I couldn’t resist passing on an unsettling news item about Astronomy Ireland, an Irish Astronomy Club described on its website in the following terms:
Astronomy Ireland is a non profit organisation and the largest national astronomy club in the world relative to population.
The news item concerned revolves around founder and chairperson David Moore (left), who has been held personally liable for multiple employment rights breaches against a former manager, Sonya Martin, at Astronomy Ireland who said she was forced to quit due to a “toxic” work environment and alleged “serious financial irregularities”.
The astronomy club and four members of its management committee, including David Moore, have been ordered to pay nearly €11,000 to the ex-employee, Sonya Martin, after she complained of constructive dismissal to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
Among the allegations reported were that Mr Moore was keeping funds meant for Astronomy Ireland:
David was taking the money and pocketing it as his own income, as opposed to it going back into the society,” Ms Martin said. “The attitude changed towards myself and Ms Doyle after that,” Ms Martin said.
No doubt the money was just “resting in his account”. I mentioned this story to colleagues in the Department and none was surprised, and many (unlike myself) had known about this case for some time. I’ll keep some of the comments to myself, but one said that they gave a lecture (for free, as we academics usually do) to Astronomy Ireland which was filmed without consent. David Moore then sold DVDs of the talk. Where the profits from this went, I have no idea.
These financial shenanigans are dodgy enough but there are some truly bizarre sections of the news report. Here is one:
As the hearings continued into 2025, Mr Moore made repeated objections to being attached personally to the claim, and told Mr Dolan he had not received hearing notifications.
“Emails are unreliable,” he said. When Ms Martin’s solicitor, Mr O’Connell said the notification was sent by post too, Mr Moore said: “The post is unreliable.”
Even stranger, if not directly relevant to the case of Mr Moore, is this:
During the June 2024 hearing, Ms Martin gave evidence that Astronomy Ireland’s office landlord approached her complaining about having to clean up after the junior administrator, Mr G, who was later dismissed.
“The final straw for the landlord was that he had to clean ejaculate from the bathroom after Mr G was in there,” Ms Martin added.
Ewww…
In the interest of full disclosure, I gave a talk to Astronomy Ireland in December 2019. I don’t remember if it was filmed nor whether DVDs were sold, but given what I know now I don’t think I’ll be accepting any more speaking invitations from that organisation.
Update: it seems DVDs of my talk were made and were on sale but are no longer available. They must have sold out.
In the Dark 