Angela Haggerty Sunday Herald NUJ

Sunday Herald brings back columnist Angela Haggerty after Rangers row dismissal

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By John McCarthy | Opinion editor

February 19, 2016 | 3 min read

Glasgow newspaper the Sunday Herald has reinstated former columnist Angela Haggerty after she was dismissed for expressing solidarity with a sports reporter who left the paper when it failed to stand by claims he made about the board of Rangers football club.

Haggerty, who is also the editor of the Commonspace and a former reporter at The Drum, was sacked from her weekly Sunday Herald newspaper column after supporting colleague Graham Spiers on social media.

Spiers departed the publication in January after claiming in his column that an unnamed Rangers director told him sectarian chant The Billy Boys was “a great song”, prompting a legal threat to the title according to its editor-in-chief Magnus Llewellin.

Llewellin said that, upon taking legal advice, the paper felt that it could not defend Spiers' “contentious statement” about the board in court, and as a result printed an apology to the club.

News of the two journalists' dismissals emerged after Spiers defended the article in his blog and Haggerty tweeted her "solidarity" with the sports writer, which Llewellin said "undermined" the apology.

The sacking of both journalists was condemned by the NUJ which claimed the paper was "pandering to mob mentality".

But several weeks on from the row, the paper has now reinstated Haggerty, which she announced via Twitter.

This was confirmed by Neil Mackay, editor of the Sunday Herald.

Haggerty's column about social media will resume this weekend.

Angela Haggerty Sunday Herald NUJ

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