You are here: Home / What's On / Robert Fisk

The Hubert Butler Annual Lecture: Robert Fisk

Details
Reviews
Media Gallery
More Info

IMPORTANT NOTICE - DUE TO LIMITED REMAINING TICKETS FOR THIS SHOW PATRONS ARE ADVISED TO CONTACT THE BOX OFFICE TO BE PLACED ON WAITING LIST

Robert Fisk has amassed a devoted readership over the years with his insightful, witty and outspoken articles on international politics and mankind’s war-torn recent history. As a Middle East correspondent, first for The Times and now for The Independent, he has survived bombs, bullets, beatings and two kidnap attempts while collecting a wealth of awards and writing two best-selling and acclaimed books: Pity the Nation, a devastating history of the Lebanese civil war, and The Great War for Civilisation, a history of the “conquest” of the Middle East.

In this year’s Hubert Butler Lecture, Fisk reflects on his experiences as a journalist since his early days as Belfast correspondent for The Times. A fearless and coruscating analyst, Fisk believes that journalism should “challenge authority, all authority.” Yet all too often, he argues, journalists and Western civilians alike “have become prisoners of the language of power.” Why do we unconsciously accept war reports at face value? When does “torture” become “interrogation”? When does “assassination” become “targeted killing”?

Over the course of his extraordinary career, Fisk has received countless awards, including a Jacob’s Award for his coverage of the Gulf War on RTÉ Radio 1, the Orwell Prize for Journalism, and the Martha Gelhorn Prize for Journalism, and has been named the British Press Awards’ International Journalist of the Year no fewer than seven times. He has a PhD from Trinity College Dublin and, in 2009, was honoured by the college's Historical Society for his outstanding contribution to public discourse.

Robert Fisk will be introduced by television and radio broadcaster, Olivia O'Leary, who has presented programmes on RTÉ, the BBC and ITV for the last three decades.

The Hubert Butler Annual Lecture was established in 2007 to honour the Kilkenny writer, historian and broadcaster whose remarkable consistency of vision and clarity of mind made him unique among Irish essayists and whose work evinced an unsurpassed moral, political and literary integrity.