AWARD winning Irish poet Kevin Higgins says he has been blacklisted by the Irish Times over a satirical poem lampooning the newspaper’s European Parliament correspondent. 

Mr Higgins, who lives in Galway, wrote a piece in response to an article written by Naomi O’Reilly which mocked Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, MEPs who have criticised the EU and Nato response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

She accused the pair of being “stars of authoritarian state media,” in particular Chinese, Russian and Syrian. 

Ms O’Reilly’s investigative hit piece slams the MEPs for challenging mainstream narratives over chemical attacks she insists were carried out by the Syrian armed forces. 

In a Twitter thread, she was also critical of Mr Wallace’s defence of China and said Ms Daly would soon be popular there too after speaking out against sanctions on Beijing. 

Mr Higgins wrote the satirical poem titled She Had, She Thought, A Thousand Things to Say in response which was published in the online publication Broadsheet. 

After reading the poem Irish Times books editor Martin Doyle rejected a review of Mr Higgins’s new anthology Ecstasy by Polina Cosgrave.

“Thanks Kevin but there is no need now. I read your piece in broadsheet about my colleague Naomi O’Reilly and the paper she and I both work for and I really don’t see why you would want anything to do with us,” he wrote in an email. 

The Irish Times was contacted for comment.