[3][4][5][6] She began her career as a staff writer for the Irish Independent, contributing articles on travel, the criminal justice system and corruption, but was dismissed in 2013.

[7] She attempted to run as a candidate in the 2018 Irish presidential election, but failed to secure the minimum qualifying number of nominations required to be added to the ballot.

[17][18] In 2013, Roy Greenslade in The Guardian, at the time she was fired from the Irish Independent, described her as "one of Ireland's leading investigative journalists", but mentioned concerns over the ethics of her newsgathering methods.

[20] In 2010, O'Doherty wrote an article highlighting issues in the investigation into the 1985 death of a priest, Niall Molloy, after a society wedding in County Offaly that included senior Irish political figures, and the collapse of the subsequent manslaughter trial.

[27] In August 2013, Doherty was fired from the Irish Independent and, though the newspaper rejected any links between the events, editor-in-chief Stephen Rae branded her as a "rogue reporter" for approaching the commissioner without editorial permission.

[31] O'Doherty lodged a complaint about her dismissal with the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT), which was resolved in 2014 with Independent News & Media plc tendering an apology and paying her an undisclosed sum.

[33] After the Irish Independent, O'Doherty worked freelance, publicly criticising "the cosy cartel that exists between the press, power and the police in this country".

[35] The disappearance of Mary Boyle is the longest running missing child case in Ireland, and the documentary implies political interference in the investigation.

[43] In August 2021, O'Doherty and John Waters launched a freesheet newspaper titled The Irish Light, largely consisting of anti-vaccine propaganda and other conspiracy theories.

[44] In December 2022, Edel Campbell, the mother of Diego Gilsenan, a minor who had died by suicide, called for the removal of her son's image, and that of 41 other people, from the cover of The Irish Light.

[49] O'Doherty's claims drew labels of a conspiracy theorist from the Irish media,[50][1] including Veronica's brother, councillor Jimmy Guerin.

[58] However, O'Doherty's strong § Opinions across a range of subjects (e.g. Muslim immigration, HPV vaccine, LGBT rights, and George Soros), including "false flag" claims regarding the March 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, became an issue for ACI.

[59][58] In March and April 2019, the Imperial and Maritime hotels in Cork, a pub in Sligo and a parish hall in Schull cancelled public meetings that had been booked by ACI.

[70][71] During the campaign in May 2019, adverts for O'Doherty and ACI appeared on the sides of Dublin Bus, the public service transport operator, carrying the slogan "It is time to take Ireland back".

[75][76][77] Following the election, Minister for Justice Charles Flanagan suggested that the Irish media had given O'Doherty a "free pass" for her views on immigration, after Fine Gael's candidate for the Wexford by-election, Verona Murphy, had been criticised for linking migration to Ireland with ISIS.

[84][85] In September 2018, during the presidential election campaign, O'Doherty drew criticism for her claim, described as conspiratorial,[50][86] that the state colluded in the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin.

[49] The Irish political satire magazine The Phoenix called O'Doherty's claim a "credibility destroying move", and said "that ludicrous assertion helped to scupper her bid for a presidential nomination".

"[67] In March 2019, O'Doherty tweeted that the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand had the hallmarks of a "false flag" operation to incite fresh Islamic State attacks.

[88] In September 2019, a number of media outlets reported on a tweet (published by O'Doherty and later deleted by Twitter) which led to racial abuse of a County Meath interracial[5] couple who had appeared in an advertisement for the German-based supermarket chain Lidl.

According to The Irish Times, O'Doherty threatened legal action against the couple for speaking to the newspaper about the Twitter thread and the impact it had on them and their child.

[105] Waters further stated, as a basis for the claim, that the laws were brought in by a caretaker government, by a Dáil with a limited number of TDs, and enacted by an outgoing Seanad.

[106] During the proceedings, up to 100 supporters of O'Doherty and Waters gathered at the Four Courts but were not permitted to enter the courtroom by the judge because of social distancing rules.

[106] Gardaí later announced that they were investigating the gathering at the Four Courts,[107] stating that they had asked the group to disperse over concerns about social distancing and the rules on non-essential travel.

[113] A further appeal was heard by the Supreme Court in July 2022, which upheld the decision to dismiss the challenge brought by O'Doherty and Waters against the constitutionality of laws introduced in response to COVID-19.

[116] Guerin's solicitors secured orders against O'Doherty, including one that she had been formally served with the summons outlining the action against her after an ex parte hearing.

[120] In June 2021, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin sought injunctions against O'Doherty, specifically concerning videos posted online that it claimed were "clearly defamatory".

[125] On 29 September 2021 she was found guilty at Bray Courthouse of three charges: threatening and abusive behaviour, refusing to give her name and address to a Garda and resisting arrest.

[125] The judge also criticised her for deliberately saying "atrocious" things to the gardaí, including calling them traitors and accusing them of covering up paedophilia and murder, which he described as a "a clear and intentional breach of the peace".

[127][128] In May 2023, Edel Campbell, the mother of a teenager who died by suicide, sued O'Doherty in the High Court for "unauthorised and inappropriate use" of a photo of her son.

She stated that she couldn't comply with the order, claiming that it was an "illegal injunction" because the court is not permitted to be funded by third-parties, referring to a GoFundMe fundraiser for the case.