Reporting the Troubles by Deric Henderson Ivan Little

Author:Deric Henderson,Ivan Little
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Vearsa

Noel Doran is the editor of the Irish News in Belfast. In 1987, he was a reporter with the Belfast Telegraph.

The lasting impact of the Troubles on my life

Chris Moore

It was 9 March 1971 when I turned up for my first day on duty at the News Letter offices in Donegall Street in Belfast – a significant event for me personally as it represented my first job as a news reporter in Northern Ireland. Until then my newspaper experience was confined to a short period of training with a daily paper in Norwich followed by a spell as editor of a small weekly paper in Belfast aimed at the teenage market.

I’d spent too many years living away, first at school in Scotland and then briefly in Norwich. As a result I had little understanding of what was happening in Northern Ireland. I was naive about the sectarian fault lines that had begun to show signs of stress during my absence. The truth is that I had no sense of the political upheaval bubbling beneath the surface.

But on 10 March, twenty-four hours into my job as a news reporter, I was left in no doubt of what was going on when the bodies of three young Scottish soldiers were found dead at the Horseshoe Bend, not far from Ligoniel in North Belfast. News reporting was about to change. In my limited experience, courts and councils were the staples of news coverage but now there were bodies and blood on the streets of Northern Ireland.

Life in Belfast changed dramatically. Bombs were going off almost on a daily basis – sometimes killing people, almost always destroying buildings and bringing a greater sense of danger to life in the city. As you walked around the city centre you had a sense you were risking your life. As you looked ahead up the street, you could not be certain that one of the parked cars did not contain a bomb that was about to go off. Belfast had officially become a dangerous place to live and work.

I remember one occasion when I was walking along Bridge Street on my way to the News Letter. A bomb exploded in a travel agents 150 yards ahead, shattering glass in offices and shops nearby. I felt the force of the blast pushing me back. I saw an elderly woman just to my right fall to her knees. I was unharmed and helped her up before we continued on our separate ways.

In March 1972 I had a much closer call when the News Letter was the target of an IRA bomb. There’d been a telephone warning and the building was in the process of being evacuated. Two policemen were examining a suspect car when it exploded. The policemen died instantly – one of them lived across the street from my home in Lisburn. Three council binmen died, as did an elderly man a month after the blast. What saved me was the metal filing cabinet in front of my desk: shards of glass flew over my head instead of entering my body.

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