Book of the Month - January 2019

In this book Deaglán de Bréadún shares his insights on the highlights of his career as a journalist with The Irish Times and latterly with The Irish Sun. We get to meet the big players on the international and national stage – Yasser Arafat, Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Charles Haughey, Ian Paisley and Brian Cowen. With his perceptive eye and uncluttered familiar style, he speaks openly about the challenges that face the journalist, particularly in wars and conflict zones, and demonstrates the possibilities of journalism: whether reporting on the misery of the Kurdish refugees fleeing Saddam Hussein, or the peace process in Northern Ireland. Young reporters and students of journalism and media will find much of interest here, from the tenacity and professionalism required in the field, to the comprehensive backdrop he provides to those events within the State and in the wider world from the 1970s onwards that have shaped our lives in the modern era.