FORMER RTÉ chief news correspondent Charlie Bird will launch a new book on the Troubles, as seen through the eyes of journalists, in Belfast tonight.
Mr Bird (72), who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease last year, will launch Reporting the Troubles 2 at the Ulster Reform Club at 6.30pm.
The former journalist is planning to climb Croagh Patrick in Co Mayo on April 2 as part of a major drive to raise money for suicide and self-harm charity Pieta House and the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association.
His high-profile campaign has already raised more than half a million euro.
The book - a follow-up to Reporting the Troubles which was published in 2018 - tells the social history of the Troubles and their aftermath as seen by some of the biggest names in journalism from the last 50 years.
Covering Bloody Sunday in 1972 to murder of journalist Lyra McKee in 2019 and the inquest into the Ballymurphy Massacre in 2021, the new book reflects on the conflict and its legacy through a record of journalists' working lives and experiences.
The book, which features a forward by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and ex-Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair, has been compiled by journalists Deric Henderson and Ivan Little.
Journalists who have told their stories include former Irish News reporters Barry McCaffrey and Allison Morris, Sir Trevor McDonald, BBC reporter Darragh MacIntyre, RTÉ crime correspondent Paul Reynolds and former Guardian correspondent Maggie O'Kane.
Sir Tony said the book "reveals the stoicism and bravery of those journalists, reporters and their colleagues who, faced with unimaginable pain and suffering, bore witness to the atrocities perpetrated and their aftermaths with admirable professionalism".
Mr Henderson, former Ireland editor of the Press Association, said the book gives a valuable insight into the north's recent history.
"The people of Northern Ireland will always struggle to deal with the past, and I suspect they’ll never agree a legacy process that suits everyone, certainly not in our generation," he said.
"But this important project should give readers a far greater understanding of what this community went through all those years ago and how the journalists back then, as well as those journalists who have come up more recently, reported on some desperately difficult and sad times.
"The contributions in this book, and the previous edition, represent hundreds and hundreds of years of journalistic experiences and that surely is worth having as a matter of public record."
Mr Little said he was "intensely proud" of the book, published by Blackstaff Press.
"Deric and I have been lucky to have gathered together 70 powerfully compelling stories from an impressive range of respected journalists across the British Isles that ensure that the despair – and the resilience – of people in Northern Ireland during the Troubles isn’t forgotten despite constant urgings from some quarters that victims of violence should move on and draw a line under the tragic past," he said.
