Is the original article meant to be in some way humourous?

If you mean is it a wingco style article that we're taking too seriously, then no Guy. This guy is probably the most well known columnist in Ireland and this type of column is common from him.

I meant it in the sense of he means what he says, but is trying to use a witty and irrelevent style to draw attention to his points.

Sort of like "a modest proposal", but without the heavy and deliberate irony Dean Swift was using.

No, he's just an asshat.

Good ol' Kevin. Somehow manages to outdo himself time and time again.

Like his infamous 'bastards' piece back in February 2005 that lost him his regular column at the Irish Times, he takes an issue worthy of debate and goes to town, dressing it up in insults and bizarre assertions. Back then, the issue of welfare-dependancy was the vehicle for his snobbish, demeaning insults at single mothers, their offspring, and working-class families in general. Now the concerns for the rapid population growth in a socially and economically underdeveloped region that is mostly environmentally inhospitable are the vehicle for his Victorian colonial assumptions - the black man with no self-control, be it sexual or otherwise.

And he can't help but finish with a cheap, Daily Mail-esque comment, connecting it all to immigration.

He's still a cunt, is Kevin.

Kevin is basically the mirror image of a plastic Paddy- an ersatz Englander?

Myers is actually proper English; it's just that he has lived in Ireland for about the last 40 years. The Sinn Feiners regard him as the most westerly of all the West Brits. They call him "Kevin MyArse", and for once in their lives they are right.

He didn't lose his Irish Times slot over the "mothers of bastards" piece, he fell out with Geraldine Kennedy over money about a year later and got a transfer to the Indo. Which of course reflects very badly on Kennedy. A half-decent editor would have got rid of him after that one, but she obviously didn't think it was worthy of anything more than a rap on the knuckles.

Myers at the Indo is a bit like Jose Mourinho would probably be at Barcelona. It cannot work. The culture gap is too big. In Myers' case, it's like trying to fit a three-pin plug into a two-pin socket. He has to adapt his already unedifying schtick for a more downmarket audience and the result is pure shite.

Plus, these days he has to horse out more word-countage per week than he ever did at the Times. I think anyone who read the column on page 1 of this thread would probably agree that the strain is really starting to show.

Though I must say I did chuckle at his loony caricature of all Ethiopians as bandolier-wearing sex addicts.

I read the Irish Indepedent yesterday. The letters page had 9 letters about this article. 6 of those letters thought that the article was the bee's knees and praised his courage and insight. One letter agreed with his sentiment but criticised his languge for being over the top. Only two letters were printed that criticised his racist buffoonery.