Mary Ellen Synon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Ellen Synon (born 1951) is an American-Irish journalist. She is a frequent contributor to Irish radio current affairs programmes.[1] Through her career, she has been an outspoken critic of the European Union and an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism.[1]
Synon was born in Virginia.[1] She is the daughter of John J. Synon, (d.1972) an American journalist who worked with Goodwin J. Knight and George Wallace.[2][3] Synon met George Wallace as a young woman.[4] Synon's paternal ancestors came from the area near Doneraile, County Cork.[3]
Education and career
After studying at Trinity College Dublin, she worked briefly for the Daily News in Durban, South Africa, and for publications in New York before joining the staff of The Daily Telegraph in London as a reporter.[3] While she was at the Telegraph, she was a member of the Institute of Journalists, and served as a trade union official and negotiator. She was also awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship which allowed her to be based in Paris for nine months to study the European Economic Community.
Synon worked at the London bureau of the American television current affairs programme, 60 Minutes, working first as a researcher and then as an associate producer for correspondent Morley Safer and producer John Tiffin. She worked on 60 Minutes programmes in various countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Swaziland, Ireland, France, Denmark, Germany and the UK. Synon subsequently worked as Dublin correspondent, then Europe correspondent, and finally British correspondent for The Economist.[3] She has also been a columnist in Ireland for the Sunday Business Post,[3] the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Independent, and has contributed to The Irish Times, the Irish Independent and the Irish edition of the Sunday Times.
In 1995 Synon made headlines in the British and Irish press over her affair with Rupert Pennant-Rea, the deputy governor of the Bank of England. Pennant-Rea subsequently resigned.[5][6] Synon spoke to the press when he ended the affair. According to the Sunday Tribune, she said: "Yes, I adored him. Yes, I was in love with him."[7] She also told The Guardian: "I hate the bugger."[8] She was nicknamed 'the Bonk of England' by tabloid newspapers[which?] after she disclosed that she and Pennant-Rea had had sex on the governor's dressing room floor at the Bank.[9][importance?] The then governor Sir Eddie George allegedly had the carpet cut up.[10] In the 1990s, Synon became a regular freelance columnist for the Dublin-based Sunday Independent.[citation needed]
