Ruth Addicott talks to journalists about the reality of life in Belfast, past and present
Belfast K
athryn Johnston was at home the night the call came through in October 1988, warning of an IRA plot to kill her husband the following day. Within an hour, waiting outside their house
was an unmarked police car, flanked by armoured police Land Rovers and two armed officers standing guard. Johnston and her husband, Liam Clarke, then a senior
journalist with The Sunday Times, had to leave their home north of Belfast immediately, waking their two boys, then aged eight and five, who were in bed. They never went back. Clarke continued working as a journalist until he died of
cancer, aged 61, in 2015. Johnston, a journalist, author and broadcaster, continues campaign work. Belfast has become a completely different city since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, but there are scars of the violent 30-year conflict. Behind the multi-million pound regeneration, tensions remain and for some journalists, the dangers are as stark as ever. “None of us would be doing our job properly if we didn’t speak truth to power and continue to shine a light into dark places,” says Johnston. “Like the dogs on the streets who pee to mark their territory
on every street corner, paramilitaries, criminals and others issue threats in local areas to intimidate and frighten journalists, photographers and other media workers. This is a global – and growing – issue, which can have very serious consequences.” Northern Ireland has seen more journalists killed than
anywhere in the UK. They include Sunday World journalist Martin O’Hagan, shot in front of his wife as he walked home
from a pub in Lurgan in September 2001. More recently, Lyra McKee was killed in Derry in April 2019 while observing a riot. Both were NUJ members. O’Hagan was secretary of Belfast and District NUJ branch. No one has been held to account for his murder. “We still have paramilitaries, we still have sectarianism and
journalists have to try and negotiate their way through that,” says Robin Wilson, outgoing chair of Belfast and District NUJ branch. “Many, many of us have been threatened by paramilitaries and forced to move house,” says Johnston. “Every worker has a right to earn a living free of intimidation and fear. Journalists are no exception.” While there have been brutal killings of international correspondents such as Marie Colvin, Johnston observes that most journalists who are murdered are local. A number of reporters covering activities by paramilitary and organised crime groups in Northern Ireland have received threats in recent years, including Sunday World reporter Patricia Devlin, whose name was sprayed on a wall alongside an image of a crosshair of a gun. Devlin lodged an official complaint with the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland in 2020, frustrated by the failure to investigate a threat to rape her newborn baby. Graffiti appeared in Belfast city centre showing an image of
the game hangman alongside the word ‘journalists’. “We are concerned about the way a lot of this has not been
dealt with effectively by the criminal justice system,” says Wilson. “We are now over two decades on from the killing of Martin O’ Hagan by the Loyalist Volunteer Force and nobody has been brought to book for that murder.” The NUJ has called for a fresh investigation, alongside Amnesty International. Vigils were held in Belfast and Derry in 2021 to mark the 20th anniversary of his death and call for justice. Women journalists are particularly vulnerable to trolling and serious online abuse.
10 | theJournalist
Spotlight on... KEVIN COOPER
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