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John Waters (born Castlerea, Co.Roscommon, Rep. of Ireland in 1955) is a columnist with The Irish Times and former editor of Magill magazine. His career began in 1981 with the leading Irish political-music magazine Hot Press. He went on to write for the Sunday Tribune and later edited In Dublin and Magill. Waters has written several books and in 1998 he devised The Whoseday Book, a book that contains quotes, writings and pictures of 365 Irish writers and musicians - which has so far raised some €3m for the Irish Hospice Foundation. Waters is an ardent supporter of fathers' rights in Ireland.

John Waters is the father of a daughter named Róisín with singer Sinéad O'Connor.

He writes a weekly column for The Irish Times that appears on a Friday. He was briefly fired during a dispute between him and the current editor of the Irish Times, but was subsequently reinstated.

Politics and advocacy

He has referred to himself as a "neo-Luddite" or later as a "luddite". At one stage he refused to use email and expressed his concern that society ignores the negative aspects of the Internet.

In his articles titled "Impose democracy on Iraq" and "Bush and Blair doing right thing", Waters explained his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a position based on his sincere belief that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the West due to its possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction; an erroneous belief widely accepted at the time.

He wrote an article titled "Two sides to domestic violence", which criticised the lack of gender balance in Amnesty International's campaign against domestic violence in Ireland. Waters cited the National Crime Council report, conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute, which found approximate gender symmetry in most measures of domestic violence and he pointed out that despite these statistics, funding for women victims of domestic violence (€15 million) disproportionately outstrips funding for male victims of domestic violence. Waters' article led to a response from the head of Amnesty International's Irish branch.

Waters also devotes much of his column space in The Irish Times to discussing the role and importance of religion and faith in society. In interview, he has described people of faith as "funnier, sharper and smarter" than atheists.

Electric Picnic 2010

John Waters attended Electric Picnic 2010 and wrote that he felt a sense of dissatisfaction with the event, concluding that there was a lack of meaning underpinning events at the festival.John Waters (10 September 2010). "Soul poison hides lack of meaning for Picnickers". Retrieved 14 September 2010. Una Mullally replied that if John Waters felt disconnected or out of place at the Electric Picnic, that it was because the country had changed.Una Mullally (12 September 2010). "If John Waters feels lost or disconnected from the new reality of Ireland, it's because this isn't his country anymore..." Retrieved 14 September 2010.

Books & Plays

Jiving at the Crossroads (Blackstaff,1991); Race of Angels (4th Estate/Blackstaff,1994): Every Day Like Sunday? (Poolbeg, 1995); An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Ireland (Duckworth 1997); The Politburo Has Decided That You Are Unwell (Liffey Press, 2004); Lapsed Agnostic (Continuum, 2007). He has written plays for radio and the stage, including Long Black Coat, (1994), Holy Secrets, (1996), Easter Dues, (1997), and Adverse Possession (1998).

The title of his first book, Jiving at the Crossroads, is a play on deValera's vision for a rural Ireland as "comely maidens dancing at the crossroads". Waters gives his view of the new Ireland.

Lapsed Agnostic, tells the story of his "journey from belief to un-belief and back again."

Eurovision song

In 2006, Waters entered a song, The Words That Never Wear Out, for the Irish selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. The song, however, wasn't accepted for the selection final. Waters publicly criticised the fact that the selected singer, Brian Kennedy, had been allowed to enter his own composition, Every Song is a Cry for Love, in the final and alleged favouritism towards Kennedy. He referred to people who had publicly criticised his song as "corner boys" in a column in Village magazine.

In 2007 the entry that he co-wrote with Tommy Moran, They Can't Stop the Spring was shortlisted for Ireland's entry to the 2007 contest. On February 16, 2007 They Can't Stop the Spring was selected on RTÉ's The Late Late Show to represent Ireland in that year's final held in Helsinki. After a telephone vote of Late Late Show viewers, They Can't Stop The Spring won the selection. The song finished last in the final of the competition, receiving only 5 points.

In 2010 RTÉ announced that he was making another bid to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest, with a song titled 'Does Heaven Need Much More?' co-written with Tommy Moran. In the Irish National Final on 5 March 2010, the song was performed by Leanne Moore, the winner of You're A Star 2008, and finished in fourth place.

Blogging controversy

During a newspaper review on talk radio station Newstalk 106 Waters declared blogs and bloggers to be 'stupid' . He then repeated those claims the following week, sparking controversy amongst Irish bloggers who took exception to his views. In the same interview Waters claimed that "...sixty to seventy percent of the internet is pornography".

In the Irish Mail on Sunday of July 6, Waters bemoaned the vandalism and untruths in his Misplaced Pages entry, called for increased regulation, and backed legal action against Jimmy Wales and the Misplaced Pages foundation in such cases. Waters said he set up his own web site, www.johnwaters.ie, as a response to Misplaced Pages.

On 26 November 2009, Waters contacted RTÉ's Today programme with Pat Kenny during an interview with Misplaced Pages co-founder Jimmy Wales to say that "only crackpots write for Misplaced Pages".

Famine genealogy programme

In 2008 John Waters took part in a programme which delved into his family's past as well as those of Eddie Hobbs and Jasmine Guinness. Parish records revealed that his great-grandfather's brother, also called John Waters, had died of starvation during the Great Famine.

Publications

Non-fiction

• Jiving at the Crossroads: The Shock of the New in Haughey's Ireland (Blackstaff, 1991) ISBN 978-0856404788
• Race of Angels: Ireland and the Genesis of U2 (4th Estate/Blackstaff, 1994) ISBN 978-0856405426
• Every Day Like Sunday? (Poolbeg, 1995) ISBN 978-1853714238
• An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Ireland (Duckworth, 1997) ISBN 978-0715627914 New edition (2001) ISBN 978-0715630914
• The Politburo Has Decided That You Are Unwell (Liffey Press, 2004) ISBN 978-1904148463
• Lapsed Agnostic (Continuum, 2007) ISBN 978-0826491466
• Beyond Consolation: or How We Became Too Clever for God... and Our Own Good (Continuum, 2010) ISBN 978-1441114211

Plays

• Long Black Coat (with David Byrne) (Nick Hern Books, 1995) ISBN 978-1854592637

References

1. John Waters Books, Ireland, Writer, Journalist, playwright, magazine editor, columnist and campaigner for fathers rights
3. John Waters and The Irish Times Eamonn Fitzgeralds Rainy Day
4. Irish Times fires columnist John Waters, RTÉ News, Sunday 23 November 2003
5. Waters is reinstated at The Irish Times, RTÉ News, Monday 24 November 2003
6. The Irish Times
7. The Irish Times
8. ireland.com / Today / News in Focus / War on Iraq
9. ireland.com / Today / News in Focus / War on Iraq
10. News 18th July 2005 | OneinFour.org
11. The Irish Times
12. Count Me Out
13. http://www.hotpress.com/news/.html
14. Eurovision Song Contest
15. All Kinds of Everything
16. John Waters on blogs » Twenty Major - Still smoking in Dublin bars
17. More on John Waters and blogs » Twenty Major - Still smoking in Dublin bars
18. The DOBlog » No child of John Waters will ever marry a... blogger
19. Audio of Newstalk interview with Waters 10 January 2008
20. ^ Past comes back to haunt us, The Irish Times, 13 September 2008, retrieved 4 July 2009

External links

• John Waters' home page

• 1955 births
• Converts to Roman Catholicism from atheism or agnosticism
• Fathers' rights activists
• Irish columnists
• Irish journalists
• Irish dramatists and playwrights
• Irish Roman Catholics
• Living people
• People from County Roscommon