More on Medbh

In a post on Cassidy’s strange ideas about the Irish origins of jazz, I gave a link to a Wikipedia debate between John M. Baker and an unknown individual called Medbh. This is the link here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Medbh. There seems little doubt that Medbh was a sock puppet for Cassidy himself. The crazy half-baked ranting is exactly like that used by Cassidy himself and a host of sock puppet identities used by him on various sites. At one point, Cassidy lets the mask slip completely, and Baker picks up on it:

Actually, I did not characterize CounterPunch Books as a vanity press, nor did I say anything about how many books it sells. I said only that it is not a peer-reviewed scholarly publisher. I do not have an opinion on whether or not it is a vanity press, nor how many books it sells. I don’t consider the number of books it sells at all relevant – many scholarly publishers sell few books, and many nonsensical books have become best-sellers. How do you know that Cassidy signed a standard author’s contract? I thought you said earlier that you are not Cassidy.

It is worth reading these debates, as they show clearly that Cassidy was dishonest, ignorant and full of crap. However, for those who can’t be bothered looking at the original source, here are some interesting notes.

When Baker said that Cassidy was an ‘academic administrator at NCoC’, Medbh/Cassidy responded by saying that ‘This is utter nonsense. Cassidy is a tenured faculty member at New College of California, where he teaches media studies and Irish Studies. Prior to that he was on the graduate faculty of the Film Department at SF State. He is NOT an administrator at New College.’ What the sock puppet doesn’t say, of course, is that Cassidy had no right to be anything in a university but the janitor. He had no degrees, no qualifications. Nothing. This is the elephant in the room. How did Cassidy become ‘a tenured faculty member’ in a university without having a degree? Did he lie to get the job? How else did a man with no qualifications become a professor?

The sock puppet cites a number of people who have supported his work, with comments like this: Alex Cockburn is from Cork, Ireland, and studied the Irish language for the first six years of his schooling. He reads Irish and speaks it. He is a crank too, since he does not know who Grant Barret is. Of course, Cockburn was a good friend of Cassidy’s, so whether he was a crank or not or spoke Irish or not is of no importance.

Here is a list of the supporters mentioned and their known involvement with Cassidy:

Professor J. Joseph Lee of NYU and University College Cork – a friend of Cassidy’s.

Professor Robert Scally, associated with NYU Glucksman’s Ireland House – also a friend of Cassidy’s.

Professor Peter Linebaugh – friend of Cassidy, guested at his Irish Crossroads Festival in 2004.

Esther O’Hara (University of California, Berkeley) – former colleague and friend of Cassidy at New College of California

Pól Ó Muirí, journalist – no known connection.

Frank McNally, journalist – no known connection

Reyhan Harmanci, journalist – no known connection

Eamonn McCann, Journalist – friend of Cassidy’s, appeared in his 1995 documentary Uncensored Voices

Alexander Cockburn, journalist – friend of Cassidy’s

Peter Quinn, writer – described Cassidy as ‘my best friend’

Maureen Dezell, writer – friend of Cassidy’s

In other words, out of 11 people cited as supporting Cassidy, only three have no known connection to Cassidy. Cassidy himself, using an unconvincing sock puppet identity, gave a list of his own mates, without the slightest hint that he knew any of them, as support for the idea that he should be taken seriously as a scholar of language! What a total fraud!

However, the thing I found most astounding is the point raised by Baker about ‘peer-review’. Peer review is a specific process, where academic writing is assessed by academic peers in a formal way. Cassidy (Medbh) seems to have thought that peer-review was about getting reviews in newspapers! This is yet one more piece of evidence that Cassidy was a total moron who knew nothing about the world of scholarship and had no business teaching in a university.

Cassidy’s Cronies

Anyone who has been following this blog will be well aware of my attitude towards Daniel Cassidy, a fraudster who invented a large number of fake Irish expressions and claimed that these were the origin of common English words and phrases, even when these English words and phrases already had well-established etymologies. As part of his strategy to convince the weak-minded and gullible, this seasoned con-man invented a bizarre scenario in which a cabal of professional linguists and dictionary-makers conspired to hide the ‘fact’ that large numbers of words derived from Irish, thus simultaneously pandering to a sense of victimhood among Irish Americans and neatly explaining why there was no evidence to corroborate his ridiculous claims.

Of course, this cabal doesn’t exist. However, it is very interesting to look at the slime trails left by Cassidy’s supporters online. It is quite clear that the vast number of people who supported Cassidy are linked both to him and to each other in an unhealthy network of cronies. I have already mentioned some of these, but let’s just have a look at some of them again.

The principal crony seems to be Peter Quinn, an Irish-American writer. He is linked to many of the other names which keep cropping up again and again. For example, there are pictures online of Peter Quinn and Eamon Loingsigh together, the Eamon Loingsigh who published a badly-written and laughable article about Cassidy’s nonsense on his blog. Peter Quinn was one of the founders of the Irish American Writers and Artists, along with Cassidy himself, TJ English and Maureen Dezell. Maureen Dezell is quoted on the jacket of Cassidy’s book. In 2008, Cassidy appeared with Peter Quinn and others at an event sponsored by Glucksman Ireland House NYU (which boasts Peter Quinn and Pete Hamill on its board) Then there is David Meltzer, whom Cassidy described as his ‘reb’, who is on the Board of the Before Columbus Foundation which awarded Cassidy’s worthless tripe an award. Then all you have to do is look at the Crossroads Irish Festival, founded and run by Cassidy. In 2002 alone, we find William Kennedy, whose name is often linked to Cassidy, Peter Quinn who described Cassidy as “my best friend”, Maureen Dezell who gave him a nice quote for his book jacket, Michael Patrick MacDonald who has posted in support of Cassidy, Marion Casey who was gullible enough to quote him in an academic paper and who is linked to Joe Lee who also made a fool of himself by backing Cassidy, and Eamonn Wall who has just been appointed to the board of the Irish American Writers Association which Cassidy jointly founded.

Jesus! Will someone open a feckin’ window and let in some fresh air! Surely, there must be a handful of other writers and artists in the Irish-American community who don’t have a Bacon Number of one in relation to Cassidy?

The fact is, Cassidy’s book is obviously and clearly a pack of lies. Yet these people and many more have helped, wittingly or unwittingly, to sell this damaging, dishonest and nasty little book to gullible people. They have lent whatever status and kudos they can provide to a con-man whose lack of intelligence and disrespect for the Irish language is manifest on every page. None of them seems to be prepared to break ranks, repudiate this charlatan and apologise for their role in the Cassidy Scandal.

This is where the real cabal and conspiracy is. Among a crowd of people who would rather do anything than admit the truth that Cassidy was wrong and that they were wrong to support him.