Quentin Fottrell

Quentin Fottrell is an Irish columnist, author, agony uncle,^[1] journalist, social diarist, and critic.^{[not verified in body]}

Quentin Fottrell
Quentin Fottrell at the Morrison Hotel, Dublin, Ireland, 2010
Born	Dublin, Ireland[citation needed]
Occupation(s)	Journalist, author

Early life and education

Fottrell was born in Dublin,^{[citation needed]} and studied psychology in University College Dublin,^{[citation needed]} and journalism in University College Galway.^{[citation needed]}

Career

Fottrell was the Irish correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal from 2003 to 2011,^{[citation needed]} columnist and feature writer for The Irish Times,^{[when?][citation needed]} and as of this date,^[when?] was working as a journalist in New York City.^{[citation needed]}

As of 2020, Fottrell was "run[ing] The Moneyist, an advice column on the finance media siteMarketWatch".^[2] He writes about spending and investing,^[3] and in the advice column, he answers questions on inheritance, marriage, divorce, relationships, weddings and other financial issues related to ethics and etiquette. ^[4]

Specific journalistic thrusts

Fottrell reported aspects of Irish life related to the rise of Ireland as the Celtic Tiger,^[5] and on the expansion of the European Union during Ireland's six-month EU presidency.^{[citation needed]}

Other writing

Fottrell has contributed to magazines and newspapers in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland, including Town & Country,^{[citation needed]} The Sunday Times,^{[citation needed]} The Dubliner,^{[citation needed]} gave advice on relationships on The Ray D'Arcy Show,^{[citation needed]} and wrote a weekly radio review column for The Irish Times.^{[citation needed]}

He has also published in book length works, including one on relationships in Ireland, titled "Love in a Damp Climate,"^{[6][full citation needed][7]} and contributed to several others, including "A Pint and a Haircut," a collection of true Irish stories.^{[when?][8][full citation needed]}

LGBT writer and activist

Fottrell is openly gay and an advocate of equality for LGBT people.^{[citation needed]} As an activist for LGBT rights, Fottrell advocated for marriage equality in a series of columns for Irish newspapers in the run-up to the Irish civil partnership and marriage equality campaigns. ^[9] In 2007, he wrote, "Gay marriage doesn't damage children. But not allowing it does. It fosters a culture of prejudice, and infects the aspirations of gay children. It's not healthy for our gay children to see a future in which their role in society is restricted." Fottrell also wrote about homophobia in rural Ireland and the struggles of gay people to live openly and free of prejudice in small towns.^[10]

Fottrell organized a "Vote Yes for Equality" campaign in New York in the weeks leading up to the marriage equality referendum in Ireland in May 2015. He subsequently reported on the impact of the referendum for The Wall Street Journal and interviewed Irish diaspora who returned to Ireland for the vote. After Ireland became the first country in the world to put this issue to a public vote, Fottrell wrote, "On May 22, Ireland sent a message to the world: If we can do it, you can too."^[11]

Since moving to New York, he has reported on the experiences of Irish emigrants and reflected, in particular, on how that relates to growing up gay in Catholic Ireland: "It's tempting to romanticize the past. Migrant memories, especially post-Celtic Tiger, can be selective and stylized like a TV commercial." He said generations of people left Ireland for cultural reasons as well as economic ones. "Leaving everything behind is not easy," he wrote, "but I needed to break new ground, and it would be an adventure: Where else to go but the land of Harvey Milk and money."^[12]

Further reading

• MW Staff & Fottrell, Quentin (2 August 2025). "Quentin Fottrell". MarketWatch.com (MW). New York, NY: News Corp/Dow Jones & Company. Retrieved 2 August 2025. Quentin Fottrell is MarketWatch's Managing Editor-Advice Columns and The Moneyist columnist.

• Fottrell, Quentin (8 October 2010). "Hardy Irish Souls Tiptoe Into Nation's Ghost Estates". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 8 October 2010.