UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN is coming under pressure to revoke an award it gave to renowned linguist Noam Chomsky, following fresh details of his friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

The latest documents released by the US Department of Justice in relation to Epstein appear to shed new light on the relationship between the pair.

Files released last year showed the pair exchanged several messages over the years and Epstein invited him to stay at his homes.

The latest documents released as part of the so-called Epstein files also appear to show emails between the pair from 2016, eight years after Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. 

The emails include a message from Chomsky in which he says he is “fantasizing about the Caribbean island”.

There is no specific detail to indicate whether this was a reference to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, where children were sexually abused.

Additional documents, from February 2019, show that the financier turned to Chomsky for advice over what he termed “putrid” media coverage of sex trafficking claims against him, with Chomsky apparently discussing the “horrible way you are being treated in the press and public”.

“The best way to proceed is to ignore it,” a response that appears to be from Chomsky says, adding: “That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”

Chomsky’s spokesperson has been asked about the latest details to emerge in the files by various media outlets, but has not yet commented. 

In light of the fresh information, Dr Mary McAuliffe, historian and lecturer in gender studies at UCD, said the university should revoke the Ulysses Medal it presented to Chomsky, now 97, over a decade ago. 

The Ulysses Medal is the highest honour that UCD can bestow. 

Describing Chomsky as “one of the world’s leading intellectuals and political activists”, UCD presented him with the award at a ceremony in April 2013. 

Speaking to The Journal, McAuliffe said UCD should follow the approach Queen’s University in Belfast has taken in relation to George Mitchell over his apparent ties to Epstein. 

Despite “no findings of wrongdoing by senator Mitchell”, Queen’s University deemed it “no longer appropriate” for its “institutional spaces and entities” to bear the name of the former US senator.

A £35,000 sculpture installed to mark Mitchell’s central role in brokering the Good Friday Agreement was removed from the campus.

On Chomsky, McAuliffe said she “always admired” him and thought he was an “interesting and impactful character”, but to learn he is “just another man with a horrific attitude to the abuse of women” is “so dispiriting”.

“So take the Ulysses Medal off him, he doesn’t deserve it,” McAuliffe said.

The academic added that she was also disappointed to see former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern defend George Mitchell this week, describing his comments as “dreadful”.

In an interview with Newstalk, Ahern said of Mitchell: “I don’t see what he has done.” 

“There’s a few emails, which it’s unclear whether they were coming from him, or they were coming from Epstein, so that’s not clear,” the former Fianna Fáil leader said. 

In a statement last weekend Mitchell’s spokesman said that his client did not see any wrongdoing by Epstein but did express regret for knowing him.

“At no time did Senator Mitchell observe, suspect, or have any knowledge of Epstein engaging in illegal or inappropriate conduct with underage women.”

Being named in the Epstein files is not an indication of wrongdoing, and many of those identified in the files have denied any wrongdoing. 

Chomsky told the Wall Street Journal in 2023 when asked about his relationship with Epstein: ”First response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally.” 

Meanwhile, economist Dan O’Brien has also called for UCD to revoke the award given to Chomsky.

O’Brien said it was a “grave misjudgement for University College Dublin to award Noam Chomsky its highest award”.

“That was the case even before his connections with Epstein were revealed,” O’Brien said in a post on LinkedIn, taking issue with Chomsky’s “far-left” politics. 

“Irish society is all too willing to indulge and even laud the far left, when it should have the same cordon sanitaire placed around it as the far right,” O’Brien said.

UCD has been asked for comment.