Henry McDonald’s journalism has taken him from Belfast to Beirut, from the borderlands of South Armagh to the frontier zone between Israel and Lebanon. Henry has written for a number of international magazines such as ‘The Spectator’ and ‘GQ’ as well features for Observer Life. He has worked for a variety of newspapers from The Irish News, to the Evening Press in Dublin, The Sunday Times, The Belfast Telegraph, Irish Echo in New York and latterly as a staff correspondent for The Observer and The Guardian where he spent 23 years.

In broadcasting, Henry has a depth of experience in both television and radio. He was Security Correspondent for BBC Northern Ireland during the vital period leading to the IRA and loyalist paramilitary ceasefires in 1994. He also produced news reports for the BBC’s national television network. In addition Henry worked on two health programmes for Ulster Television as an on-line reporter/producer.

Between 1996 to 2000 Henry was a television correspondent for Channel 5 News.
Radio was the medium where Henry made his breakthrough reporting for BBC Youth programmes radio show ‘The Bottom Line’ in the mid to late 1980s. Henry was also fronted and co-produced an award winning radio documentary on the future of sectarianism in Scotland one year after the ceasefires in Northern Ireland for Radio Five Live.

Having worked at The Guardian for over two decades Henry was at the centre of the digital journalism revolution. He produced an online internet documentary on an upsurge of paramilitary violence in Derry for The Guardian’s website. Henry has used all the digital tools of journalism including his own photography, video and social media spreading of the story.

Northern Ireland and The Troubles

Henry has a depth of knowledge about the Northern Ireland Troubles, the peace process, the Belfast Agreement and the St.Andrews Agreement. He was an eyewitness to some of the key events over the last 30 years from the Shankill Bomb, the upsurge in loyalist paramilitary violence to the advent of violent dissident republicanism and the Omagh atrocity. Henry was there at Easter Week 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was forged and co-wrote The Observer’s definitive account of how that historic peace deal was done. He was the first journalist to exclusively reveal the existence of the New IRA.

Good Friday agreement - The Inside Story

Henry McDonald and Patrick Wintour tell the inside story of how the Good Friday Agreement was made in 1998.

Domestic

Foreign

This water tower behind Henry was ‘honeycombed’ by American tank busting planes during the Allied offensive to recapture the Saudi coastal town of al-Khafji during the 1991 Gulf War. It was the first ground engagement between Saddam Hussein’s armed forces who crossed from occupied Kuwait to seize a slice of Saudi territory. The Iraqi army were driven back into Kuwait ahead of the assault to retake the tiny Gulf state that Saddam had occupied since the previous summer.

Khafji

Prior to the end of the ’91 Gulf War Henry’s only ever foreign assignment was to write colour pieces from Rome and other cities during the Italia ’90 World Cup – the Republic of Ireland’s first time at the global football tournament. A year later, just months after Saddam Hussein’s forces were defeated Henry travelled to Lebanon to visit Irish peacekeeping troops in the south of the country. By 1993 he had written his first book on the Irish battalion of UNIFIL and continued to return to Lebanon right up to the Israeli withdrawal from its self declared ‘security zone’ in 2000. Henry along with Acorn Video’s Roger Fitzpatrick marked the end of Israel’s occupation with a three part news feature from South Lebanon for Ulster Television news.

Video: In coversation with Slugger O'Toole

Audio