Outing of FG troll dispels our image of online misfits

AS WOMEN become more visible in public life, the internet increasingly becomes its reverse mirror image; a seething cesspit of resentful misogyny and pornography and the last safe space for bullies and thugs to viciously attack women – usually for the crime of being successful in what to them is by rights a man’s world.

Barry Walsh – a little known Fine Gael official with no doubt a swaggering sense of his own importance – has resigned from his party post after his fondness for labelling prominent women with whom he is in ideological conflict as bitches was revealed.

Kate O’Connell presented a dossier of Barry’s abusive tweets at a party meeting showing how he routinely insulted figures as diverse as Nancy Pelosi, Mary Lou McDonald, comedian and prochoice campaigner Tara Flynn and Kate herself.

Our image of keyboard warriors who pollute social media with bile and spite-filled drivel is of pathetic misfits with no other way of giving meaning to their lives. But Barry Walsh, an up and coming force in Fine Gael and ally of the Taoiseach, doesn’t fit that bill.

His ‘outing’ as a troll shows how even outwardly respectable and educated men can give themselves free rein to humiliate women under the cloak of their passionate, fiercely held views.

Barry Walsh apologised for going too far and promptly made his Twitter account private. It might have more credibility had he put it on Twitter for all his admiring followers to read.