Malachi O'Doherty
Encyclopedia
Malachi O'Doherty is a journalist, author and broadcaster in Northern Ireland
.
He is the producer and presenter of the audio blog Arts Talk http://www.artstalk.net.
He was, perhaps, the longest running commentator/columnist on any Irish radio programme, having been a regular on Radio Ulster's Talkback
from its creation in the mid 1980s until a revamp of the programme in 2009.
He provides political and social commentary for BBC NI's Hearts and Minds
programme, and reports frequently for BBC Radio Ulster
's Sunday Sequence.
His political journalism has been published in many Irish and British newspapers and periodicals, including The Irish Times
, The Guardian
, The Sunday Times
, The Observer
, The Scotsman
and The New Statesman
. In the mid 1990s he worked on and presented several television documentaries on Northern Irish culture and politics, for Channel Four, The BBC and UTV, all of them with independent production companies, chiefly Observer Films, DBA and Chistera. He is a former columnist for the Belfast Telegraph and former Managing Editor of Fortnight magazine. He writes for the Guardian's "Comment is Free" blog.
He writes most frequently now in the Belfast Telegraph http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk.
His favourite themes are religion and terrorism. He frequently writes through memoir.
He has published two memoirs. One, I Was A Teenage Catholic (2003), deals with the development of his thinking on religious issues and the other, The Telling Year (2007) recounts his work as a young, and inept, journalist in Belfast in the worst year for deaths (1972) of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
He has been publishing vignettes about his father, Barney, in The Derry Journal, in preparation for another book due to be published by Summer Palace Press before the end of 2009.
He has dabbled in fiction and drama. He wrote comedy sketches for a controversial BBC television cabaret called The Show in the early 1990s and he scripted a history of the Dominicans in Ireland for a nationwide schools production in 2007.
O'Doherty has avoided expressions of party-political commitment though he has been more critical of the IRA than of any other party to the conflict, frequently accusing it of having been the prime irritant. But he has supported the Good Friday Agreement, which was endorsed by both the IRA and Loyalist groups and most political parties.
He has addressed political groups from across the spectrum, including the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP. He has twice been a keynote speaker at the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
's annual conference. He gave a major speech at the Irish Association's annual conference in 2003 examining the future of nationalism.
O'Doherty appears frequently at literary festivals in Northern Ireland and Scotland (Aspects and Wigtown, for example) and has also read at The Blue Met in Montreal (2004) and the Ottawa Book Festival (2008).
On March 16, 2007, O'Doherty delivered a lecture to the French Society for Irish Studies on the life and thinking of Margaret Noble, a Tyrone born Methodist who had taken the name Sister Nivedita, when initiated into the Ramakrishna Mission by her Guru, Swami Vivekananda.
O'Doherty may have felt that Nivedita's experience resonated with his own. He has lived outside Northern Ireland on several occasions. In the 1970s for four years he was in India, in the ashram of Swami Paramananda Saraswti. He has written about this in I Was A Teenage Catholic.
He befriended there the Austrian playwright, Gerlinde Obermeier.
He also, in the early 1980s, worked for a time as a language instructor with the Libyan Air Defence Forces.
in Irish Studies from Queen's University, Belfast. In June 1995 he married the poet and broadcaster Maureen Boyle
.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
.
He is the producer and presenter of the audio blog Arts Talk http://www.artstalk.net.
He was, perhaps, the longest running commentator/columnist on any Irish radio programme, having been a regular on Radio Ulster's Talkback
Talkback
Talkback may refer to:*Talkback , a 1983 album by the Canadian band the Spoons*Talkback, an alternate name for Marvel Comics superhero Chase Stein...
from its creation in the mid 1980s until a revamp of the programme in 2009.
He provides political and social commentary for BBC NI's Hearts and Minds
Hearts and Minds
Hearts and Minds may refer to:* A biblical quotation; see the Wikisource link-Film:* Hearts and Minds , a 1974 documentary film about the Vietnam War-Television:...
programme, and reports frequently for BBC Radio Ulster
BBC Radio Ulster
BBC Radio Ulster is one of two Northern Irish BBC radio stations, the other being BBC Radio Foyle located in the city of Derry. BBC Radio Ulster is located at Broadcasting House in the Ormeau Avenue area of Belfast city centre...
's Sunday Sequence.
His political journalism has been published in many Irish and British newspapers and periodicals, including The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
and The New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
. In the mid 1990s he worked on and presented several television documentaries on Northern Irish culture and politics, for Channel Four, The BBC and UTV, all of them with independent production companies, chiefly Observer Films, DBA and Chistera. He is a former columnist for the Belfast Telegraph and former Managing Editor of Fortnight magazine. He writes for the Guardian's "Comment is Free" blog.
He writes most frequently now in the Belfast Telegraph http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk.
His favourite themes are religion and terrorism. He frequently writes through memoir.
He has published two memoirs. One, I Was A Teenage Catholic (2003), deals with the development of his thinking on religious issues and the other, The Telling Year (2007) recounts his work as a young, and inept, journalist in Belfast in the worst year for deaths (1972) of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
He has been publishing vignettes about his father, Barney, in The Derry Journal, in preparation for another book due to be published by Summer Palace Press before the end of 2009.
He has dabbled in fiction and drama. He wrote comedy sketches for a controversial BBC television cabaret called The Show in the early 1990s and he scripted a history of the Dominicans in Ireland for a nationwide schools production in 2007.
O'Doherty has avoided expressions of party-political commitment though he has been more critical of the IRA than of any other party to the conflict, frequently accusing it of having been the prime irritant. But he has supported the Good Friday Agreement, which was endorsed by both the IRA and Loyalist groups and most political parties.
He has addressed political groups from across the spectrum, including the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP. He has twice been a keynote speaker at the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland is a liberal and nonsectarian political party in Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's fifth-largest party overall, with eight seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly and one in the House of Commons....
's annual conference. He gave a major speech at the Irish Association's annual conference in 2003 examining the future of nationalism.
O'Doherty appears frequently at literary festivals in Northern Ireland and Scotland (Aspects and Wigtown, for example) and has also read at The Blue Met in Montreal (2004) and the Ottawa Book Festival (2008).
On March 16, 2007, O'Doherty delivered a lecture to the French Society for Irish Studies on the life and thinking of Margaret Noble, a Tyrone born Methodist who had taken the name Sister Nivedita, when initiated into the Ramakrishna Mission by her Guru, Swami Vivekananda.
O'Doherty may have felt that Nivedita's experience resonated with his own. He has lived outside Northern Ireland on several occasions. In the 1970s for four years he was in India, in the ashram of Swami Paramananda Saraswti. He has written about this in I Was A Teenage Catholic.
He befriended there the Austrian playwright, Gerlinde Obermeier.
He also, in the early 1980s, worked for a time as a language instructor with the Libyan Air Defence Forces.
Books by Malachi O'Doherty
- The Trouble With Guns: The Trouble With Guns: Republican Strategy and the Provisional IRA (The Blackstaff Press, 1998). Described by the former leading IRA volunteer and informant Sean O'CallaghanSean O'CallaghanSean O'Callaghan is a former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who became an informer for the Garda Síochána and who was later debriefed by the UK's MI5 in the Netherlands...
as "An honest and decent book . . . It is lucid and accessible, and is the most subtle analysis of the modern-day republican movement that I have read . . . one of the most valuable books to emerge from Northern Ireland in recent years.'
- I Was a Teenage Catholic (Mercier/Marino, 2003). An account of Malachi O'Doherty's upbringing in west Belfast, his experiences of Catholicism and his eventual rejection of the church's beliefs. The book also narrates his travels in India and his encounter with a Hindu swami.
- The Telling Year: Belfast 1972 (Gill and Macmillan, 2007). A memoir of living and working as a journalist through the worst year of the Troubles, 1972. This was also the year O'Doherty was approached by an RUC officer in Northern Ireland and invited to become an "informer". He declined.
- Empty Pulpits: Ireland's Retreat From Religion (Gill and Macmillan, 2008). An account of the rapid secularistion of Ireland. O'Doherty attracted the wrath of humanist groups for his own attacks on the 'new atheists' and his claims that their critiques of religion were flawed by a failure to comprehend religious motivation.
- Under His Roof (Summer Palace Press, 2009).
Biography
Malachi O'Doherty was born in 1951 and raised as a Roman Catholic in nationalist west Belfast. He trained as a journalist at the College of Business Studies in Belfast and as an amateur student in 1990, took a master's degreeMaster's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in Irish Studies from Queen's University, Belfast. In June 1995 he married the poet and broadcaster Maureen Boyle
Maureen Boyle
- Biography :Maureen Boyle was born and raised in Sion Mills, near Strabane in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. She studied English at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating B.A in 1984. Her poems have been published in Fortnight Magazine, The Yellow Nib, and elsewhere...
.