28 August 2024
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
File photo of the Church of Ireland Bishop Paul Colton, who is currently marking his 25th year as a Bishop. He has been a popular figure on Twitter for over a decade, but now his account “no longer exists”
The Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, the Rt Revd Dr Paul Colton has been popular figure on Twitter (now known as X.com), for many years, but his username @DrPaulColton no longer exists. Any links to previous tweets now go to a message on Twitter stating “This Post is from an account that no longer exists”, while his overall profile at twitter.com/DrPaulColton returns an error message “This account doesn’t exist”. The deletion must be recent because the Twitter page for the Diocese twitter.com/COFICork still links to the @DrPaulColton non-existing username. TheCork.ie has contacted the Bishop’s Secretary asking if the Bishop has left twitter, and asking for a comment.
Screenshot: the Twitter page for the Diocese twitter.com/COFICork still links to the @DrPaulColton non existing username
Meanwhile, it is true to say that in the past the Bishop stopped using Twitter for a time a decade ago. The Herald, on 11 Jan 2013 reported that “…The Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, Dr Paul Colton, has cancelled his Twitter account after he came under attack. Dr Colton (52) described the attacks as “depressing” but said he would not comment because he wanted to “ponder” the issue. His departure from the social media site provoked a storm of protest from ‘followers’ who considered the Bishop’s daily contributions to be intelligent, insightful and humourous. His decision to end his Twitter page is understood to have followed a succession of tweets about the Christian churches in general which were both upsetting and denigrating. It was unclear whether the tweets, which now cannot be accessed, were linked to the abortion debate.”
More recently, Bishop Colton’s inspirational and humorous tweets during Covid were liked by many, so the deletion of his years of Tweets will be a loss to the Twitter platform. The Bishop can still be found on Facebook at facebook.com/bishoppaulcolton/