Henry McDonald

By AM Tuesday, December 26, 2023

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Anthony McIntyre  ⚑ When I first met him in the late 1990s, Henry McDonald was the Duracell bunny that he continued to be when I encountered him for the last time in my home at the start of Covid.

Henry McDonald

Then I had an unrelated bug which laid me flat. I just wanted to finish the interview whereas he was ready to party in the local bar as soon as we stopped conversing. Once completed, I retired to bed to sweat it out. He sat chatting with my wife for a while before catching his train to either Dublin or Belfast. In a sense it was a parting of the ways. While we kept in touch we were not to see each other again.

Brimming with excitable energy matched by an endearing confidence that defied the lure of arrogance, he was a true news hound, an inveterate pursuer of the scoop.  A story was like a buried bone. He would dig until he got it, sometimes pulling out a stone and mistaking it for the bone he had gone in search of.  Only later when it sank as a story, would he acknowledge a lack of judgement . . . until the next stone!  

This led me to frequently urge him not to rush his fences in a bid to nail down the cause of his intellectual excitement. I told him that the minor detail would be a major dagger in the hands of his detractors. He never listened and carried on regardless, leaving me to wind him up him that he was a better friend than he was a journalist. There was no malice conveyed and no offence taken. 

We had our disagreements. He was an Everton fan whereas I plumped for Liverpool. He conducted an eternal love affair with Cliftonville, whereas Glentoran sparked my ardour. Most contentious of all he was an admirer of Israel, which probably led to our most heated exchanges. He would get animated when I referred to Israeli war crimes, loudly but not angrily proclaiming that Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East, an oasis of secular civilisation surrounded by theocratic obscurantism, a coat of many colours in sharp contrast to the black flag of Isis.

I loved his companionship if not always the company he kept. That was mutual. We could both laugh as we ribbed each other about keeping the company of rogues and rascals. None of it impacted negatively on the friendship that we developed over the years. I met Henry so often that the time has long since passed when I could remember exactly what we talked about. Sometimes it was Boston College, others - Everton and his zero tolerance attitude towards Roberto Martinez who Henry regarded as a tosser rather than a toffee. Another time I accompanied him over to meet the McCartney family in the Short Strand. Suzanne Breen was there the same day. That weekend the two of them in their respective newspapers ensured serious coverage for the murder of Robert McCartney, their reporting in many ways a catalyst for an international cause célèbre.

Henry was a prolific writer who churned out material for the Irish News 📰 Guardian 📰 Observer 📰 News Letter and Times as well as reporting on security matters for the BBC. He also authored or co-authored a number of books and is perhaps best known for his work Deadly Divisions, an insight into the INLA, jointly written with his cousin Jack Holland. 

A former member of the Workers Party, he left me feeling that he had not sufficiently sealed his journalism from the jaundiced view the party had of the Provisional Movement. There was no barrier to stem the seepage which left a permanently bad taste in his mouth when it came to analysing Sinn Fein. After the party's popularity spike in the last Dail election, he asked me would I stay in the country if Sinn Fein became the government. My answer that I most certainly would genuinely surprised him. It was as if he was expecting camps to be built to which all bearers of dissenting thought would be despatched ultra-quick. 

Running parallel to this was a harbouring of a particular animus for journalists he felt were little more than shills for Sinn Fein, feeling they had abdicated any sense of fidelity to the trade, opting instead to spew propaganda on behalf of the party. He was perplexed when some scribes would brazenly deny that Stakeknife existed or if he did that he was not a serious player in the espionage game. 

A sociable being, he was a great character to take to the beer with. Henry legless might not have been a frequent occurrence when we hit the booze but it did happen particularly at events when fellow journalists were being honoured.  

He had his share of health problems but ploughed on with his work. Once, he arrived at the door of our Springhill home looking ashen faced and explaining that he had contracted ptosis which caused his eye to take on a drooping appearance. When I suggested he should be resting up, he scowled. He had also survived an earlier cancer scare, the experience of which led him to advise others not to lose hope if struck by the illness.  

A Markets man, I had the pleasure of meeting his mother Flo long before I crossed paths with him. His intellectual curiosity was too expansive to be contained within the narrow confines of the Markets. His wings would spread well beyond the parochialism of his youth and he would go on to report from places as far afield as Lebanon.

Yet for all his journalistic, sporting and punk scene passions, there was no love greater than that which he held for his children. He revelled in their achievements more than he ever did in his own. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.