Henderson Deric - Reporting the Troubles: journalists tell their stories of the Northern Ireland conflict

Reporting
the
Troubles

Reporting
the
Troubles

Journalists tell their stories of the Northern Ireland conflict

Compiled by DERIC HENDERSON and IVAN LITTLE

In respectful memory of the men, women and children who died during the Troubles.

For my son Deric. This book was his idea. (DH)

For Victor Gordon, my friend and mentor from the Portadown Times, who sadly died before he could contribute to this book. (IL)

First published in 2018 by Blackstaff Press

an imprint of Colourpoint Creative Ltd

Colourpoint House

Jubilee Business Park

21 Jubilee Road

Newtownards BT23 4YH

Reprinted with corrections, October 2018

Compilation and introduction, Deric Henderson and Ivan Little, 2018

Foreword, George Mitchell, 2018

Articles, the contributors, 2018

Photographs, as indicated, 2018

Cover photograph, David Lomax/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images, 2018

Cover designed by Two Associates

All rights reserved

The editors and contributors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

Produced by Blackstaff Press

A cip catalogue for this book is available from the British Library

EPUB ISBN 978-1-78073-220-6

MOBI ISBN 978-1-78073-221-3

www.blackstaffpress.com

Foreword

Senator George J. Mitchell

Twenty years ago the government of the United Kingdom, the government of Ireland, and eight Northern Ireland political parties declared their support for the Agreement that has become known as the Good Friday Agreement, or the Belfast Agreement. Much has been said and written about the long and difficult road that led to the Agreement. Many have deservedly received credit for their roles.

The prime ministers Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern and their predecessors laid the foundation for the negotiations and then brought those negotiations to a successful conclusion. Both governments were ably represented by a talented and dedicated corps of civil servants whose work has not been adequately recognised.

The real heroes of the Agreement were the people of Northern Ireland and their political leaders. The people supported the effort to achieve agreement, and afterward they voted overwhelmingly to ratify it. Their political leaders, in dangerous and difficult circumstances, after lifetimes devoted to conflict, summoned extraordinary courage and vision and reached agreement, often at great risk to themselves, their families, their political careers.

But little has been said or written about a small group of courageous men and women who made an enormous contribution to the effort. In this book Reporting the Troubles, Deric Henderson and Ivan Little both experienced Northern Ireland journalists fill that void. They have compiled the recollections by journalists of events and encounters that made a lasting impression on them. The resulting book will make a lasting impression on readers. It contains accounts of death and life, of loss and survival, of heroism and cowardice, all of which in the aggregate convey the swirl of emotions experienced by those who lived through the Troubles.

Over a span of five years I chaired three separate but related discussions in what came to be known as the Northern Ireland peace process, and I later served for ten years as the chancellor of Queens University, Belfast. I have seen Northern Ireland at its worst and at its best. Although I am an American and proud of it, a large part of my heart and my emotions will forever be with the people of Northern Ireland. This moving book helps me, and will help any reader, to better understand what happened.

Thomas Jefferson wrote, The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

In the turbulent and difficult times in which we live, many disagree. But the journalists in this book provide support for Jeffersons view, to the benefit of all who care about Northern Ireland and history.

Introduction

Deric Henderson and Ivan Little

The start of the Troubles half a century ago caught journalists by surprise. None of us had foreseen that the batoning of marchers by the Royal Ulster Constabulary at a civil rights rally in Derry in October 1968 would light the fuse that set off an explosion of violence that would rage for decades, with over 3,700 deaths.

Exact figures for the toll of the terrorist campaign are impossible to come by but its estimated that more than 47,500 people were injured and that there were at least 37,000 shootings and over 16,000 bombings.

This was a world before the instant global dissemination of news on social media, and it was almost impossible for the mainstream media to keep abreast of the bedlam in Belfast in particular. In newspaper offices like the Belfast Telegraphs, shortwave radios were pressed into service as news-gathering tools, constantly tuned to broadcasts from the police. The crackling messages from officers on the streets to their bases recorded the non-stop onslaught of terrorist attacks in the city. Along with thousands of ordinary citizens, journalists took it in turns to eavesdrop on the exchanges.

In 1973, freshly arrived from provincial weeklies, we were among the Belfast Telegraph reporters who monitored the police channels. We didnt know it at the time, but our professional lives would be dominated by the Troubles for the next forty years. In our old newsroom, for years on end, the morning ritual was the same. Senior reporter John Conway who went on to become a high-powered BBC news executive in London turned the dozens of incident reports he received from the RUC press office into an article for the paper called the overnight. Along with our colleagues, we were then sent out to chase the follow-ups on the worst of the attacks. Newspapers and broadcasting organisations from around the UK paid retainers to Telegraph staffers for a heads-up on what had happened during the night and what was in the diary for the day ahead.

Sometimes the sheer volume of the terrorist killings was overwhelming. One Monday, a story about ten murders over the weekend was relegated to the inside pages by new attacks that day. In-depth coverage of every incident was out of the question. One days murders would routinely be overtaken by the next days atrocities.

It was non-stop, so it was hardly surprising that journalists found solace in bars like the Old Vic, the upstairs lounge bar of Frank McGlades pub, virtually next door to the Telegraph. The Europa Hotel in the centre of the city was another watering hole for English and international journalists who flew in to Belfast to report on the ever-intensifying violence. The Battle of the Bogside, the deployment of the British Army, internment, the no-go areas, Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday all thrust Northern Ireland on to the world stage of news like never before.

As well as the unprecedented violence, journalists also had to contend with intimidation and bullying, which were rife, not only from the men of violence but also from the men supposedly trying to stop it the police, the army and the shadowy intelligence operatives. Lies were the stock-in-trade on all sides in the propaganda battle. For journalists, finding the middle ground of the truth was the challenge.

Successive governments tried to constrain broadcasters, particularly BBC journalists, claiming there should be no such thing as impartiality between lawful and unlawful men when it came to media coverage. Even the judiciary put the pressure on. The former Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Lowry criticised the Corporation over interviewing Sinn Fin politicians and said that he felt the BBC would have given Satan and Jesus Christ equal time.