A career spanning the Troubles and emerging peace

• Published date: 15 April 2024
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

As a reporter he covered some of the worst days of the Troubles. When he stood down this week after 25 years as the editor of the Irish News, he did so as the longest-serving newspaper editor in these islands

“It was a great time to be involved in newspapers,” says Doran. “Trying to make sense, trying to respect the position of our readers, but also maybe trying to encourage them to go in a number of different directions while always maintaining the constitutional nationalist tone of the paper and having a sense of its history as well.”

As deputy editor from 1993 and editor from 1999, he steered the Irish News – the North’s only nationalist daily newspaper – from ceasefires and peace talks to controversies over decommissioning and policing, the abuse scandal in the Catholic church, Brexit and, most recently, the prospect of a Border poll and a united Ireland.

It has given voice to the nationalist North, but also been a voice. “Our line has always been, there were always options, every killing was not just wrong but cruel, and capable of causing bitterness and grief.”

That time as a reporter – in weekly newspapers and then with the Belfast Telegraph – “clearly” helped shape his outlook as an editor. Doran singles out the murder of Jack Kielty – the father of the Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty – in Dundrum, Co Down, in 1988.

“The first person I met that night was his [Patrick’s] primary school principal, Jarlath Carey, who was an SDLP councillor and played midfield for the Down team that won the All-Ireland, and was also best man at my parents’ wedding.

“The sense of shock as he explained the circumstances behind the murder of his neighbour was profound, and you have some sort of insight into what it must have been like for Paddy Kielty, who was still at school at the time.

“Watching the whole Paddy Kielty phenomenon, he’s just been grand marshal at the St Patrick’s Day parade, and I keep thinking how life has changed for him over the years ... but the Kieltys still live in the same house, his mother’s still there in the same house on the same street.”

There was also an interview with Gordon and Joan Wilson just after their daughter Marie had been killed in the IRA’s Remembrance Day bombing of Enniskillen in 1987, “remarkable” people who it was a “privilege” to interview, Doran says. “They helped shape reconciliation, forgiveness.”

Doran lists the moments when the Irish News had to make a call: over policing (ahead of Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the...