Sands family says Trust at centre of statue row does not represent it ‘in any shape or form’
From H-Blocks to City Hall: Bobby Sands and our complicated history
SUZANNE BREEN, Sunday Life, April 26th, 2026
It's almost 45 years since Bobby Sands died on hunger-strike in the H-Blocks, and the power of that tumultuous event to divide Northern Ireland is still evident.
Back then, the argument was about political status. Today, it's about a statue of the IRA hunger-striker and much, much more.
To a majority of nationalists here — even those who never backed the IRA — Sands is a hero. Those who refused to support republicans when they were taking life, came to sympathise with them when they sacrificed their own.
Unionists, by contrast, see Sands as a terrorist and loathe his lionisation. A near life-size bronze statue of Sands was erected last year on Housing Executive land in Twinbrook without planning permission.
At a special meeting in City Hall on Thursday night, a DUP motion calling for council officials to “reconsider” their decision to allow it to remain in place was passed by 27 votes to 22.
“Bobby Sands was not a hero. He was a convicted criminal and terrorist,” said DUP councillor Dean McCullough.
Sinn Fein's Ciaran Beattie said there were around 200 other memorial gardens, murals, monuments and plaques around the city — mostly in loyalist areas — without planning permission.
Alliance, the TUV and UUP voted with the DUP while People Before Profit voted with Sinn Fein, and the Greens abstained.
The argument may centre on a statute, but it goes far beyond metal, masonry and the lack or otherwise of planning permission.
It involves who decides what history is allowed to look like in public, and who doesn't.
Whatever rules are applied, there has to be consistency. If we are ever to progress as a society, the same standard must be upheld across the board even when it's uncomfortable for one community or the other.
The SDLP left the meeting before the vote on the DUP motion. There's been a deluge of abuse online directed at the party. “SDLP rats”, “that's why they're called the stoops”, “disgusting quislings” are among the insults hurled.
The party's sole west Belfast representative — Deputy Lord Mayor Paul Doherty — resigned yesterday in protest at the decision, saying he knows the “real significance” Sands has for his community.
Doherty's departure is a big blow to the party. He was regarded as their best hope of a new Assembly seat next year.
It also gives the vote story even greater legs than it had. The SDLP is up against the emotional reach the hunger-strikers have in nationalism. It will find that hard to counter. This is the biggest challenge Claire Hanna has faced since becoming leader.
Family requested Trust be disbanded
Yet if you dig deep, the Sands' story isn't always straightforward for Sinn Fein. His family have previously asked for the Bobby Sands Trust — which they regarded as aligned to the party — to be disbanded.
In 2016, the Sands family said: “Our family once again reiterates that the Bobby Sands Trust does not act on behalf of Bobby, nor does it represent our family, in any shape or form. We again call upon the trust to disband and desist from using Bobby's memory as a commercial enterprise.”
Sands' politics were forged at a very different time for republicanism — one in which power-sharing at Stormont with the Union intact wouldn't have been entertained and incremental change was rejected.
Some of those who were on the blanket protest remain involved in Sinn Fein or are strong supporters of its strategy, and some are not.
The point is that history is complicated. There are hunger-strikers' families content with what has been secured, and families who most definitely are not.
The past doesn't fit into nice, neat boxes. It deserves to be honestly explored in all its complexity, rather than simply curated to fit the needs of the present.
SDLP man resigns over Sands statue
JOHN TONER, Sunday Life, April 26th, 2026
The deputy mayor of Belfast has resigned from the SDLP after the party abstained from a controversial vote over a Bobby Sands statue.
Announcing the decision this afternoon, councillor Paul Doherty said he had left the party with “immediate effect”, leaving the SDLP with no political representation in west Belfast for the first time in decades.
The move comes after a DUP motion at Belfast City Council last Thursday which called for council to reconsider its position on the statue.
The SDLP abstained from voting on the motion which was passed.
Cllr Doherty said in his resignation statement: “My focus will remain on the ground in my community, representing the people of west Belfast.
“For clarity, I was not at the hastily arranged Belfast City Council meeting this week, contrary to some posts directed at me. I was dealing with an emerging issue in the community and therefore did not have the opportunity to vote against the DUP motion, which I would have done.”
“Anyone suggesting otherwise is simply trying to score cheap political points,” added Cllr Doherty.
“As someone from west Belfast, I know the Bobby Sands statue in Twinbrook holds real significance for people in our community and beyond.
“People should be entitled to remember him in this way, and I fully support that. Shame on the DUP and others for turning this into a political stunt.
“My focus remains, as always, on the people of my community. If anyone would like to engage further on this directly, you know where I am.”
The SDLP came under fire for not voting against the DUP motion, with Mr Doherty also being subjected to abuse.
In a statement the party said Cllr Doherty had resigned due to “an unacceptable level of intimidation”.
SDLP leader Claire Hanna said: “Paul has been a valued representative of the SDLP over many years, working hard to deliver real change in West Belfast.
“The SDLP representatives on Belfast City Council collectively developed their position on the Bobby Sands statue. Following the motion, our councillors were subjected to an unacceptable level of intimidation.
Respectful
“While the party has sought to support Paul throughout this period, he has taken the decision to step down, and we respect his decision to put his family first.
“The SDLP is proud to be committed and consistent on equality, fairness and respectful debate. There is no place for intimidation in our politics or our society.
“We thank Paul for his service and wish him and his family every best wish for the future.”
A vote by Belfast City councillors to reconsider a decision to allow the statue of IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands in west Belfast to remain in place, despite not having planning permission, sparked a political row last week.
The Bobby Sands Trust accused unionists of “hypocrisy” following the vote on Thursday night.
The statue was unveiled last year at the Republican Memorial Garden in Twinbrook, west Belfast, marking the 44th anniversary of the former MP's death.
It later emerged it had been erected without planning permission, though the council has not previously taken any action.
The morally hazardous world of police informers
SAM McBride, Sunday Independent and Sunday Life, April 26th, 2026
Is it ever acceptable for the state to sanction murder — such as has been claimed around the running of notorious Troubles informers Freddie Scappaticci and Mark Haddock?
Of course not, most people would respond, recoiling from the very question. What if one murder prevented five murders? What if it prevented 50? What about 1,000? If it were possible to avert a vast evil by allowing some smaller evil, would that be the morally correct choice?
For most of us, these questions seem so abstract as to be irrelevant to our lives. That's not so in the world of security. Police forces and intelligence agencies have long had informants.
Even in the world of sophisticated cameras and bugs, there is value in human informants; they can provide the nuance of context which can be the difference between life and death. They can see a certain look in a gangster's face or recognise a code word used in a terrorist organisation.
Yet this is a moral morass. Human beings are prone to self-delusion. We want to believe we can eat fast food and down pints every other night while having the body of an athlete.
States are similarly prone to delusion. They want to believe they can do deals with criminals, gaining information which will save lives while retaining moral purity. The reality is much messier.
A new book by a former Garda detective raises questions all of society needs to confront. Based in Cork, JP O'Sullivan was the handler of John (sometimes known as Sean) Corcoran, an IRA member who was a Garda informant. Corcoran wasn't at the Provo top table but his information disrupted their activities in Cork, foiling bank robberies and breeding internal suspicion.
In Veil of Silence, O'Sullivan says that between 1976 and 1985 “few operations of any consequence occurred in the area”.
He clearly retains affection for Corcoran, and a sense of responsibility towards him: “There was no drama about John Corcoran.
Sacrificed
“In his own quiet way he did a service for the law-abiding people of this country. He deserves credit for that rather than denigration. To put it in context: If every Garda division in the country had matched the Cork division in suppressing IRA activities, many more lives would have been spared. Put whatever label you like on that.”
Yet when Corcoran was unmasked by the IRA and murdered, O'Sullivan says he was “puzzled” by the lack of contact from senior officers in the days that followed, and then “bewildered by what happened next” as they showed no interest in investigating leads — including a suspect for the murder — provided by him.
The Cork Examiner published an article in which a Garda source denied Corcoran had even been an informer.
O'Sullivan says he went to the very top of An Garda Síochána, but says no one in authority wanted to seriously probe the murder. He became convinced that Corcoran had been sacrificed to protect a far more senior Garda informer within the IRA, Sean O'Callaghan.
O'Sullivan — who claims he was ultimately framed by gardaí for allegedly pouring diesel through someone's letterbox — says that “the circumstances of John's murder, and the 'investigation' into his death remain one of the most shameful episodes in the Garda Síochána's history”.
There are two possibilities here, both of which are awkward for An Garda Síochána: that it employed a delusional fantasist criminal as someone trusted with state security, or that senior officers decided Corcoran should die in order to protect O'Callaghan because the latter was more likely to be able to save more lives — and it was willing to even frame one of its own officers when he refused to keep quiet about what he suspected had happened.
O'Sullivan says that “when someone joined Detective Branch in the early 1970s, they quickly found that the rule book more or less went out the window. The rules were regularly bent in all sorts of ways. I'm not saying that the law was deliberately flouted, but you did whatever was required to get the job done”. This is the morally hazardous philosophy of the end justifying the means.
Successive Irish governments have long denounced British collusion during the Troubles.
Yet the Irish state has done so while largely avoiding scrutiny of its own actions in this period. The Smithwick Tribunal, one of the few inquiries to investigate this area, found that there had been collusion between gardaí and the IRA in murdering two senior RUC officers.
What O'Sullivan alleges is a different form of moral morass: Not collusion founded in sympathy towards the IRA but due to a belief that allowing one murder would prevent others.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of O'Sullivan's claims, having state informants within terrorist or criminal groups contains an unavoidable logic: They will inevitably commit crimes. If they don't, then they would quickly be exposed and the state would lose its insight into these organisations.
Whether Corcoran's murder involved collusion or not, there will unquestionably be cases in which Garda informants committed serious crimes, the state knew about these crimes, and either was complicit in them prior to them being carried out or looked the other way after they'd been committed.
In 2019, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that MI5 could allow informants to commit crimes but there was “a limit to what criminality may be authorised”.
This may be the right decision but it is an unappetising fudge which fails to spell out clearly in law what is acceptable and unacceptable.
As a matter of common sense, preventing informants committing crimes is impossible unless we give up on the idea of informants entirely. Yet once the principle of legal law-breaking becomes accepted, it is a necessarily slippery descent towards the gravest of crimes — including rape, murder and child abuse — unless these are expressly prohibited.
There needs to be some oversight mechanism whereby security agencies are held to account.
But to pretend that society can have the benefit of information from informants while being ethically as white as the driven snow is as delusional as believing one can compete at the Olympics while living the life of a couch potato.
'Stop killing women': thousands attend rally against femicide
JOHN TONER, Belfast Telegraph, April 26th, 2026
The brother of Natalie McNally has remembered her as “the gentlest of people” at a rally highlighting the alarming rate of femicide in Northern Ireland.
The demonstration, organised by ROSA Socialist Feminist Movement, saw just over 2,000 people gather at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast yesterday before walking to the City Hall.
The McNally family took part in the procession, carrying a banner which read: “Stop killing women”.
Her brother Brendan addressed the audience and described the issue of femicide as a “scourge” on society.
He said: “Natalie was taken from the world in the cruellest of ways. I knew her as the gentlest of people who would have sympathised with anyone in a difficult situation.
“Femicide is a scourge upon this society, each case has its own terrible circumstances but we must look at the greater themes as a whole.
“This is very much a male issue stemming from certain behaviours and mentalities including entitlement, control and humiliation.
“It speaks to a culture where women are treated as second class in dignity and respect, relegated to mere objects according to their usefulness to men.
“The roots of this are the many inequalities women in Northern Ireland are forced to face unique to our historical situation. Going forward we must invigorate education and raise the voices of female-led movements for justice and change.”
Stephen McCullagh (36) was found guilty of murdering Natalie — who was 15 weeks pregnant at the time — in March after a five-week trial. He will be sentenced in May.
SF warns London against amending Legacy Bill to protect Army veterans
Sunday Life, April 26th, 2026
The UK Government is taking a “dangerous path” with amendments to the Legacy Bill, John Finucane has said.
The Sinn Fein MP for North Belfast said he has received “no assurances” on changes to the framework which risks becoming “veterans' legislation”.
On entering government in 2024, Labour pledged to repeal and replace the previous Conservative government's Legacy Act which ended police investigations into Troubles-related killings and established a new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).
Labour's Bill, agreed as part of a joint framework with the Irish Government, will put in place a reformed Legacy Commission with enhanced powers.
Amendments
Last week, the Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn pushed back the Government's Troubles Bill, saying it will return to Parliament with “substantial amendments” including “additional protections and reassurances” for veterans.
Mr Finucane said he was “very concerned” about the updates to the long-awaited legislation.
He told the Press Association at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in Belfast: “You'd be forgiven for forgetting that this is a victims' legislation, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is actually veterans' legislation.
“It was a very partial, partisan statement by the British government to further embolden and protect a body of people that were actually victim-makers in our conflict here.
“And I think to elevate one section of people above another is very dangerous and, precedent has shown, not the wisest way to go about dealing with legacy.”
At a Sinn Féin ard fheis, the certainty is it's all the fault of the Brits
MÁIRÍA CAHILL, Sunday Independent, April 26th, 2026
Sinn Féin's ard fheis promised delegates the full experience at the event this weekend in Belfast, and it delivered.
"This weekend is about energy,” declared Belfast North MP John Finucane, his delivery so wooden that a mid-priced Ikea shelf would be proud. Gerry Adams appeared in a backroom party broadcast. There was even a Kneecap lyrics workshop. The jokes write themselves.
Then came the most authentic touch of all: an evacuation. Someone triggered the fire alarm, perhaps in an attempt to escape the speeches, and so 2,000 Shinners found themselves out in the cold, a position they are hoping to avoid in the Dáil next time around.
The party has twice fumbled its moment, and judging from posts on Pearse Doherty's Facebook page, some think they might fare better under him than Mary Lou McDonald.
Normally the party's resident foghorn, he has been clearly working on lowering the volume, and was unusually measured on Friday as he called on Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to "introduce a mini-budget immediately”.
It's a good idea. Perhaps he could share some tips with Sinn Féin's finance minister at Stormont, John O'Dowd, who has failed to secure executive support for his own budget.
Belfast is unrecognisable from the city I grew up in. Back then, entering the city meant we had to be searched and funnelled through metal turnstiles. You wouldn't have dreamt of wearing a GAA top, lest it made you a target.
Now, amid a cultural revival, young nationalists are comfortable and confident. Sinn Féin chose Belfast shrewdly: the city is a living barometer of change and a reminder to activists that momentum is flowing their way.
Yesterday afternoon, McDonald and Michelle O'Neill perched on soft furnishings to discuss Irish unity and their endorsement of 2030 as a date for a border poll.
Asked about recent polling showing the issue barely registers on voters' priority lists, and why Sinn Féin nevertheless keeps talking about it, McDonald replied: "Maybe it's because we are women and we multi-task.”
She then claimed we would not get the health service "we deserve” without a united Ireland. There's a danger here. How does Sinn Féin convince voters it will improve the system they have, rather than let it decay to bolster reunification arguments?
Unionists have long made the charge that Sinn Féin is running the North into the ground. Throughout the ard fheis, though, speakers blamed the British government for their party's lack of delivery of an upgraded A5 motorway and the redeveloped Casement Park.
O'Neill also got her high heels metaphorically stuck into the Taoiseach, accusing him of sitting on a €9bn surplus and refusing to use it to help ease the cost of living. There was no mention of last week's British Treasury report outlining how the Stormont Executive could raise an extra £3bn a year.
There were important motions on emergency accommodation and housing and fair criticism of the Irish Government's failures.
Dublin's Ben Lally spoke (in contrast to most, without notes) on the burden of school costs to parents. Galway's Eoghan Finn was entertaining and would make a strong public representative.
One wonders, though, why Sinn Féin chose so many Belfast speakers to showcase in its live coverage. At times, our broadest Belfast accent sounds like we are beating people with words. Surely there were others softer on the ears.
Sinn Féin has worked hard to soften its image, with slick, autocued speeches by keynote speakers armed with well-timed gags. Yet at times it felt tired, and echoes of militaristic discipline can still be detected. Voting was shielded from online viewers; the camera cut to commentators instead.
From Wolfe Tone to Cú Chulainn
Some moments were unintentionally hilarious. One commentator, praising Sinn Féin's internal democracy, stated: "There's a lot going on in the background that we sometimes don't even see.” Indeed.
A repeatedly played video, narrated partly by ex-prisoner turned MLA Pat Sheehan, rattled through a roll call of the Fenians, United Irelanders and "generations who asserted their right to a fair and independent Ireland”.
Sinn Féin rarely misses an opportunity to legitimise its armed wing's actions by piggybacking on previous battles.
Cue Michelle O'Neill: "From Tone, Connolly, Markievicz and Sands, Farrell and McGuinness, the baton has been passed.”
Then, Mary Lou McDonald: "Give them an Ireland worthy of her patriots.”
Also featured was a shot of the Bobby Sands statue, in the news all last week after having been erected without planning permission.
Good luck to the leaders of other left-leaning parties who will have to sell their souls to facilitate a voting pact at the next election when the package on offer equates the Provisional IRA with the 1916 leaders.
When I was an ard fheis attendee, the biggest drama came during abortion debates, when you could set your clock by the elderly man swinging his rosary beads. This year, the fox-hunting debate was easily the liveliest moment of the weekend. Motion 28, calling for regulation rather than a ban, was defeated. No wonder, given its line stating that "hunting in Ireland dates back thousands of years”, citing Cú Chulainn, the "hound of Ulster”, as precedent.
"Our mythological hero only ever killed in self-defence or for food,” Kildare TD Réada Cronin said, outlining the substantive issue.
Sinn Féin backed a full ban, putting it at odds with swathes of rural Ireland it courted during the fuel blockades. How ironic that Sinn Féin is now definitively opposed to killing animals, yet still seeks to justify the IRA actions that killed humans.
PCI stands down fourth minister in matter of months
ANGELA DAVISON, Sunday Life, April 26th, 2026
A Presbyterian minister in Coleraine has been removed from his post but remains “in good standing”, it has emerged.
Rev Ross Collins, who had been at Ballywatt Presbyterian Church near Portrush for 12 years, is the fourth minister to be released by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) in recent months.
There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing, and his departure is not believed to be in connection with a safeguarding issue.
Although released from his position, it is understood Rev Collins remains a minister without charge, meaning he can apply for another role if one comes up.
The PCI said: “We can confirm that the minister of Ballywatt Presbyterian Church, Rev Ross Collins, has been released from his charge.
“He remains a minister in good standing in the PCI and is available to be called to serve another congregation.
“In line with normal procedures, we will not be making any further comment.”
Rev Collins was contacted for comment but was not available.
A former minister who did not wish to be named questioned the PCI's handling of the matter.
Damage
He said: “I'm not sure if this is an appropriate way to treat ministers.
“Being removed from your charge is a pejorative statement, so he may face reputational damage from this.
“If he goes for another job as a minister, any congregation will be asking 'What happened at Ballywatt?'.
“From a practical point of view, he has a wife and children. How long will he get paid for and be allowed to live in the manse? Where is the church's duty of care towards him?”
Earlier this month, Sunday Life reported that the minister of Richhill Presbyterian Church had been stood down amid an enquiry by the Armagh Presbytery.
Rev Alastair McNeely had been the minister for more than 30 years.
There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing, and his departure is not believed to be related to a safeguarding issue.
Rev McNeely was contacted for comment but was not available.
Last December, Connor Presbyterian Church minister Rev Philip Thompson was temporarily stood down.
In a separate case, Rev Alan Johnston was removed from his position at Killinchy Presbyterian Church. However, it is understood he has now returned to his post.
The PCI descended into chaos last November after the PSNI launched an investigation into serious safeguarding failures.
The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland also launched an enquiry.
In February, Sunday Life revealed Dermot Parsons, director of the church's Council for Social Witness, had left his position. The circumstances surrounding his departure are not known.
Mr Parsons, who had been in the post since 2021, had overall responsibility for safeguarding the church's congregations, care homes, addiction centres and its ex-offenders' hostel.
It has been claimed that Mr Parsons and Rev David Brice, the secretary and convenor to the Council for Social Witness respectively, ignored a damning report in 2023 by the then head of safeguarding Dr Jacqui Montgomery-Devlin.
This highlighted failings in safeguarding including a lack of resources and inadequate record keeping.
The PSNI previously said it had received 101 safeguarding referrals relating to the PCI.
It was announced last month that Jim Gamble, who formerly headed up the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, had been appointed to carry out an independent external review of the PCI's governance and safeguarding arrangements.
'Stupid' handyman avoids jail over pipe-bomb threat
JOHN TONER, Sunday Life, June 26th, 2026
A handyman who sent his neighbour a picture of an improvised pipe-bomb in a feud has avoided jail.
Christopher Hall claimed the explosive device, which caused a security alert last summer, was a “banger” for hunting rabbits.
The 43-year-old was sentenced to probation and community service earlier this month, having previously admitted a single count of unlawfully making an explosive.
Defence counsel described the device as “more akin to a firework”.
They told Newtownards Magistrates Court: “It was meant to go boom rather than bang. He has a good probation report and a strong employment record in the Ards area as a general handyman.
“The incident caused a huge amount of distress to neighbours, and apologised to them afterwards.
“He is keen to get back to work and would like to volunteer in the local community, using his skills in painting and plastering.”
District Judge Amanda Brady said the case “started off looking very sinister” and the alert had caused “great distress and inconvenience to a lot of people”.
Alcohol
She added: “It looked destined for the crown court. However, it is here in the magistrates as the authorities accepted your description of the device.
“If there was any kind of terrorist connection, you would be in the crown court and facing several years in prison.
“You appear to have been motivated by excess alcohol.”
Endorsing recommendations from probation services, the judge handed Hall a 12-month probation order including a requirement for drug and alcohol counselling.
He was also ordered to complete 100 hours of community service and hit with a restraining order to protect the complainant for 12 months.
A previous court heard how police seized the “viable” device from Hall's home on Mill Street in Newtownards last May during a security alert.
Neighbours had to be evacuated from a flat complex while an operation to remove the device was carried out.
The court was told a resident had earlier contacted Hall on Facebook during a row over a security camera.
The defendant responded by sending a photograph of a suspected pipe-bomb.
“The image appeared to be a tube wrapped in tape with a fuse on the end and held in a gloved hand,” a prosecutor said.
A similar object was located when Hall's home was searched the following day, with Army experts describing the device as viable.
During interviews, Hall said the tubing was a “banger” filled with firework powder to be used when hunting with his dog.
“He stated that… in order to scare rabbits out of hedges, he would use this explosive device,” a prosecutor said.
Hall initially told police the image was meant to go to a friend who accompanied him on hunting trips but was accidentally sent to the neighbour while under the influence of alcohol.
His lawyers repeatedly stressed there was no suggestion he was linked to any paramilitary groups or criminal gangs.
They previously argued the object was nothing more than a “glorified banger” which did not contain ball-bearings, fragments or other projectiles capable of causing injury.
One said: “This was in the context of a feud with a neighbour, where he drunkenly thought in his sense of madness at that time it would be a good idea to send a threat to this neighbour, showing this banger. It was stupidity, but that is what it amounts to.”
Jim McDowell kicked open door of journalism for working-class kids in Northern Ireland
CIARAN BARNES, Sunday Life, April 26th, 2026
The legendary former Sunday World editor — who died aged 76 on Friday — grew up in the tough Donegall Pass area of Belfast, where young men were expected to go into physical trades and not the suits and soft seats of newspaper offices, which were reserved for the chattering classes.
Jim shattered that notion, at the same time paving the way for a new generation of journalists from housing estates and low-income families to make their mark in the industry.
I should know, because I am one of them.
Jim was a mentor to me and dozens of other reporters across the city. He had our backs, especially when threatened by paramilitaries and criminals. He was the first to pick up the phone in times of trouble and to offer words of advice and support.
But he wasn't just a father figure, Jim was a fantastic and colourful writer with a nose for a story like no other. “Smell what sells Barnsey, smell what sells,” was his mantra to me.
Of the many fond memories I have of him, my favourite, ironically, did not feature him in person.
A few days after he appeared in Stephen Nolan's BBC1 'Story of a Lifetime' TV series on folk from Northern Ireland who have led extraordinary lives, I bumped into his beloved wife Lindy in the car park of the Belfast Telegraph, for which she writes an excellent column.
Lindy asked what I thought of the show and I told her my lasting impression wasn't Jim coping stoically with the dozens of death threats he received throughout the years, or the huge scoops he brought to the Sunday World each weekend, but the love they had for one another.
Watch the programme and you'll see them gazing into each other's eyes — a besotted look you normally only see in teenagers during the first flushes of love.
To have that after 40 years together is something truly special, and sums Jim up — a brilliant newspaper editor but a family man first.
My friend and mentor's funeral service will take place in St George's Church of Ireland in the city next Saturday, followed by a private family service at Roselawn crematorium.
“Our adored husband, father, grandfather and hero. Will be missed forever by wife Lindy, daughter Faye and partner Jarrod, son Jamie and partner Jana, and son Micah and partner Zoi” a funeral notice reads.
“Also by his grandchildren, Niamh, Ewan and Marlenka, his brother Tom, brother-in-law Bow, Joan and Neil in Glasgow and all the wider McDowell, Bowman and McIlvenna family circles.”
‘Fortes Fortuna Comes’
“Until the end, you were the bravest of the brave. Legend.”
Edward McCann, head of Mediahuis in Northern Ireland, remembered 'Big McDowell' as “a towering figure in journalism who had an instinctive bond with his readers and the wider public”.
“He worked fearlessly, and often at great risk, to expose paramilitarism and criminality during his time as Northern Editor of the Sunday World,” Mr McCann said. “Many people at the Mediahuis group, which includes the Belfast Telegraph, Sunday World and Sunday Life, had the privilege to know and work with Jim. His legacy will live on in a new generation of journalists.”
During his tenure he received more than 20 official warnings from police that his life was under threat by loyalists and republicans.
“I have always regarded journalists as being part of this community and if we can do good for this community by exposing gangsters, paramilitaries, drug dealers and paedophiles then that is our job. I am glad I was part of that even if there were consequences,” he said.
Veteran journalist Billy Kennedy told of his deep sadness at the death of his former News Letter colleague and one of NI's most “highly respected” journalists during the Troubles.
“Jim was a straight-talking, honest-to-goodness man who never shied away from a good story,” he said.
“He covered most of the brutal and challenging stories of the Troubles with professionalism and total accuracy.
“A proud Donegall Pass man, from sound working-class roots, Jim was a news editor in the News Letter in the 1980s and was editor of Sunday News, and later Sunday World.
“Jim was also a talented rugby player who appeared at Ulster inter-pro level.
“'Big Jim' was indeed a real character, my deepest sympathy is extended to his wife Lindy, a Maghera woman, and long-serving journalist and columnist in the Belfast Telegraph.”
