'Guardian' denies Burchill comments were anti-Irish

The Guardian newspaper has defended its columnist, Julie Burchill, following a second complaint over her allegedly racist comments about Irish people.

In her column of September 20th, Burchill wrote that the St Patrick's Day parade in London was "the celebration of a religion that condemns contraception, abortion, divorce and the right of a woman to be a priest".

The comments were in the last paragraph of an article criticising the fact that the Association of London Government (ALG) had stopped grant-aiding bodies such as an asbestosis charity and a carers' group.

She made the remarks when she contrasted the lack of support for "the defence of a worker's right not be killed by his job" with the ALG's support for the St Patrick's Day parade.

The Guardian has since printed a clarification acknowledging that the ALG has said it never funded the parade.

Yesterday, British newspapers reported that Mr Noel Lynch, a member of the London Assembly and the Metropolitan Police Authority was planning a complaint to the police.

Burchill was on holidays yesterday, but a spokeswoman for the Guardian said regular readers of the column knew that she frequently indulged in "over the top, iconoclastic polemic".

"That is why she both irritates and exhilarates her readers, not all of whom take everything she writes absolutely literally," the spokeswoman said.

She noted the Press Complaints Commission and the Metropolitan Police had considered an identical complaint about her column last year ". . . and both bodies evidently decided it fell within the boundaries of personal opinion or general comment. We agree with that."

Last year, Mr John Twomey complained to police about a column in which Burchill claimed Ireland had helped Hitler, and that the Catholic Church was engaged in "almost compulsory child molestation".

The Crown Prosecution Service found there was "insufficient evidence to put before a court on a charge involving incitement to racial hatred".

Burchill was quoted as saying that her criticisms were of the Catholic Church and not of the Irish as a people.

Yesterday, the British Independent quoted Mr Lynch as saying, "we [the Irish community] have had too much discrimination for too long to just allow someone to just abuse us whenever she feels like it".