Coogan refused permission to enter the United States

Historian Tim Pat Coogan has been unable to secure a visa to enter the US next week to promote his latest book.

Mr Coogan was at Glasnevin Museum in Dublin last night to launch The Famine Plot: England’s Role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy.

He said that despite making three applications for visas, he has not been granted permission to travel to the US, although he is due to travel on Monday.

“I was turned down on the first visa I applied for; [the second time] they told me I had gone through the wrong website and I was refunded the money.”

He said the outcome of a third application remained unclear.

“I got [the Department of] Foreign Affairs to check it out and they got an apologetic thing back from the embassy and they said Mr Coogan has done all the right things,” he added. “They said there must be someone with the same name on a [no entry] list somewhere.”

The book focuses on the British mismanagement, revises the numbers of dead and examines such issues as the government’s manipulation of the media. “It was an absolute genocide.” Mr Coogan said.