War, Peace and the Derry Journal By Pat McArt: An editor known as ‘the last of the giants’ who never clicked with John Hume

The Derry Journal has been a respected feature of the city’s life for 250 years. During some of the most turbulent periods of the Troubles the paper’s editor, Pat McArt, steered it through shifting ground and challenging times. His insightful memoir recounts those years, as well as his early life in Donegal. At home in Letterkenny, he watched Paisley, Hume and Terence O’Neill battling it out each night on the television news, which he calls “drama on steroids”.

McArt, who worked for local newspapers in Donegal before spending a year as a journalist with RTÉ in Dublin, returned to the northwest in 1981 as the Journal’s editor. He arrived shortly after the deaths of two local hunger strikers, Patsy O’Hara and Mickey Devine, and to a violent city of bombed-out buildings. Tensions were high, with military checkpoints, nightly riots and hijackings, while black flags hung from houses in the Creggan, Shantallow and Bogside.

With a cool head the 28-year-old led the newspaper, which he felt was locked in a time-warp, through the political minefield of a conflicted society. In terms of status and influence, he was told, there were three positions that counted in the city: the MP, the Catholic bishop, and the Journal editor. John Hume was the MP but had a rocky relationship with McArt. They disagreed over editorial policy, and “never quite clicked”. As editor he wanted to distance the paper’s coverage of Hume, believing they should be reporting critical voices of the MP, who was surrounded by a tight-knit circle that McArt privately called “The St Columb’s College Ruling Class”, alma mater of the city’s elite.

There was a constant battle for hearts and minds. Bishop Edward Daly used the power of the church to communicate through the biweekly paper by condemning republican violence. He issued statements on Monday and Thursday to ensure coverage on the next day’s front page, which local wags would refer to as the “Daly Journal”. Interspersed between anecdotes of McArt’s time in the editor’s chair are personal reflections on the paper’s characters and the city. Aside from editing, his role included acting as adviser and scrutineer of the Irish, British and US governments. Not for nothing is he known as “the last of the giants”.