A FAMILIAR voice in the reporting of news in the north of Ireland for the past 46 years, south Armagh man Eamonn Mallie returns to our screens with a new series of his intriguing Face to Face with... interviews for UTV.
First up is Line of Duty actor Adrian Dunbar, with whom he enjoys discussing the local colloquialisms that Dunbar's character Ted Hastings has made famous.
"He's a man of many tastes, very culturally aware and very cerebral. He loves Enniskillen and comes across as incredibly loyal to the environment in which he was brought up," says Mallie, now in his fifth series of the programmes for UTV.
The third episode sees him quiz Tony Blair's former press secretary and director of communications Alistair Campbell.
"Obviously, he's very unhappy about the state of politics today," says Mallie, who reveals Campbell speaks about his battle with alcoholism and depression.
He also discussed Blair's speech ahead of the Good Friday peace deal when he told the cameras outside Hillsborough Castle "the hand of history is upon our shoulders".
"It has always fascinated me what people say to each other behind the scenes. Apparently, Campbell challenged Blair immediately afterwards as he took the view the Prime Minister was setting himself up for one hell of a fall."
Also included in the line-up for 30 minutes of hard questioning are Emma Little-Pengelly, Susan McKay, Monica McWilliams, former ITN Ireland correspondent Tom Bradby and the artist Colin Davidson, whose painting of Mallie was used for the cover of his 2017 poetry collection, Under The Tilley Lamp.
However, the interviewee who "surprised" him the most was Northern Ireland football captain Marissa Callaghan.
"She is an exemplary young woman and a quintessential role model. I would predict she has a very big future on television, if she should choose to take that path.
"It's a lovely story of someone who started her football life on the streets in Divis flats and the evolution and challenges she faced along the way," adds Mallie, who admits he enjoys watching the women's game.
And, hoping to get the nod from UTV for another series, he's already drawing up a wish list with Liam Neeson, Roma Downey and Kenneth Branagh as potential guests.
Mallie worked as a researcher in Irish Language for RTE before training as a radio current affairs producer for the BBC in Belfast and joining Downtown Radio in 1976.
He describes himself as "a hound dog" when it comes to his reporting style; but believes his style of interrogation is a dying art amongst broadcasters here.
"The style of journalism in which I engage is in your face. I am very big on public accountability and I lament the current state of journalism. That capacity to forensically cross-examine and interrogate was the Seamus McKee and Martina Purdy era. Now you have to go to Channel 4 News if you want to partake or hear that style."
On the charge that sometimes stories are leaked to journalists, Mallie comments: "more often, that's not the case".
One of his biggest stories was the revelation of the secret talks between Sinn Fein, the IRA and the British Government, which ultimately led to the resignation of Northern Ireland Secretary of State Patrick Mayhew in 1993.
"Mayhew alleged that the republicans gave me that story. Nothing could be further from the truth," he explains.
Rather, the investigation was sparked by an interview he heard on Radio Ulster with a non-politician, a public figure with whom Mallie admits he didn't have a particularly good rapport.
A quick call to the interviewee resulted in a face-to-face meeting which, eventually, delivered one of his biggest stories.
"That was February and I didn't break it until early November. It took me that long to substantiate the story and get the smoking gun. If I had been wrong, I would have had to leave journalism."
A former pupil of Abbey CBS, Mallie graduated from Trinity College Dublin in Gaelic and Spanish. He admits that language still fascinates him.
"I'm always trying to find new words to describe situations. I love learning new phrases in any language and nothing gives me more pleasure than to meet someone from Russia, Poland or Portugal and to greet them in their own language.
"If I were in charge of universities I would put ambassadors on the streets in all the major cities to engage with visitors and give them a sense of the culture and history of the place and, where possible, to speak their language."
What Mallie is most passionate about, however, is poetry. He is part of the South Armagh Poetry Group, who last year published their book Room to Rhyme.
"I'm obsessed with poetry. At the very start of Covid-19 I undertook to read a poem a day on Twitter and I did that for quite a while, then others from the area got involved."
Contributors now are as diverse as grand secretary of the Orange Order, Rev Mervyn Gibson and actor Jamie Dornan.
"Jamie read a poem for me by Pádraig Ó Tuama', former head of the Corrymeela Community, and it had something like 40,000 views."
Dornan took part in Face to Face in 2018, but it's far from the first time their paths have crossed.
"Jamie actually did his first work experience with me," he explains.
"At that stage he was an aspiring journalist and I took him up to Stormont."
He adds: "I'm so excited at the appetite there is for poetry on this island. It is one of the most rewarding and enjoyable contributions I think I have made to people in my career."
Brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, 71-year-old Mallie admits that "salvation" is increasingly occupying his mind.
"I'm increasingly aware of my mortality. I've gone through my existentialist period as a student and, though ever-questioning, I'm increasingly prayerful as an individual. More and more I'm going to funerals and lamenting the fact that so many of my contemporaries have passed or are very ill. Thank God I'm in good health and I hope that continues."
And what's next?
"I had the most fantastic life and I keep trying to reinvent myself. I have so many dreams yet to fulfil. I have more poems to write and I am trying to write a fantasy-style screenplay at the moment."
When it comes to the people who have influenced him most, he cites two Presbyterian ministers. Firstly, Rev Terence McCaughey, who lectured him at Trinity College in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and former moderator Rev Dr Ken Newell, who is well-known for both his evangelical and ecumenical convictions.
The person he says he admired most in public life for his integrity, morals, compassion and courage was Father Alec Reid, the Clonard priest noted for his facilitator role in the peace process.
"What a manifestation of humanity and Christianity, to get down on his knees to kiss and to pray over those some deemed to be the enemy in the case of the two corporals killed in west Belfast in 1988."
Finally, when it comes to the subject of his ideal dinner party guests, Mallie says there was a time Boris Johnson would have been his number one choice.
However, despite describing himself as being "intellectually to the left", Mallie says he would now be delighted to have former Conservative MP Michael Portillo instead of Johnson, given the Prime Minister’s behaviour in public office.
:: Eamonn Mallie: Face to Face with... starts on UTV on Tuesday February 22 at 10.45pm
