Nearly three years ago, Northern Ireland’s health minister Robin Swann filed a defamation lawsuit after Van Morrison accused him of mis-handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Swann is no longer the health minister, but the suit has finally been settled, just weeks before it was scheduled to go to trial.
Swann’s suit claimed that Morrison repeatedly referred to him as “dangerous” in public, as well as made similar comments to newspapers. At that time, the singer was often vocal about his disagreement with pandemic lockdown measures and what he called “pseudoscience.”
In response to some of these comments, Swann wrote an op-ed in 2021 for Rolling Stone.
“It’s entirely right and proper to debate and question policies,” he stated then. “It’s legitimate to ask if the right balance is being found in what is being done; if the right steps are being taken. None of this is easy or straightforward.”
He continued: “But Van Morrison is going way beyond raising questions. … His words will give great comfort to the conspiracy theorists – the tin foil hat brigade who crusade against masks and vaccines and think this is all a huge global plot to remove freedoms.”
Suit Settled
On Friday at the High Court in Belfast, a lawyer for Swann provided a statement. Neither party was present themselves.
“Sir Van, while not agreeing with a number of the steps adopted by government during the COVID crisis, acknowledges that in performing his then role as minister for health in Northern Ireland, Mr. Swann acted at all times honestly and in good faith and on the advice of responsible officials,” it read (via Rolling Stone). “Mr. Swann, while not agreeing with Sir Van’s views on the handling of the pandemic, acknowledges that those views were sincere and expressed in the context of Sir Van being prevented by government regulations from performing in a role for which he is justly famous.”
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In addition to the statement, there was also a note from Ireland’s Department of Health, which said that “any views they may have wished to express about Sir Van’s song lyrics might have been more appropriately expressed in the usual form of media interviews or statements provided to the Northern Ireland media, rather than providing copy to a U.S. rock music magazine.”
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Gallery Credit: Corey Irwin