Obituary
Barry Cowan
Anne McHardy
Tuesday June 22, 2004
The Guardian
Barry Cowan, who has died aged 56, after a long illness, was an incisive
broadcaster, whose journalistic talents earned him respect across Northern
Ireland's political divide, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, during
some of the most bitter years of violence.
He joined the BBC in Belfast in the early 1970s as a studio manager, but
quickly moved into freelance reporting and presenting. In 1974, at the
time of the first loyalist workers' strike, he became an anchorman on
Scene Around Six, then one of BBC Northern Ireland's most prestigious
current affairs programmes, chairing fierce debates between such
heavyweights as the SDLP's Gerry Fitt and Ian Paisley, of the Democratic
Unionist party.
In the late 1970s, Cowan moved to Dublin as one of the founding presenters
of RTE's television current affairs programme Today Tonight. In 1981, he
returned to Belfast to found Talkback for BBC Radio Ulster, after which he
worked on most of BBC Northern Ireland's news and television programmes,
including Good Morning Ulster and Evening Extra.
Cowan was born within the Protestant community in Coleraine, County
Londonderry. He was educated at Ballymena Academy and graduated in physics
from Queen's University, Belfast. He had been an enthusiastic student
drama performer, and his first job was as an actor, at the Lyric Theatre,
Belfast. His interests in the arts and leisure were reflected in the mid-
1980s, when he founded his own production company, Bridge, whose film
topics ranged from golf to Northern Irish history.
As a broadcaster, Cowan was always even-handed, and respected on all
political sides. The controller of BBC Northern Ireland, Anna Carragher,
said his sharp intellect, ready wit and ability to fly a programme by the
seat of his pants made his programmes "an island of sanity". He left the
BBC in March 2000 to freelance.
He is survived by his wife Sue, and two children.
• Barry Cowan, journalist, born February 1 1948; died June 16 2004
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