He has been Ireland Correspondent for The Guardian and The Observer for 23 years. In this time he covered the second IRA ceasefire and the road to the Good Friday Agreement co-writing the definitive story of how the historic peace deal was sealed in Easter 1998.
"Brimming with testosterone and angst, Henry McDonald's fictional debut Two Souls is an engrossing account of the love lost and blood shed during the Northern Troubles. Woven with the blood-thirstiness and anger that spearheaded the conflict in the North, each chapter [is] more vicious than the last ... these elements - the violent and vulgar themes throughout would [that] usually deter your reviewer from such a tale - accurately represent damaged lives, and McDonald's revealing account of a troubled neighbourhood comes to life in vivid descriptions. The author knows how to grab the reader. His descriptions are enticing and his way with words nothing short of breathtaking". Orlagh Doherty, RTÉ
"Wild Authentic Scabrously Fun"
A series of work from The Guardian for your perusal. They demonstrate the eclectic nature of my journalism.
The longest week, the hardest minutes: Inside, they talked. Outside in the rain, schoolchildren pleaded. Henry McDonald and Patrick Wintour tell the story of the historic deal in The Observer.
When I was blown up I was watching It’s a Knockout. Seconds after one of the European nations played their “joker” there was an almighty boom, an invisible force propelled my father and me across the front living room and the panes of glass from the windows scattered in slivers and fragments all over our bodies.
With Ireland restoring its fiscal sovereignty this weekend, it is a sign of emboldened economic confidence that the country’s whiskeys are launching a fresh assault on Scotland’s domination of the trade.
Under the shadow of Ireland’s holiest mountain, Croagh Patrick, in one of the most bucolic parts of the country’s Atlantic seaboard, the global production hub of Botox is preparing for a major gear change.
Four decades on, ‘it’s time to honour’ the punk dreamers of an Alternative Ulster
In a village hall in Derbyshire, mostly middle-aged men pore over football figurines from the past.
Ben Findlay, who bought drugs for £5k to make painkilling oil, has come clean to highlight cruelty of law.
JJ Waller captures people behind closed doors to document hope and fear in face of crisis.
Stories of our Times: In conversation with David Aaronovitch
As tensions erupt in Northern Ireland once again, twenty-three years after the Good Friday Agreement, David Aaronovitch and I talk about why peace in Northern Ireland seems so precarious and what happens next.
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