Deaglán de Bréadún is one of Ireland’s best known journalists, having written extensively for The Irish Times newspaper, reporting on conflicts, resolutions, and general political mischief worldwide. He then worked for a time as Political Editor of The Irish Sun newspaper, with a weekly column entitled ‘On the Corridors of Power’. He is now writing books on Irish politics. He kindly took the time to resolve my curiosities about journalism, politics and life in general.

To start with, could you tell us a little about how you first got started in journalism? Did you always intend this to be your career, while studying in college etc?

At school, I edited my own newspaper for a while, printed on a Gestetner-style machine which involved typing onto a wax sheet and then running it off in foolscap format. At college, I wrote for and produced similar publications – these were the heady days of the ‘Gentle Revolution’ at University College Dublin. The only professional qualification in journalism that I was aware of at the time was available from Rathmines College of Commerce and it was my understanding that you had to be under 20 years of age to take the course, so that wasn’t an option for me because I wanted to get a degree first. I was very interested in literary criticism and wanted to pursue an academic career. I did a Master’s in Anglo-Irish literature at UCD and spent some time studying in the US as well. I returned to Ireland with a view to completing a Ph.D. at UCD. I was supposed to work as a tutor in the college but that fell through. I did some part-time and temporary lecturing in different teacher-training colleges but the money was getting tight. Your father, Brendan Glacken, had been a classmate at UCD and, at the urging of your mother, Patricia, he got me some casual work at The Irish Times, where he was employed as a sub-editor. I had no intention of making a permanent job out of it initially but the place and the work were so stimulating that I soon wanted to stay. It took a while to be made permanent but finally it happened.

I read the report about your fascinating first assignment on the border of Turkey and Iran, even contracting shigella dysentery. Talk about jumping in at the deep end! Can you tell us about that experience? Afterwards, were you sure you had chosen the right profession?

This was my first major foreign assignment although I had been reporting for a number of years at home and abroad, e.g., from Spain. At the end of the first Gulf war, President George Bush Sr. encouraged the Iraqi Kurds to rise against the regime of Saddam Hussein, but then the Americans decided not to proceed as far as Baghdad, and the Kurds were left at Saddam’s mercy – or lack of it. About two million of them fled, mainly to Turkey and Iran.

In April 1991 I was sent to the Turkey-Iraq border to report on the crisis. It was all a bit rushed and I lacked experience in this type of story, so I got no medical shots in advance despite being about to go into a situation with considerable potential to contract illness.

I flew to the Turkish capital, Ankara, but there was an internal airline strike, so I hired a car with two American aid workers, and we drove for 24 hours to the border town of Cukurca [pron. ‘Chuk-urja’], population 8,000. In a ravine close to the village was a camp housing up to 80,000 refugees, enduring heavy rain and insanitary conditions. The number of deaths was estimated at 170 a day, two-thirds of them babies.

After that I flew to Tehran to cover the plight of the Kurdish refugees fleeing into Iran, along with Irish Times photographer Frank Miller.

When I arrived back in Dublin I was brought to hospital and put in an isolation ward. References in my stories to cholera outbreaks had caused concern. I didn’t have cholera, but I did have shigella dysentery, and it took some time to recover.

It was a physically and emotionally demanding experience but definitely confirmed me in my chosen career – or should I say the career that chose me?

Did it feel Hemingway-esque at all – the idea of being in a war torn place reporting from the front lines? Or did you have other political / journalist heroes at that time whose style you would have liked to adopt yourself?

The only time I ever felt Hemingway-esque was ten years later in the Balkans. I was covering a conflict between the government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and guerrilla forces of an ethnic Albanian background. People thought another war was about to start in the region but it turned out to be a fairly minor conflict that eventually fizzled out. I was at or near the “front-line” with colleagues when some chap cooked meat for us on a griddle in the open air. I couldn’t help thinking of Hemingway – maybe it was the food!

I don’t remember any journalistic or political ‘heroes’ really. I had the pleasure of meeting the legendary Charles Wheeler of the BBC in Tehran, whose work I had long admired. I like the American reporters from the old days such as Theodore H. White – who wrote about JFK in the 1960 presidential election – John Gunther and Vincent Sheean. They were well-informed, widely-travelled and wrote very well.

There were colleagues on The Irish Times who were excellent role-models such as Conor O’Clery, James Downey, the late John Healy and Fergus Pyle, among others.

And then, as your career progressed, you then eventually progressed to Northern Ireland coverage?

I had always been interested in “De Nort” as the great unresolved, simmering political issue of the time. As a reporter based in Dublin, I often covered the northern “angle” e.g. if someone like John Hume was giving a public lecture in Dublin or if Sinn Fein were having an ardfheis/party conference on the southern side of the Border.

I was on the political staff of the paper at Leinster House when Albert Reynolds became Taoiseach and, largely thanks to him, the peace process kicked-off in earnest. I got a fair number of exclusive stories out of it. When the post of Northern Editor came up at the start of 1997, I applied for and got it. During my three-and-a-half years in Belfast, I had about a half-million words in the paper, so it was very labour-intensive. The Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 was of course the major event of that period. I ended up writing a book, “The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland” which was published in 2001 and, in a second edition, in 2008.

Can you tell us a little about your time covering the peace process? Are there any days or events that particularly stand out in your memories? Perhaps ones we might not expect?

Good Friday itself was a Big Day. I stayed up most of the night, apart from a few hours’ sleep in the RTE caravan, kindly facilitated by Michael Fisher. Most people did not expect a deal to be made, but it was. Then Jeffrey Donaldson walked out of the Ulster Unionist team, which caused a major stir. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern were the centre of attention – Blair with his “hand of history” soundbite and Ahern because his mother had sadly just died but he didn’t drop out.

There were other days that stand out. The night the cross-border bodies were agreed at Stormont. Meeting Ted Kennedy at City Hall for a briefing. Covering the stand-off between unionists and nationalists at Drumcree. It was particularly gratifying to make friends and develop professional contacts on both sides of the community.

Did you have the opportunity to meet all the senior decision makers of the time, and was it ever in private settings, or was it part of the wider press corps? Was there anyone who gave you real exclusive insight?

I had a list of close and well-tried contacts and tried to call at least some of them every day if possible. There was a good mix of unionists and nationalists, loyalists and republicans as well as people in the British, Irish and even US administrations. I met personally or in press conferences with many of the senior decision-makers, whether politicians or civil servants. There were certain people who were very helpful indeed but I am not going to tell you their names!

Can you share with us any interesting or amusing stories of those guys?

I recall being in the White House for a St Patrick’s Day party when Bill Clinton gave a lengthy and detailed analysis of Seamus Heaney’s “The Cure at Troy” and the President was very impressive. I took the title of my book from that particular work – with Seamus’s kind approval.

And I believe you met President Clinton and Tony Blair too? Were you / are you a fan of them?

I shook hands with Clinton a few times at the White House but never actually ‘met’ him in your sense, although I covered events at which he spoke. I also covered press conferences and speeches by Blair but didn’t meet him privately one-to-one. They were both very impressive on the peace process and deeply committed to it, whatever other criticisms people might make of them on other issues.

And then when you go on to cover areas of the middle east, how does that differ in terms of approach, is it more factual reporting based, rather than being tied into a closer knit personal history?

There was more ‘colour’ albeit of a rather grim kind, e.g., the aftermath of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem or seeing the corpse of a young Palestinian male with a huge hole in his chest which was the result of being shot when approaching an Israeli checkpoint in a manner that was considered threatening. Obviously I wouln’t have the same personal connections with the Middle East as with Northern Ireland but it is a region that we need to care about on the basis of global stability as well as the human tragedy that continues to hold sway there. I covered a press conference by Yasser Arafat on the day of 9/11 which was very dramatic. As well as the ‘colour’ I tried to develop contacts on both sides of the conflict who could interpret events from their different perspectives.

Do you think there are things that Irish politicians and people could learn from our middle eastern counterparts, in regards to Governance and ways of life? Are there any middle eastern politicians who you admire?

I suggest it might be the other way around, that the Middle East might learn something from the comparative success of the Northern Ireland peace process. Shimon Peres is impressive, whatever one might think of his political positions, and the devotion of Arafat’s followers was very striking. The late Ali Halimeh was a very capable Palestinian envoy to Ireland.

Did you ever get a taste for that foreign life, the different foods and cultures? Is that all part of the excitement of being an international journalist? I mean, when you are away on such an assignment, do you get a chance to delve into the history and culture yourself, or are you almost always in the presence of the rest of the press corps?

It is exciting to go to these places although you always try to ensure that you don’t get sick or, worse still, take a bullet. I had some scary moments, especially on the West Bank. It is a privilege and a pleasure to encounter different foods and cultures. This was especially the case when I spent five months in Moscow in the first half of 1994. You are not always with other members of the press corps in this business but the camaraderie is usually very good. I took time out in Jerusalem to see the holy places and I would recommend anyone to go and see them if at all possible.

There are often amusing comments made of some of the more radical people, like Colonel Gadafi for example. How he might appear to be one way on television but is very much the opposite in person. I read one story about one journalist saying to “tell Gadafi that he doesn’t seem like a psycho in person, In spite of everything he’s done he can project a persona of charm and gravitas. He’s actually quite presidential.” Do you think this is both the charm and charisma of the politician, but then when at a remove from the man that the report reveals his true characters?

Never met Gadafi; Arafat and Mubarak, yes, I interviewed them both. Speaking very generally about public figures in any part of the world: usually there is more humour in the off-camera and off-the-record moments, as you might expect. I never attribute a quote to any identifiable person that is given to me off-the-record or betray anyone’s privacy. It is important that your contacts feel they can trust you.

Do you think that is characteristic of all politicians? Their ability to speak and present one thing, while meaning or doing something very different?

They have to put on a bit of a show but usually there is not that much difference between the public and private personas.

As a journalist, how important is it to see through the spin?

Critical of course. But it’s not usually very difficult to do so.

I heard you telling a story about Bill Clinton, saying that he gave the reporters “a bit of bull, like all politicians do”. Why do you think they do this?

I don’t remember that yarn. I recall a crowd in Derry shouting “We want Bill” but they were pronouncing it “bull”, as per their charming and delightful accent. Politicians often use a bit of rhetoric in their speeches and press conferences and are not generally known to play down their own achievements and the flaws of their opponents. It’s a tool of the trade. Reporters have to cut through the BS.

Do you think there is room for a politician or political party to be entirely honest and genuine all of the time? Or is there too much happening behind the scenes that the general public are not aware of? Is it a case of not revealing your hand too early, so to speak? I mean do you think it is intended to be for the good of the people, or just for the good of the individual politician (in which case they might have lost sight of the true purpose of politics being to serve the people)?

Most politicians have a combination of self-interest and devotion to the public welfare. They don’t always feel they can be honest because of the likely negative reaction in the media and from their political opponents. Most of them are quite likeable on a personal level – even the more roguish ones. As I say, the reporter has to give the facts and leave aside the waffle.

On the topic of spin, and bull, I love the story you wrote about Tony Blair off handing a difficult question to Bertie Ahern because he knew he could answer it in a thoroughly confusing manner that avoided the truth all together. Did you notice that happening right away, or it was only revealed on reflection later on?

I got that story from a contact who was there. I don’t know if it avoided the truth because nobody knew what the hell he was talking about. The point was, it got past an awkward moment when one of the unionists was complaining about something.

Do you think he was the best at this? Or are there others you admire for their political skills so to speak?

He’s a very clever man who has his own way of saying things. Different politicians have different skills. Enda Kenny presents a good image at events that are reported on television. Micheal Martin has good forensic skills when putting questions in the Dail. Michael Noonan is an experienced speaker who doesn’t get rattled. George Mitchell brought great civility to talks between the warring factions in the North.

And in regards to political competitiveness, when one party member challenges another party member, is it often just a case of trying to answer the question by revealing the bare minimum but at the same time trying to wind up your opponent and somewhat put him into a whirlwind of confusion? There always seems to be politicians taking every opportunity to jab at their opponents, bring down a peg or two so to speak? Often seeming not even to be politically based, but to be personal.

Well they have to compete in the election race at the ballot box and, as a certain supermarket chain says, “Every little helps.”

Have you ever come across a politician who buoys his opponents instead? Instead of belittling them he encourages them to think more broadly, educates them, wants them to succeed as people and as politicians, to be their best, to bring out their best? A real true statesman / well intentioned politician?

Usually they have to be in some position above competitive politics such as head of state. George Mitchell as chair of the Good Friday talks is a good example.

In regards to political reporting, do you think the best kind is that which evokes specific imagery of the politicians characters? The point being to make the report poetic, and perhaps amusing, as opposed to just factual? Is that how you engage an audience or build followers? Also, do you find that as these personality types are propagated by the politician, by becoming self aware they begin to embody these traits even more, playing up to their own caricature sometimes?

Given the ready accessibility of news on the internet, there is a greater tendency towards colour-writing and analysis pieces in the print media. The best political reporting is still when you get a good exclusive story, whether it goes out online or you want to save it for the print edition. Colour and analysis do help a lot to fill in the blanks about a politician’s personality and motives. At the end of the day, though, it is what they do, rather than what they say or how they say it, that matters.

You’ve also written a few Irishmen’s (and women’s) diaries. That seems like a very enjoyable pursuit – to write fondly about somebody who others might not know on a personal level. Is there anyone in particular who you really enjoyed writing about? Or anybody who you would still like to write about? (I really liked the one about Maeve Binchy)

The Irishman’s (or Irishwoman’s) Diary is a very enjoyable slot. It gives the writer an opportunity to break away from the news-cycle and be a little more discursive, reflective and even personal. I hope to do a few more of them before I go eventually to the Great Newsroom in the Sky. You might like this one I did on John Lennon’s classmate at school

From all your years in the political and journalistic worlds, what life lessons have you learned, and could you leave us, the general public, with any parting words of wisdom?

Well, I hope I’m not finished contributing as a journalist just yet! Lessons I have learned? I discovered that the people I disagreed with personally could sometimes be more likeable and even honourable than the ones who shared my personal political inclinations. I learned that it is more fun to work alongside journalists, than to be in charge of them or have them in charge of you. Other lessons? Family life is more important and rewarding than even the biggest running story. Always do a good turn for a colleague if you can, because (a) it’s the right thing to do and (b) they may well be in a position to do you a good turn at some future stage. Your byline is a brand and don’t let anyone devalue it: if the story is being rewritten without your consent in a manner that you don’t agree with, then demand that your name be taken off the piece (don’t do this lightly.) Prepare well for foreign trips and don’t become a ‘basket-case’ who has to be rescued by the office. Be fair and balanced and humane but get the story out to the readers. Is that enough?

For more from Deaglán de Bréadún, follow him on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/DdeBreadun