Former Sunday Times columnist Kevin Myers admits he 'hasn't had a full night's sleep for two years' since being fired over anti-Semitism row involving Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz

• Journalist Kevin Myers has spoken about the two years that followed being fired
• Was Sunday Times columnist and fired in 2017 over comments he made
• Congratulated Claudia Winkleman & Vanessa Feltz on being top paid presenters
• In the gender pay gap column he then commented 'Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price'
• Says he has faced two years of stress and hasn't slept properly since article  

Journalist Kevin Myers has spoken about the impact being fired from his role at the Sunday Times and the backlash surrounding his column has had on his life. 

The English-born writer, 72, who lives in Ireland, went viral in 2017 when he published a column speaking about the gender pay gap, arguing that equal pay should be earned. 

In it, he congratulated Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz being two of the best paid BBC presenters, and added 'Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price'.

The article caused an outcry and he was fired amid a massive backlash which saw him accused of Antisemitism, issuing an apology to the women and the Jewish community. 

Two years on Kevin says he hasn't had a full night' sleep since the incident, and likened the reaction he received from around the world as feeling 'worse than death'.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, he said of the week that followed his article being published: 'I didn't sleep that week. And I haven't had a full night's sleep since then. 

'You have no idea what it is like. You wake up exhausted at two o'clock in the morning and you know it's all over. It's time to get up. And it has been like that ever since. 

'Not merely because of what was done to me, which was profoundly wrong, but I had no allies in the Irish media. None. Nobody spoke up for me.' 

Comparing the backlash he received both in his personal and professional life as worse than having a gun held to him during a previous interview, he said: 'I came very close to death but, in many ways, this was worse.' 

In the 2017 column on equal pay, he had written: 'I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC - Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz, with whose, no doubt, sterling work I am tragically unacquainted - are Jewish. Good for them. 

'Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity.' 

Speaking about Vanessa and Claudia, who had branded the article 'vile and racist', he said: 'I am very, very sorry that I should have so offended them and I do utter an apology, not for any reason other than out of genuine contrition for the hurt I caused them but I uttered those words out of respect for the religion from which they come.'

The controversial column was also labelled misogynistic, after he argued that men 'work harder, and seldom get sick or pregnant'.

He previously caused outrage in a 2005 Irish Times column, An Irishman's Diary, where he referred to the children of unmarrried mothers as 'bastards'.