Sarah Carey

Education and early work

Carey has a degree in History from Trinity College, Dublin, and a post-graduate diploma in Business Studies from the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in University College, Dublin (U.C.D.). She has performed freelance PR/marketing work for a number of companies and the political party Fine Gael. She has also worked for Esat Digifone.

Blogging and newspaper columns

In 2002, she began writing the blog GUBU, "An Irish woman's social, political and domestic commentary". Then Sunday Times Irish Editor Fiona McHugh, offered Carey a column after reading the blog. The Sunday Times column ended when she started writing a weekly opinion column for The Irish Times in 2008. The blog also ended in 2008. Carey revealed that in her time at The Sunday Times, opinion columnists had been forbidden from expressing views in favour of the Lisbon Treaty.

Witness

Because she had worked as Marketing Coordinator for Esat Telecom, she was a witness at the Moriarty Tribunal. In 2004, she leaked information provided to her by the tribunal about political donations made by Denis O'Brien to political parties in Ireland. The information included a letter of thanks to O'Brien from Michael McDowell of the Progressive Democrats. These leaks were published by journalist Stephen Collins in The Sunday Tribune. She denied to her legal team that she had been the source of the leak. When told she would be questioned under oath, she admitted she was the source. Carey said "her motives were political" as the Tribunal had only highlighted O'Brien's donations to Fine Gael, and not those to other parties. The Tribunal judge publicly rebuked her in 2004 for wasting the tribunal's time in identifying the source of the leak, describing it as "irresponsible" and "not remotely justified".

Moriarty Tribunal report and aftermath

When the final Tribunal report was published in March 2011, she appeared on Prime Time, a national TV news analysis show, in which she defended the leak and her support for Mr O'Brien. Days later, she resigned from her job with The Irish Times. In a statement, the editor, Geraldine Kennedy, a former T.D. and Progressive Democrat colleague of Michael McDowell's, said that "her credibility as a columnist had been damaged by the findings of the report of the Moriarty tribunal and its aftermath." She continues to write for other newspapers.