Born: February 11th, 1936
Died: April 4th, 2025
Joe MacAnthony, who has died aged 89, was an investigative journalist who uncovered the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes scandal and worked on award-winning documentaries for Canada’s CBC television network. He became a self-described professional exile from Ireland in the mid-1970s after the political fallout from his investigations affected his work prospects.
He was one of nine children born to Joseph Marcantonio, who was of Italian descent, and Christina Murphy, near South Circular Road in Dublin. Over time, the Italian surname became the more Irish-sounding MacAnthony. His father had been an army officer, and after school in Synge Street, Joe too joined the army. However, that career was cut short when a humorous limerick he had written about the sartorial style of a senior colonel was discovered. He was asked to resign or face a court martial and chose the former option.
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He found work as a bus conductor in Leeds, England, but a few months later, his sister called and said she had applied for a job on his behalf as a library assistant in The Irish Times. This proved to be life-changing in more ways than one. On his ferry trip home for the interview, he struck up a friendship with Rory Robinson, and was later introduced to his sister Bairbre, who would become his wife.
He got the job in the library and enjoyed the buzz of the newspaper office. A keen reader, he dabbled in writing, but believed the editor Douglas Gageby didn’t consider him a suitable candidate for journalism. On realising that he would never be able to afford a house on his £14 weekly wage, he wrote an article about his plight for the Evening Press. This led to him and his friend Joe Edge setting up a housing association which built 64 houses in Coolock.
He held an eclectic range of jobs in those years: with Navan Carpets as a marketing manager, as a contributor to RTÉ’s consumer programme Home Truths and on the Late Late Show. He also stood as an Independent in a byelection in Dublin South County in 1970 but failed to win the seat. Finally, he found his home at the Sunday Independent, where he had a fruitful relationship with the editor Conor O’Brien.
This led to his exposé on where the money raised by the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes went. According to outgoing Sunday Independent editor Alan English, it was the best news story in the history of the newspaper. The sweepstake, which was essentially a lottery backed by the Irish government, was set up in 1930 by Joe McGrath, who was minister for industry and commerce in the first Cumann na nGaedheal government, bookmaker Richard Duggan and Captain Spencer Freeman. Its purpose was to raise funds for hospitals, but his investigation, published in 1973, found that the hospitals received less than 10 per cent of funds raised. The tickets were sold in some 150 countries with little or no oversight on how the money was handled. His year-long research uncovered cronyism, bribery, smuggling and opaque financial dealings and he detailed how the scheme enriched its promoters.
He also worked on stories involving phone-tapping and IRA gunrunning and his coverage of the Troubles resulted in death threats, both at his home and workplace. But it was ultimately his investigation into Fianna Fáil’s Ray Burke that he believed sounded the death knell for his career in this State. In 1974, along with colleague Paul Murphy, he highlighted the record of a £15,000 payment to Burke from the developers Tom Brennan and Joe McGowan, who had land rezoned by Dublin County Council. Burke had supported motions for the rezoning of land owned by the developers. Burke’s dealings with developers and other business interests later became the subject of lengthy investigations by the Flood tribunal and some 30 years after MacAnthony’s report, the politician served time in Arbour Hill Prison after pleading guilty to making false tax returns in connection with payments received from the backers of Century Radio.
In Patrick Brosnan’s book Professional Exile: Joe MacAnthony In His Own Words, MacAnthony said his life as a journalist in Ireland was “pretty much over” after the Ray Burke story appeared. The Independent group’s new owner Tony O’Reilly had made it clear that he no longer wanted to employ him and so he left. Despite his high profile, there were no other job offers.
A former RTÉ colleague asked if he would write a script for a documentary he was making for Canadian television about Ireland, and this led to him being offered a job with The Fifth Estate, a current affairs show on the CBC network. His wife and four children, then aged from three to 14, followed him to Canada in 1975.
He resumed his investigative journalism with gusto, working on exposés on the security services and Opus Dei and highlighting the negligence behind the Ocean Ranger tragedy. In an interview with Vincent Browne on his radio show in 2006, he noted the different reaction to corruption in Ireland and Canada. When corruption was exposed over there, agencies were closed down, properties were raided, and people were jailed. “That kind of thing didn’t happen in Ireland,” he said. “
Despite his successful career in Canada, he remained wistful about the life he might have had. He was never sued for defamation, a fact he put down to the painstaking and rigorous research he undertook during every investigation.
He had a cottage deep in the woods of Ontario and went there to write his three thrillers, Prime Target, The Blood God and The Setanta Operation. Outside work, he was a volunteer for the Samaritans. He returned to live in Dublin in 2014 and his family said the homecoming was a largely happy experience, apart from the loss of Bairbre in 2016.
Joe MacAnthony is survived by his sons Brian and Diarmuid and daughter Gráinne, his brothers Colm and Austin and sister Carol. He was predeceased by his wife Bairbre, his son Declan, brothers Syd and Frank, and sisters Una, Vera and Anita.
