NUJ chapel marks anniversary of Veronica Guerin murder
NUJ members gathered at Independent House today (26 June) to mark the 30th anniversary of the murder of Veronica Guerin.
The event was hosted by the Mediahuis chapel and attended by chapel members, senior editorial staff, and NUJ representatives - including Martin Fitzpatrick, Dublin branch chair and a former colleague of Veronica Guerin at the Sunday Independent.
Speaking at the event, Séamus Dooley, NUJ assistant general secretary, said:
Friends,
We gather in solidarity and in sadness.
The sun is shining as it was 30 years ago before an evil gunman transformed 26 June into our darkest day.
As we remember Veronica and prepare for a celebration of her life tonight, I am reminded of the letter sent by George Bernard Shaw, himself an NUJ member, to the sister of Michael Collins:
"Tear up your mourning and hang up your brightest colours in his honour."
Thank you to our chapel officers, Alan Caulfield and Edel Hughes, for organising this event and for the invitation to attend.
Thank you also to editorial management for their support.
Thirty years ago, around this time, I was due to begin an early shift on the subs desk at the Irish Independent. Instead I was at a meeting with chapel officers discussing how best to respond to the murder of our colleague Veronica Guerin.
For Kevin Moore, FoC, and Martin Fitzpatrick the news was especially devastating since Veronica was a colleague on the Sunday Independent.
There was a sad irony in the fact that Veronica was killed two days before she was due to speak at a Freedom Forum conference in London.
Her theme was 'Dying to Tell the Story: Journalists at Risk'.
As deputy FoC of the then Independent Newspaper chapel, I recall having to ring the conference organisers after learning of her death.
Producing the following day's paper was an extraordinary difficult task. Veronicia's colleagues left her funeral the following Saturday and went straight back to write up her funeral for a poignant edition of the Sunday Independent.
To this day I remember with pride the efforts of our colleagues.
I worked on the sub-editing desk of the Irish Independent and so had limited professional contact with Veronica but as a chapel officer met her from time to time. The last time we spoke she was involved in a dispute with the GRA conference over accreditation.
Long before home working became the norm Veronica worked mainly out of the office and enjoyed a high degree of editorial independence.
Although integrated into the staff she remained a freelance up to the time of her death, not by choice.
She was hugely supported in her career by Graham and by her family.
She was, literally and metaphorically, the face of the Sunday Independent, featuring in ad campaigns, yet had no automatic employment rights despite the efforts of the NUJ.
Veronica was fiercely competitive, a dogged, determined female journalist in a male dominated industry and she was not without her detractors within our own profession.
Veronica often wrote about her criminal contacts and was open about her investigative activities. She had a rapport with readers and the wider public so news of her death sent shockwaves across the country.
The NUJ successfully called for a national moment's silence on 4 July. During work stoppages the murder of Veronica Guerin and Garda Jerry McCabe was recalled. Traffic literally came to a halt.
Within a week of her murder, the government had introduced the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Criminal Assets Bureau Act, so that assets purchased with money obtained through crime could be seized by the government.
The formation of the Criminal Assets Bureau could be described as Veronica's legacy, marking as it did a new weapon in the war against crime.
But Veronica Guerin should not be defined by her death or by those who killed her. She is remembered as a dogged, ambitious journalist but that's only part of the story. She is remembered for her loyalty to family and friends, as a fanatical sports fan, a political junkie, as someone who loved and rejoiced in life.
When the Irish Executive Council hosted the union's delegate meeting in Ennis in 2000 Veronica's mother Bernie travelled to accept the hundreds of books of condolences and to take part in a panel discussion on media freedom and the right to report.
Bernie recalled how some people had referred to Veronica ‘giving’ her life for press freedom.
My daughter, she declared, did not give her life for press freedom. It was taken from her. Journalists do not give up freedom to report - it is stolen from them!
Bernie also spoke of the horror inflicted by those who made money from drugs. Bernie reminded us that while her daughter might have been a victim of their cruel trade but so too were the many families blighted by drugs.
In remembering Veronica today we remember Bernie's message at a time when media freedom in under threat across the globe.
At a meeting of the National Executive Council this morning, members marked this anniversary with a moment of reflection, remembering not just Veronica but all the journalists killed in the line of duty over the past 30 years.
Bernie's pleas for government action on drugs remains as relevant today as Veronica's pioneering work three decades ago. Within a stone's throw of this building we can still see the devastation caused by drugs. On a daily basis, I witness first-hand drug dealing on Talbot Street and O'Connell Street.
I had hoped that the murder of Veronica Guerin had debunked the myths surrounding drug lords, criminals and gangsters.
In my view the media was partly responsible for creating the cartoon characterisation of nasty criminals through the use of endearing pseudonyms.
At the time this was justified as a means of circumventing our defamation laws but the use of names such as the General, the Penguin and the Monk in some ways masked the evil nature of their criminal activities.
It took the murder of Veronica to shake us into reality.
Decades later I found disturbing and sickening the attempt to transform the Monk into a Robin Hood character, a champion of the very people whose communities have been devasted by drugs, whose sons and daughters have been the victims of the lust for blood money.
I watched with incredulity as the spectacle unfolded and not for the first time I wondered what Veronica Guerin would have made of it all.