Padraic McGuinness

Who was Padraic McGuinness?

Padraic Pearse "Paddy" McGuinness AO was an Australian journalist, activist, and commentator. He was notable for the evolution over his lifetime of his political beliefs. Beginning his career on the far left, he subsequently worked as a policy assistant to the more moderate Labor parliamentarian Bill Hayden. Later he found fame as a right-wing contrarian and finished his career as the editor of the conservative journal, Quadrant. He had also worked as a columnist for The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald and as the editor of The Australian Financial Review.

McGuinness, named after Patrick Pearse, was the son of Frank McGuinness who was the inaugural editor of Ezra Norton's Sydney newspaper The Daily Mirror in 1941. Padraic attended, first, St Ignatius' College, Riverview and then obtained a scholarship to attend Sydney Boys' High School. He studied economics at the University of Sydney, where he became a prominent member of the Sydney Push in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At this time he identified as an anarchist but also joined the Labor Party.