Liz Allen

Liz Allen (born 1969) is an Irish investigative journalist.^[1] She is a former crime correspondent of the Sunday Independent and author of two novels.

Born one of eight brothers and sisters in Cabra West, Dublin, she developed a taste for writing at 14 by becoming a regular contributor to the letters pages of The Evening Herald. By 16 she had obtained a weekend job with the paper writing local footballers sports profiles.^[2]

She studied law for a year at University College in Dublin before leaving to freelance for The Herald.^[2]

She and her publisher were prosecuted for offending against the Irish Official Secrets Act in 1995, after she used a police memo to write a story revealing that police had prior knowledge of Ireland's greatest bank robbery.^[3][4][5]

Working at first for the Irish Independent, followed by the Sunday Tribune;^[6] after the 1996 murder of colleague Veronica Guerin, Allen became crime correspondent at the Sunday Independent.^[7] One of her first stories for the paper was an interview with John Gilligan, suspected of the murder.^[8][2]

After resigning from her position at the newspaper in 2000, Allen sued The Independent, claiming constructive dismissal due to stress and anxiety.^[9] The Employment Tribunal found in Allen's favour, awarding her IR£70,500, the largest such award to that date. After appealing, the newspaper eventually settled out of court in October 2001.^[10]

In 2003 Hodder and Staughton published her first novel, Last to Know,^[11] and in 2005 her second novel, The Setup.^[12]

In 2014 she founded the Glasthule Gallery in Dublin, which subsequently closed down in June 2018. Later that year she was declared bankrupt with €3.7m in debts.^[13]

This article about an Irish writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e