Nearly three years in the past, Northern Ireland’s well being minister Robin Swann filed a defamation lawsuit after Van Morrison accused him of mis-handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Swann is now not the well being minister, however the swimsuit has lastly been settled, simply weeks earlier than it was scheduled to go to trial.

Swann’s swimsuit claimed that Morrison repeatedly referred to him as “dangerous” in public, in addition to made comparable feedback to newspapers. At that point, the singer was typically vocal about his disagreement with pandemic lockdown measures and what he known as “pseudoscience.”

In response to a few of these feedback, Swann wrote an op-ed in 2021 for Rolling Stone.

“It’s entirely right and proper to debate and question policies,” he acknowledged then. “It’s legitimate to ask if the right balance is being found in what is being done; if the right steps are being taken. None of this is easy or straightforward.”

He continued: “But Van Morrison is going way beyond raising questions. … His words will give great comfort to the conspiracy theorists – the tin foil hat brigade who crusade against masks and vaccines and think this is all a huge global plot to remove freedoms.”

Suit Settled

On Friday on the High Court in Belfast, a lawyer for Swann offered a press release. Neither get together was current themselves.

“Sir Van, while not agreeing with a number of the steps adopted by government during the COVID crisis, acknowledges that in performing his then role as minister for health in Northern Ireland, Mr. Swann acted at all times honestly and in good faith and on the advice of responsible officials,” it learn (through Rolling Stone). “Mr. Swann, while not agreeing with Sir Van’s views on the handling of the pandemic, acknowledges that those views were sincere and expressed in the context of Sir Van being prevented by government regulations from performing in a role for which he is justly famous.”

READ MORE: When Van Morrison Returned to His Roots With ‘Beautiful Vision’

In addition to the assertion, there was additionally a observe from Ireland’s Department of Health, which stated that “any views they may have wished to express about Sir Van’s song lyrics might have been more appropriately expressed in the usual form of media interviews or statements provided to the Northern Ireland media, rather than providing copy to a U.S. rock music magazine.”