Living with Ghosts - The Inside Story from a 'Troubles' Mind

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Rowan and Eamon Mallie were put in a car with tape across their eyes and dark glasses on top, and driven to a remote location to write down a statement narrated by the IRA. The manner of the journey did not form part of that night’s news bulletin. Rowan went home and cried as he told his wife the fuller story of how his day had been. It had been a gruelling two days: the night before he’d been part of the BBC crew that came across two bodies on the roadside. Rowan turned down his boss’s casual though sincere offer of counselling. We remember those headlines, but not so the forgotten dead of that week – the other lives lost in between one Saturday and then the next: Martin Moran, Sean Fox, James Cameron, Mark Rodgers, Gerard and Rory Cairns. The note was handed over on behalf of P O’Neill, the anonymous individual who signed off IRA statements, by a man who I met from time to time. It has been a while since we’ve caught up, but when we do, sometimes over coffee, the details and circumstances of that encounter all those years ago are never mentioned. It’s as if it never happened. Here, politics – Stormont – has been the biggest failure of the 25-year process since Good Friday 1998. the nightmares. Shouting in my sleep, trapped, surrounded. The dilemmas. The decisions. The doubts. Trying to stay strong and losing my nerve for a while; needing to escape. And how I still fall into places and moods of darkness.”

I can visualise him writing it. Hear him reading it. Agonising. Trying to let it go. But, go to where? The book’s chapters contain ragged stories. Some contributors have applied polish and thrown in amusing anecdotes. Others read like raw confessions, cathartic admissions of dark baggage that has troubled them for decades. Some chapters end with a plea for colleagues and news organisations to take mental health more seriously. A few note how rare it is for a colleague to ask “how are you?” in the fray of a big news story. Sayee notes how RTÉ’s Tommie Gorman became “like a Daddy” to those covering the McAreavey trial in Mauritius once she’d got over her competitive streak. That news shield, that we have all hidden behind, offers only limited protection. It can be pierced. Is it any wonder that there is trauma in the newsrooms?

As a reporter, he listened to the heartbeat of the Troubles. A difficult and carefully told tale, carried out with humanity’ – Kate Adie It wasn’t hard to imagine the impact those words had on the delegates who survived the carnage inflicted at the October 1984 Tory Party conference. It is such a shame that he didn’t stay on and find himself a desk in a different part of the newsroom.

It has to be someone who can see beyond the understandable rage that resulted from the murders and evil and the hostage taking of 7 October. Hard learning David McIlveen, described as “simply one of the outstanding camera journalists of his generation”, takes us inside the Royal London Hospital during the Covid pandemic; different from international assignments:File picture dated 19/5/98 of Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble (left), U2 singer Bono, and SDLP leader John Hume on stage for the 'YES' concert at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. The trenches in this conflict are the mass graves of the thousands dead in just the past few weeks. We needed help. From Nelson Mandela and President Clinton. From the former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari and Cyril Ramaphosa.

In Living With Ghosts renowned veteran journalist Brian Rowan retraces his steps through Northern Ireland’s conflict years, as he bravely delves into the darkness of those times. His story takes us beyond the often strict boundaries of the news into the very real dilemmas and fears behind its scenes.In his journalistic career Rowan walked the thinnest of lines, where morals and principles were blurred, and as a result his mind became tortured. We don’t often, or not often enough, think about those behind the camera. McIlveen’s writing, his words in Breaking, will make the reader think some more. In Living With Ghosts, Brian Rowan delves into his dealings with those involved in the conflict, and those tasked with bringing it to an end, revealing the heavy toll it took on those affected by the violence across the community.Deric Henderson is the former Ireland Editor of the Press Association. He is the author of the best selling book, Let This Be Our Secret and co-edited Reporting The Troubles and Reporting The Troubles 2. If Breaking was being published in a few months’ time, some of the contributors would most likely have referred to the recent tragedy in Creeslough. Being embedded for a prolonged period in a small community will have built friendships among the local community and reporters on the scene in the immediate aftermath and throughout the week of funerals. But it will also have bruised the resilience of reporters, producers, camera operators and photographers who have had little time to process the grief they witnessed before moving onto the next breaking story. (The Dart Centre for Journalism & Trauma published a set of resources for self-care and peer support aimed at those covering the explosion in Donegal.) Kelly told me it “wasn’t a formal offer” of counselling, but him “recognising the traumatic nature of the event”. His linking of the LVF to the murder of Rosemary Nelson provoked a statement from the paramilitary group asking for a retraction. A threat loomed over him once more. Later he would be hounded by legal letters from the British Government asking for pre-publication access and right of redaction for an upcoming book that would (amongst other topics) discuss loyalist intelligence agents (informers). They argued that even if he didn’t use names, they might be identified. Rowan resisted making changes to his text, but was told that a threat assessment would decide whether some agents might have to be relocated on the basis of what he wrote. Doing his job and telling the whole story of the conflict had repercussions on Rowan and many others. Throughout my career, every time I arrived at the scene of an atrocity or fatal crash, I have first always said a private prayer for the dead or dying. It has never mattered to me what religious or political views they held. They all had someone who loved them.”