Tim Pat Coogan (who you haven't read) is a respected writer, broadcaster and journalist. His books include biographies of Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera, The Irish Civil War, 1916 The Easter Rising, 1916 The Mornings after, The Famine Plot.

He fits all your strange criteria in that he is still alive, his books have been published in the last 20 years, is eminent and yet you see fit to condemn him on the say so of another (rival) writer who you also HAVEN'T READ.

Laughable.