Mary Ellen Synon

In 2015, Synon gave a speech to the Bruges Group where she criticized David Cameron's policy on the European Union, arguing Cameron was not doing enough to take the UK out of the E.U. In an interview on the TV show Pat Kenny Tonight , Synon said she was pleased with the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 US Presidential Election, adding that she was "beyond thrilled" that Trump became President.

In the article, she wrote: "It is time to suggest that these so-called Paralympics...are – well, one hesitates to say 'grotesque'. One will only say 'perverse'...Surely physical competition is about finding the best – the fastest, strongest, highest, all that. It is not about finding someone who can wobble his way around a track in a wheelchair, or who can swim from one end of a pool to the other by Braille. She advised the disabled and blind to 'play to your competitive advantage' and added: 'In other words, Stephen Hawking shows his wisdom by staying out of the three-legged race.'

Synon has also expressed admiration for the American philosopher Ayn Rand. During the 2008 Presidential Election, Synon repeatedly championed Sarah Palin as the politician best suited to represent conservative values and govern the US. Synon has been a strong critic of the Obama Administration, arguing Obama's administration is politically corrupt and is not doing enough to reduce the United States deficit: "Obama will destroy America with this debt. Apologies to Prof. Wilson, but I am already finding it hard to keep my sense of humour".

Her tenure culminated in an article penned in 2000 attacking the Paralympics for blind and disabled athletes in Sydney.

In 1996, Synon wrote an article claiming most rural crime in Ireland was caused by the travelling community and stated traveller life was "a life worse than the life of beasts, for beasts at least are guided by wholesome instinct" An unsuccessful attempt was made by a Travellers Rights Group to initiate a prosecution under the Incitement to Hatred Act.

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. Synon went to the press when he called time on the dalliance, with contradictory statements. According to the Sunday Tribune, she said: 'Yes, I adored him. Yes, I was in love with him.' She told The Guardian: 'I hate the bugger.' 'If you're going to dump, don't dump a financial journalist when you're Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. That's dumb.' She was nicknamed 'the Bonk of England' by tabloid newspapers after she disclosed that she and Pennant-Rea had had sex on the governor's dressing room floor at the Bank. The then governor Sir Eddie George allegedly had the carpet cut up. In the 1990s, Synon became a regular freelance columnist for the Dublin-based Sunday Independent, and was noted for her opinions on asylum seekers, travellers, and education.

In 1995, Synon caused further controversy when she criticized the Reconstruction and defended Nathan Bedford Forrest's actions during the period, arguing the first version of the Ku Klux Klan was necessary for law enforcement during the time. In the article, Synon praised Irish-Americans who fought for the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War, saying "Surely no Irish emigrant ever found a nobler cause than the Southern Confederacy". Synon attacked Reconstruction as the mistreatment of white Southerners:

In January 1988, Synon and Frances Cairncross wrote an article from the Economist that depicted Ireland as poverty-stricken and bureaucratic. The article angered both the Fianna Fáil government of the time and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, who believed the article, published in an influential magazine, "did serious damage to the image of Ireland overseas".

Synon was born in Virginia. Synon is the daughter of John J. Synon, (d.1972) an American journalist who worked with Goodwin J. Knight and George Wallace. Synon met George Wallace as a young woman. Synon's paternal ancestors came from the area near Doneraile, County Cork. 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. 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 then 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. She has also been a columnist in Ireland for the Sunday Business Post, the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Independent, and has contributed to The Irish Times, the Irish Independent and the Irish edition of the Sunday Times.

Mary Ellen Synon (born 1951) is an American journalist. She is a columnist with the Mail on Sunday and a contributor to the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom and the Irish Daily Mail, as well as the Irish weekly, The Sunday Business Post. She is a frequent contributor to Irish radio current affairs programmes. Through her career, Synon has been an outspoken critic of the European Union and an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism.

Synon also suggested the Klan had been modeled by Irish-American emigrants on the Irish Whiteboys, and argued that the post-1915 KKK was a betrayal of the organisation's original principles. In response, several Sunday Independent readers wrote in, claiming Synon was denying the Klan's racist and terroristic nature, and that Synon's view of Reconstruction was based on the work of the Dunning School (which is no longer accepted by most American historians). Some other readers also expressed offence at the comparison of the Klan to the Whiteboys. Synon responded to the criticism by writing "I see that the ignorance of my fellow Irish on these matters remains profound".