Wikipedia gaff finds its way into book

About a year ago, a few Irish rugby player profiles were ‘vandalised’ on Wikipedia, some of these were tongue in cheek additions, rumoured to be added by the players themselves.

Examples of these were usually tagged onto the end of the profile such as Shane Horgan and Jerry Flannery

This leads us to Leinster’s Girvan Dempsey, who is featured in the publication of Irelands Sporting Giants written by Ivan Martin and published by Appletree Press. From the publisher themselves :

Ireland’s Rugby Giants – That was the challenge that faced Ivan Martin when he wrote Ireland’s Rugby Giants, the latest book from Appletree Press.

Apparently not that challenging as Ivan copied a vandalised wikipedia entry from Girvan Dempseys page.

The very obvious cheeky additon was taken from various vandolised versions in the ‘away from rugby’ section – check references to jam making and discovering flora and fauna, as well as discovering new bird species!

The only explanation I can think of is that both the writer, and editor didn’t read any of this or even verify the claims or research anything about the player at all, which leads to the question – How on earth did this get published?

Wikipedia is a great resource, but basing all of your research from one source is extremely bad journalism!

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