One of the North’s longest-serving newspaper editors, Pat McArt, who was at the helm of the Derry Journal from 1981 to 2006, releases his memoir next month.
‘War, Peace and the Derry Journal’, published by Colmcille Press, focuses on the Letterkenny man’s life in the editor’s chair at the height of the Troubles. It also tells of his relationships with world-famous civic leaders such as John Hume, Martin McGuinnes and Bishop Daly.
Born into a working-class family in Letterkenny, in 1953, McArt was educated at the town’s Regional Technical College (now ATU), before joining the local Derry People & Donegal News and later RTÉ. He was head-hunted from RTÉ’s Dáil Press Office, during the hunger strikes, by Colm McCarroll, General Manager of the Journal. Despite his family’s trepidation, his journalistic instincts took him from the sanctuary of Leinster House to Buncrana Road.
“I suppose looking back I would have to say the Troubles did totally overshadow my entire editorship,” McArt said.
“And I am not going to gloss over it and say they were the good old days – they weren’t. They were tough, they were demanding, and many were the nights I lay awake into the wee small hours worrying. But here’s the thing: would I do it all again? Absolutely, in a heartbeat…”
Former Derry Journal editor Pat McArt. Picture by Jude Collins.
Colmcille Press’s Garbhán Downey said the Derry company was ‘privileged and proud’ to be publishing the book.
“For decades, Pat McArt acted as this city’s chief advisor to – and chief scrutineer of – the Irish, British and US governments,” he explained.
“He also served, privately and publicly, as the trusted critic and counsellor of all our local giants, improving and challenging them – and more often than not leading and directing them. It is important to remember that this was an era when, as far as all these individuals and groups were concerned, the Journal was the final arbiter and the ultimate authority.”
Mr Downey said War, Peace and the Derry Journal is insightful, serious and meaningful, but it can also be funny and irreverent. After all, McArt is the man who in the midst of some of Derry’s darkest days gave birth to the long-running, satirical Jed column, which reminded the city it was okay to laugh again.
“This book is not a history and it is not a biography. But if you want to acquire a true impression of what happened in northwest Ireland between the nadir of the Troubles and the beginning of the new peace, there is no better starting point,” concluded Mr Downey.
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