The Sunday Read series continues with Gordon Deegan, one of Ireland’s most prolific freelance reporters. Photo by Natasha Barton.
THE name Gordon Deegan is a recognisable one for the newspaper disciples in Clare. The Ennis native contributes to both The Clare Echo and Clare Champion, and his journalism – whether it be anything from planning, to company accounts or court proceedings – possess an equally rich strike rate in the national titles. Such is his prolificy, one could be forgiven for suspecting that County Clare has an disproportionately high level of crime. It’s a mark of Deegan’s nose for a story and ability to produce clean, legally reliable copy.
The 50-year old avid runner is married to wife Karen, with whom he has three boys, Oscar (10), Rian (8) and Reuben (6). Educated at Ennis National School and St Flannan’s College, his father, Aidan worked for Aer Rianta in Shannon for many years while his late mother, Marie had a flower shop, Victorian Posy in Ennis which his sister Clodagh continues to run today. Gordon’s byline has been printed many thousand times over, but this week The Clare Echo puts Gordon on the other side of the dictaphone and camera.
Stuart Holly: When did journalism as a career first come onto your radar?
Gordon Deegan: The idea maybe took hold going through the back-pages of various newspapers at the likes of McMahons in the Square in Ennis during my teenage years in the 1980s – some people might tell you today that I haven’t ceased the practice. I have to thank various Ennis newsagents for their years of forbearance. All those free reads turned out to be career building blocks.
SH: Did you have a strong interest in local media growing up?
GD: The Clare Champion on Thursday was a weekly staple in the family home – Clare FM didn’t feature during my school days as it didn’t come along until my Leaving Cert year in 1989.
SH: Did you go to college?
GD: Yes, I studied English and History at Trinity College Dublin and then a one year post grad course in journalism at NUIG which set me on my way.
SH: What age were you when you first embarked on a career in journalism?
GD: I was 25 and had my first number of stories published in January 1996 under the watchful eye of then editor at The Clare Champion, Gerry Collison while there on work placement from NUIG. The story highlight for me was a feature on asylum seekers based on interviews at the Ennis offices of the Irish Refugee Council that received great prominence in the Ennis page of the paper.
SH: You’re now a well-established freelance reporter, but can you give me an overview of your career to date? Were you ever a staff reporter anywhere and if so, why did you go down the freelance route?
GD: I have always freelanced and started freelancing in 1996/97. I was given great support by Gerry Collison at The Clare Champion who was very receptive to my story ideas while The Irish Examiner was giving great coverage to Clare stories at the time and business from those two outlets gave me a very strong base to work from. I slowly had my work published in The Irish Times, Irish Independent and went on from there.
SH: How did you end up specialising in court, company accounts and planning reporting?
GD: Initially, I was quite busy with Clare planning stories. There were tax incentives for holiday home building in the likes of Lahinch and Kilkee which resulted in quite a number of planning controversies. There was also a raging debate about one-off housing in the countryside at the time and controversy around Clare Co Council’s non-local planning policies. Cllr PJ Kelly’s talent for a colourful phrase made for headlines for a number of planning stories. I now live in one of those one-off homes in the countryside.
Reporting on company accounts is something that happened by accident rather than design. I started reporting on accounts for firms based in Shannon Free Zone for the then business editor at The Irish Examiner, Conor Keane and I quickly went nationwide reporting on the fortunes of all and sundry and the accounts stories soon found a place in The Irish Times and Irish Independent as well.
The bread and butter for any local reporter reporting for the daily papers is the local courts where you come across all shades of life. You must be sensitive to the fact that for some people appearing before court it is a terrible low in their lives and show due care when reporting on those stories. It is a place too where people can finally turn their lives around with the help of their solicitors, probation officers and the presiding judge.
SH: What are the challenges & benefits of being a freelancer?
GD: The constant challenge is that you’re only as good as your next story. I can and choose my own stories to pursue. There is the fear all the time of getting a fact wrong in a story but that applies to staff reporters as well. Papers may decide to stop publishing your stories for budgeting reasons as a freelance budget is one of the first items for the chop. I am my own boss. I can pick and choose my holidays but I don’t get paid when on holiday so it’s swings and roundabouts.
SH: Is it a difficult job?
GD: It can be – sourcing good stories is probably the hardest part as there is now such competition to get stories placed in the national and local press.
SH: How many hours a week do you spend in Ennis Courthouse?
GD: It varies greatly but less than before as Judge Mary Larkin is super efficient and cracks through the court lists. There is no wasting around in the district court in Clare.
SH: Do you believe that your work provides an important public service?
GD: In the grand scheme of things, the public services provided by journalists pales in comparison to that provided by doctors, nurses and carers for example. But what is going on in Ukraine right now shows the real value of journalism where we are relying on reporters such as RTE’s Tony Connelly to tell us what is going on there right now. On a more parochial level, court reporting including the work I do can provide a public service. You only have to look at a recent high profile alleged fraud making headlines now to see the public value of court reporting. If an earlier conviction in that case had been reported on, it may have prevented what (is alleged) to have occurred since to quite a number of people.
SH: Your work is available across various publications, do you ever find yourself open to criticism from the public (eg in comments sections)?
GD: It hasn’t really been an issue thankfully. I was accused on Twitter recently of ‘masquerading as a journalist’. I’ve been doing it for 25 years now. It’s a well worn routine.
SH: You report on some heavy subject matter, do you become numb to it or does it take an emotional toll on you?
GD: Such tragic stories are rare in the mix of stories I cover. It is hard not to be affected by some of the stories I cover but I have the luxury of leaving the courtroom or the inquest and returning home to my own family where there is no time to dwell on things heard earlier.
SH: What’s your opinion of the Irish justice system?
GD: Cases in the circuit court take too long to come to court. It is a very inefficient system as far as Clare is concerned. There were no scheduled trials in Clare from the end of July to the end of October this year and it only adds to the backlog so it is a case of justice delayed, justice denied. Really, the circuit court here should sit here full time and I’m sure practitioners would favour that as well
SH: Does a more outspoken judge help in terms of creating good news copy? Any memorable quotes from Ennis Courthouse?
From a reporter’s point of view, it certainly helps. A quotable judge can make all the difference to whether stories are picked up on and Judge Patrick Durcan during his ten years here had a great talent of turning the most mundane of cases into national headlines with a quick turn of phrase – and I was always there at the ready with my pen and notebook to scribble down his latest utterances. A few years ago I was reaching for my dictionary when Judge Durcan had a cut off Joe Duffy “and all the great panjandrums of the media”. It turns out a panjandrum is a person who has or claims to have a great deal of authority or influence. We were always learning at Judge Durcan’s courts.
But one of the more memorable recent quotes that is still fresh in the mind comes from the current judge for Clare, Judge Mary Larkin. It concerned a case where a father behind in child maintenance arrears had spent hundreds of euro on items at an online sex shop Love Honey and Judge Mary Larkin didn’t hold back telling the man: ‘You wouldn’t be spending over half your money on a ‘fiddlydyedoe’ if you had only €203 a week.” and of course, ‘Fiddlydyedoe’ featured in one or two headlines.
SH: Do you have any regrets in your career?
GD: Yes – I have written a small number of stories over the past 25 years that were misjudged and inadvertently caused people upset and difficulty so that is something I do regret.
SH: What’s your proudest achievement in your career to date?
GD: No particular story springs to mind but I was privileged to write a recent feature for The Clare Champion and The Kilkenny People on my Clare Crusader friend, Pat Bogue who died too young last November. It was something I could never have imagined writing as Pat was so full of life. The feature was made possible by Pat’s wife Maria and his family and went some of the way I hope to doing Pat’s life justice.
SH: Do you take an interest in media outside your own work? What are you most likely to be found reading or listening to?
GD: I listen to the radio all day if I can. It is great to see locals and RTE reporters, Brian O’Connell and John Cooke (an adopted local) reaching the top of their profession nationally. They both do consistently top class work. I also listen to my very good friend, Fergal O’Keeffe’s Travel Tales podcast. The Covid-19 lockdown unlocked the broadcaster in Fergal that was always there and his podcast has been doing very well with some brilliant interviews with the likes of Des Bishop, David McWilliams and Ketih Wood. I also listen to Eamon Dunphy’s The Stand and the football chat with John Giles and Liam Brady has lost none of its insight and sharpness that has been with us for the past few decades – only on a different platform now.
SH: There’s less money in the print journalism industry today than when you started out, has this impacted your own career?
GD: There is less money in print with the downturn in newspaper sales, but I am getting more and more stories published online so that is going a long way making up for the shortfall. When I started out, I had maybe three or four papers to file but now there are between 10 and 15 outlets – print and online – so it is a much bigger market than the late 1990s.
SH: Do you believe the public understands the importance of independent journalism?
GD: Yes – at times like this with Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine, people are in no doubt about its value I’m sure. You only have to look as far as the current recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, a Russian newspaper editor, Dmitry Muratov for the value that is placed on independent journalism.
SH: What do you think the future of print journalism looks like? Will local newspapers and dailys survive?
GD: It is unsettling to see the industry you are part of to be contracting year on year. Something has to give doesn’t it? But I think readers are now more prepared to pay for content and that is shown with increasing digital readers for the likes of The Irish Times and The Irish Independent. The paywall recently introduced by The Clare Echo is a vote of confidence in people willing to pay so you have to be positive and continue to turn in quality work.
SH: Is journalism a career you would encourage your children, or any young people, to pursue?
GD: Yes – of course. It is an expanding industry with so many more options for the many multi-talented graduates that come out of the likes of DCU, UL and NIUG each year.
SH: Is there any Gordon Deegan trivia that we might be surprised to learn?
GD: I eat too many Minneola oranges!
