obituary


In 1980, he became the first member outside the Dublin


Newspapers Branch to represent the Republic of Ireland on the NEC. After only one year on the NEC, he was elected vice-president, then president the following year – only the second president who represented the Republic of Ireland. In the chair at the Annual Delegate Meeting in Loughborough, he was relaxed and good-humoured but firm – a stickler for the rules of debate. The Journalist’s conference report was headed by a picture of Eddie in the chair with “ADM 1982” over it. “A logo in my own lifetime,” he murmured. After the ADM, not for the first time, he made a sacrifice for his principles. Asked in Dublin if he was in favour of permitting abortion, he said he was, knowing that this was likely to lose him his place on the NEC – which it did. His marriage broke up and he moved to London and


lived with his partner, fellow NEC member Kate Hodges. He freelanced for several years, working in broadcasting for LBC and Thames TV, writing and sometimes teaching journalism at the University of Westminster. As a writer he was fast, fluent and economical, requiring little from sub-editors. He and I offered media training, and worked for local


authorities, unions and the Commission for Racial Equality. He suggested that the last session of each course should be a studio discussion in which he would be the presenter and I would play an angry right-wing politician. It worked brilliantly: great practice, and everyone went home laughing. He remained active in the NUJ, and might have become


Eddie Barrett


Francis Beckett recalls the life of a sharp journalist and a committed NUJ activist


Eddie Barrett, who has died aged 68, achieved great success as a broadcaster very young before becoming one of the NUJ’s most colourful and charismatic presidents, and later a successful head of communications for Britain’s biggest trade union. He started his working life in 1965 at the Irish Times aged 17; in 1968, he was recruited by RTE, where he gained a strong reputation quickly. You can see why if you Google his name together with Ian Paisley. You get an interview conducted in 1969, a model of how it should be done: polite, persistent, refusing to be bullied and browbeaten, nailing the furious veteran politician to the facts. Eddie was just 21. But, in the end, reporting on the world wasn’t what Eddie


wanted to do: he wanted to change it. He became father of the RTE’s NUJ chapel and a key figure in the NUJ in Ireland. When in 1974 he was told that he could not report remarks from the dock on the trial of an IRA member, he refused to make the broadcast and the NUJ blacked coverage of the courts for about a week until RTE agreed it would not be subject to this restriction.


a national official but for one of the rounds of internecine warfare that were a feature of union politics at the time. Once again, he did the unpopular thing because he believed it was right, supporting beleaguered general secretary Ken Ashton. In 1987 he became chief press officer at the Transport and General Workers’ Union. He loved the work: he was doing something he believed in with all his heart, and he knew he was good at it. The industrial correspondents thought the world of him, and he had in Ron Todd a general secretary whom he liked and respected, and who knew Eddie’s value. After Todd retired in 1992, Eddie was unable to establish the same relationship with his successor Bill Morris, and decided to leave in 1996. This was a great sadness to him, but a much greater one was to come in 2008, when Kate died. He never recovered from losing Kate. In recent years, he


health visibly failed, although his devotion to the union remained undiminished – he was made a member of honour in 2014 and took on NUJ work almost until the end. People who think socialists are boring never met Eddie Barrett. He was warm, entertaining, witty and very knowledgeable. He would hold court in the corner of a pub, and people would gravitate towards him. When he took on The Journalist during the editor’s maternity leave, he instituted “editorial conferences” in the Harrison Arms, at which no editorial decisions were taken or even discussed. Eddie Barrett was a talented journalist and a committed


socialist and trade unionist, with integrity and enormous ability, a kind and generous friend, and great fun to be with.


If you want to submit an obituary please contact journalist@nuj.org.uk


theJournalist | 25


MARK THOMAS


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