The Irish Commissioner for Social Affairs, Mr Padraig Flynn, has received an apology and compensation from the Daily Mail over an article published by the paper in November 1996.
The article on European social policy was written by one of the paper's columnists, Bruce Anderson.
"As soon as you arrive in Ireland you leave the modern world. Every mile you travel west of Dublin is a also a mile west of the 20th century," Mr Anderson wrote.
"By the time you reach Castlebar, you have reached a timeless region.
"This is a pre-20th-century economy based on the pig and potato and presided over by the priest. . ."
It continued with a sustained attack on Mr Flynn's personal career, the supposed backwardness and corruption of rural Irish politics, and linking such claims to Mr Flynn's defence of the European social model.
An apology published prominently in the Mail on Friday admitted that "many of these references were gravely defamatory of Mr Flynn and caused damage to his good name and reputation and offended him greatly".
"The Daily Mail and Bruce Anderson now accept that there was no foundation in fact for the references to Mr Flynn which were intemperate," the statement continued.
"Both the Mail and Mr Anderson withdraw unreservedly all of the defamatory imputations against Mr Flynn and sincerely apologise to him for the damage to his reputation and the distress caused to him and his family.
"We have paid compensation to Mr Flynn and discharged his legal costs," the Mail concluded.
