Irish decency league founder dies after seeing sex on TV?

[Canuckistan]

I got this from my calendar called More Of The Dumbest Things Ever Said Or Done. It was the July 8 entry:

Joseph Murray, who founded the Irish League of Decency to censor anything sexy on television, died from a heart attack after watching the first-ever nude scene on Irish TV.

This just seems too good to be true, and my Google searches reveal nothing. Was this a joke that has since been retold as fact? Anyone know anything about this?

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by Canuckistan

I got this from my calendar called More Of The Dumbest Things Ever Said Or Done. It was the July 8 entry:



This just seems too good to be true, and my Google searches reveal nothing. Was this a joke that has since been retold as fact? Anyone know anything about this?

After 25 years in Ireland, this is my first time hearing of such an organisation. Still can't find anything to back up the claim.

I got this:

The Spike This 1978 ten-parter set in a tough secondary school was effortlessly funny. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be. The briefest glimpse of naked flesh in episode 5 outraged the chairman of the League Of Decency, who suffered a heart attack while making angry phonecalls to newspapers. The Spike's producer bizarrely claimed the intent had been "to examine the attitude of pupils and staff to nudity".

Google Books also has a page from a book called Culture And Customs Of Ireland that makes reference to the incident, with a footnote, no less!

[Ali Infree]

According to your link, the person who had a heart attack, survived, unlike the story.

Ali "print the legend, let snopes sort it out" Infree

[Floater]

Another good story coming to a dead end.

[Dr. Winston O'Boogie]

Please notice that it doesn't say that he had the heart attack immediately; if he had a heart attack 5 years later, it's still "after watching...."

I thought it was going to be something jucier, like they found Debbie Does Dallas in his VCR.

[An Gadaí]

The Magill Magazine (Irish current affairs magazine) archive has an article from 1978 about Joseph Murray's death.

"THE DEATH OF J. B. Murray P.C. last month from a surfeit of Spikery has left the Irish ultra-right without its guiding star."