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Mitchelstown native Mark Hennessy, London Editor of The Irish Times.

By Eoin Gubbins

Mitchelstown’s own Mark Hennessy, London Editor of The Irish Times, was at the heart of the paper’s coverage of the recent referendum on Scottish Independence. Filing daily both before and after Scotland chose to remain within the United Kingdom, Mr Hennessy covered the political and emotional highs and lows of the polling process.

Speaking to The Avondhu, he says the intensity of campaigning from the Yes side sometimes went too far, but that most campaigners were peaceful. “The Yes side was very passionate. Sometimes, a minority of them were downright ignorant and threatening, with verbal abuse pretty common on such occasions.”

Such incidents may have been minimised, however, by the No campaign’s smaller public profile. “Mostly, the Yes side were so vocal that the No side was reluctant to come out onto the streets, or to hold open-all-comers public meetings, because they feared that the meetings would be disrupted.”

Mr Hennessy believes expansion of powers for the Scottish parliament promised by the No campaign prior to the poll, will be put in place. However, he says British Prime Minister David Cameron may not receive much credit in Scotland because of his statements that it would be tied to wider constitutional changes throughout the UK.

Neutral media coverage was not well received by the pro-independence Scottish National Party, according to Mr Hennessy.

“They regard coverage as being pro, or anti, refusing to accept that it could be neither,” he says. “Often they have some grounds because the Scottish press is obviously biased: much of it is Labour-supporting; the Daily Mail follows a conservative, if not 'Conservative' agenda.”

Although he thinks the SNP had a case that the national media lacked neutrality, Mr Hennessy describes its attacks on the BBC as ‘shameful.’

“The BBC is guilty of having been incredibly cautious in its coverage of the referendum, believing that it was on a hiding to nothing. However, some in the SNP took that to mean that it could be bullied, which they tried pretty relentlessly to do."

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