Obituaries

Wesley Boyd obituary: fierce defender of news

Journalist widely credited with maintaining RTÉ's reputation for even-handedness during Troubles

Wesley Boyd. Photograph: David Sleator

Thu Jul 27 2023 - 12:28

Born: August 14th, 1933

Died: June 12th, 2023

Wesley Boyd, the much-respected director of news at RTÉ television and radio from 1974 to 1990, has died aged 89. Boyd also worked as a journalist for The Irish Times for a number of years, becoming this newspaper’s diplomatic correspondent in the early 1970s. In his latter years, he was a regular contributor to An Irishman’s Diary.

A native of Co Fermanagh, Boyd was head of news at the national broadcaster during the most violent years of the Troubles. He was widely credited with maintaining the station’s reputation for impartiality and even-handedness during a period of intense political turmoil.

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Irish Secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), Seamus Dooley described Boyd as one of the most influential figures in Irish journalism. “He was a man of fierce integrity. He was totally committed to the concept of press freedom whilst also balancing that with the Section 31 controversy while in RTÉ,” said Dooley.

Section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Act banned RTÉ and other broadcasters from transmitting direct interviews with Sinn Féin due to its links with the Provisional IRA. The Section 31 ban was lifted in 1994.

[ Family of former RTÉ head of news Wesley Boyd remember his ‘long and happy life’ ]

[ Tributes paid to ‘able, wise and decent’ journalist Wesley Boyd ]

During his time at RTÉ, Boyd expanded the Belfast office and kept a sharp focus on RTÉ’s northern coverage. Throughout the 1980s, he also oversaw the growth of the news division and the introduction of new technology as film gave way to video. He championed the introduction of the Morning Ireland news programme on radio as well as hourly news broadcasts on 2FM to cater for a younger audience. He also opened and staffed a new Midlands studio in Athlone.

“He was a fierce defender of news editorially and financially, and he battled hard for often scarce resources,” said David Davin-Power, RTÉ’s former political correspondent.

Wesley Boyd began his career in journalism as a junior reporter for the Tyrone Courier at the age of 18. It was during another stint with a regional newspaper, The Larne Times that he met his future wife, Marion McAuley, daughter of a local journalist. The couple married in 1957 and moved to live in London where Boyd become London editor of the Northern Whig, a Belfast-based newspaper that closed in 1963.

Boyd then joined the London newsroom of the BBC before being offered a job by the then editor of The Irish Times, Alan Montgomery. Early in his new job, he secured an interview with the moderate unionist prime minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O’Neill, whom he had met several times previously. Published in January 1965, that interview focused on the historic meeting between O’Neill and Taoiseach, Sean Lemass at Stormont.

From that stage on, Boyd was regarded as the newspaper’s expert on Northern affairs and as diplomatic correspondent he was frequently sent across the Border by the subsequent Irish Times editor, Douglas Gageby and the paper’s then news editor, Donal Foley. During his time in The Irish Times, he became head of the newspaper’s NUJ branch as well as honorary secretary of the NUJ’s Dublin branch.

Born in Brookborough, County Fermanagh, the fifth of seven children to Margaret (née Taylor) and Thomas Boyd, he moved with his family to the Ardoyne area of Belfast shortly after his birth. During the second World War German air raids on Belfast in 1941, he and his siblings were evacuated to a rural farmhouse at Cooneen in Co Fermanagh, but he returned to complete his secondary school education at the Belfast Technical High School.

Brought up in the Methodist tradition and married to a Catholic from Northern Ireland, Boyd was in favour of a united Ireland. “He was not a zealot. He thought a united Ireland was desirable but not worth spilling blood over. And he was interested in pluralism and all religions being respected,” his son, Brian Boyd, also a journalist, said.

One example of his pluralism was how he opposed the daily broadcasting of the Angelus bell [a call to prayer for Catholics] on RTÉ television and radio at noon and 6pm. He believed it was discriminatory to those of other religions.

Boyd was respected by his colleagues for his fairness and accuracy in what were often challenging circumstances during his tenure at RTÉ. Davin-Power said that “his somewhat dour countenance hid the convivial spirit of someone who liked nothing more than swapping stories and anecdotes with colleagues over a couple of pints often in the Mill House in Stillorgan.”

“He was one of the few survivors of a journalistic generation whose experience spanned hot metal, filmed reports, video and the start of the digital age,” said Davin-Power.

At his funeral, his daughter Deirdre said that her father’s life was best summed up by the Seamus Heaney poem, Digging – as the pen and the spade were two big components in his long and happy life. “Their years in London among the emigrant Irish community provided our parents with many of their lifelong friends, drawn from a vibrant, sometimes impoverished, group of writers, artists and journalists,” she said.

But she also said that it was a job in The Irish Times and a strong desire to bring up their children in Ireland that encouraged her parents “to join the flow of Irish emigrants returning from the UK to Dublin the early 1960s”. The couple settled with their children in the Dublin suburb of Mount Merrion. In his retirement, Boyd remained active and interested in current affairs. He also became an avid gardener while enjoying time with his family and friends.

Wesley Boyd is survived by his daughters, Deirdre, Joanne and Helen, his son Brian and his three grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife Marion, his son Peter, and his six siblings: Peggy, Sadie, Evelyn, Bobby, Eileen and Billy.

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