Irish Times columnist Kevin Myers was forced to make a grovelling apology this week over offensive references to unwed mothers. But just whose judgment is really in question over its printing - Myers's or the paper's senior editors? Sam Smyth reports

For about 36 hours, Kevin Myers was the Hannibal Lector of Irish Journalism. A visitor might have thought the iconic Irish Times columnist had eaten unmarried mothers and their children with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Then, buckling under a maelstrom of public outrage, the serial columnist chucked them up in an act of contrition on the editorial page of Thursday's Irish Times.

His unconditional apology for calling the children of unmarried mothers "bastards" was juxtaposed with an editorial on the same page that merely regretted "the offence caused".

Kevin Myers's "from the bottom of a contrite heart" apology was confined to his hyperbolic and offensive language - he still believes children are better off with two parents.

But under siege from irate readers, angry staffers and an outraged public, the Irish Times ran a clever and self-serving editorial.

It was a masterclass in Jesuitical sophistry that managed to credit the Irish Times for much of the change for good in recent decades while distancing the newspaper from the offending column.

The editorial went on to defend free speech and robust debate while holding its nose and metaphorically spitting every time the name 'Kevin Myers' appeared.

But while they said Myers was wrong for using the word 'bastard' to describe unmarried mothers and their children, the newspaper resisted saying it was "sorry". Yes, the editorial had all the appearance of an apology but was in fact not one: the last sentence of the editorial read: "The Irish Times regrets the offence caused."

Regretting the offence caused is not the same as being sorry for having published the offensive column. So, one can assume this means that if he offered it for publication again, the Irish Times would agree to publish the same offensive column from Myers.

Myers's 'apology' was a verb, a doing word; an expression of regret that he had done something wrong. As a verb, the Irish Times's 'regret' was not an apology but an expression of sorrow, repentance or disappointment.

There are enough incurably semantic folk in the Irish Times to explain the difference between an apology and an expression of regret, but the in-house philosophers have still to address the question of editorial judgment.

One theory is that if the Irish Times had unreservedly apologised for publishing as an offensive an article as Myers's, it would have reflected badly on the judgment of whoever had approved of it.

By confining its contrition to "regret" and by a self-congratulatory reminder of its ultra-sensitivity of censorship and dedication to free speech and robust debate, the newspaper heaped all the blame on a columnist and absolved its most senior editors of responsibility.

As media controversies go, the 'Myers-Bastards' controversy scored a nine on the Richter Scale of Righteous Indignation, and it was competitive with each caller to a radio phone-in outbidding the previous caller.

The Irish Times takes itself very seriously and its self-regard is a conceit that undermines its many virtues. For instance, there aren't many who would abandon modesty with the shamelessness of the opening two sentences of the editorial:

"Irish society has changed hugely in recent decades and at a pace that has been breathtaking. Much of this change has been led by the Irish Times."

They go on to say that journalists on the Irish Times are "committed to free speech and robust debate even if, at times, odious things are said which are offensive to some readers Exposing a mindset which could stigmatise innocent children forms part of the debate. The Irish Times regrets the offence caused."

Is the Irish Times saying that publishing Myers' column exposed HIS offensive mindset? And do the senior editors simply "regret the offence caused" by Myers but feel no need to apologise to their readers for publishing it?

The implication is that the editorial judgment that allowed the offending column to be published was sound, but that Kevin Myers was wrong to write it.

Kevin Myers admits he was wrong to write the odious An Irishman's Diary so the Irish Times' senior editors are agreeing with him AND with their decision to put it in the newspaper.

This is the same editorial judgment that refused to publish a column written by Myers after the €38m Northern Bank robbery that suggested the IRA was responsible for it. One source said the Irish Times decided to spike Myers's copy because its front-page story that day was the Provos denial that they had carried out the robbery.

Other newspapers, including the Irish Independent, were speculating that the robbery was the work of the IRA before Myers's column was withheld by the Irish Times. And subsequent confirmation from the Taoiseach and Independent Monitoring Commission upheld Myers's editorial judgment above that of the Irish Times' senior editors.

In November 2003, RTE broke the story of another columnist's dismissal on the one o'clock news on a Sunday and John Waters's reinstatement was carried on all news bulletins two days later.

Again, the judgment of the editor was questioned for sacking a columnist over a remark he made on the radio rather than anything he wrote in the newspaper.

Waters had written a column reflecting the concerns of staff at a demand for 200 redundancies at the height of the economic boom and critical of the directors of the Irish Times and the governors of the Irish Times Trust.

Waters's column was spiked; then the columnist went on radio and said the editor, Geraldine Kennedy, might be "compromised". He was sacked and then reinstated after offering his regrets (but not an apology) and an explanation.

It was the first trial of Ms Kennedy's 30-month term as editor of the Irish Times and she was roundly criticised both for making a too hasty a decision and then for not standing by her original judgment.

There have been ongoing rumours of tensions within the editorial staff and between the business and editorial departments of the newspaper - after the recent financial crisis that emerged through an unprecedented economic boom, 200 redundancies were required.

The pain would be shared "vertically and horizontally", the staff was told, there would be full transparency; and then it emerged that 11 directors, some of them part-time, had shared €3.3m, at a time when the staff had been negotiating redundancies.

The continuing contradiction between the not-for-profit Trust ethos and the multiples of six-figure salaries for senior executives has not helped ease the natural tensions that separate the business and editorial departments of every newspaper.

"It is a bit rich that Kevin Myers was prepared to give an unreserved apology for what he wrote, but the newspaper couldn't apologise for publishing it because it would have been an admission of bad editorial judgment," said one Irish Times lifer. "That editorial was disingenuous to the point of dishonesty and deeply unfair to Kevin Myers, who along with Tom Humphries is a reason why many people buy the newspaper every day. It has not been our finest hour."