p |
| Billy King | @BillyKi88394399 |
| 1000yardsrushing | @1000yardsrushi3 |
| Len Dowling | @LenDowlingCork |
| Rich | @66Rich |
| Joe Brolly | @JoeBrolly1993 |
| Alan O Connor | @The_Sheriff_10 |
| Kevin Kelly | @kevinkelly81 |
| Tony Galwey | @tgalwey |
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© Dermot Feenan 2019