Sean O'Rourke: Charlie Bird was a great journalist. But first and foremost he was a great human being
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Charlie Bird is dead — big sad news about the man who made big news. A legend and a warrior, Charlie was a great journalist. But first and foremost he was a great human being. In health and even more so in illness, he gave it his all.
Many journalists insist they can never get involved with their subjects, like the American reporter in Vietnam who witnessed a man self-immolate. As a human he wanted to intervene, but as a reporter, he felt he couldn’t.
That was not Charlie’s way. Watching an old man trying to dig a grave for his daughter in a war zone, he felt it was right to intervene: “I took up a shovel and shouted at other reporters and camera crews to help him.”
As a teenager, Charlie’s interest in history and politics was stirred by the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising and if he had passed his Leaving Cert maths, he’d undoubtedly have been one of those student radicals who came to prominence in the late 60s and 70s.
The lack of a university degree made him even more determined to succeed in journalism and brought him to heights he might not otherwise have reached, not least the conferring of an honorary doctorate by UCD for his work with George Lee, RTÉ’s economics correspondent, in exposing financial scandals.
His love of debating at school compensated for academic failure in the political sphere. He readily mounted Young Socialist platforms at the GPO and addressed the Labour Party annual conference on issues like housing, apartheid and the Vietnam War.
He always took an interest in the underdog, and as many people have pointed out, there was a special place in Charlie’s heart for the Stardust victims and their families. That horrific Valentine’s night was one of his first big stories and was seared into his memory. In retirement, he was able to campaign for the inquest so long denied them, and participated briefly in the proceedings.
Yes, he had a social conscience, but it would be wrong to see him as a campaigning journalist. Above all, he was a reporter. What mattered was the story and getting it right. He left his political activism behind him after joining RTÉ and lived by the requirements of the Broadcasting Acts to be “objective, impartial and fair to all interests".
It’s over 40 years since our paths first crossed in the RTÉ newsroom. I was fresh in from the ; he had transferred from researching TV programmes a year or two earlier. Ireland was at a standstill in the Big Snow of January 1982 and, in trendy green wellingtons, he was heading off with the Air Corps to cover the story from the sky.
As with so many people, he got me at 'Hello' with a smile and a handshake. Then, and always, Charlie had the knack of being in the right place. He always delivered, primarily because he worked hard, was well-organised, had great stamina, and never gave up. But he had something else too — an ability to connect with people, to win their confidence and to get them talking.
With those honest eyes looking at you earnestly, it would be hard to think you could fool Charlie Bird, but you could be sure of fair treatment. Yes, he broke sensational stories, but he was meticulous about allowing people a fair opportunity to give their version. That’s why he was trusted by all sides.
When there wasn’t time or means to build relationships, Charlie would improvise, and his doggedness and instinct were employed to good effect at home and abroad. One example was when Michael Smurfit was under pressure as chair of Telecom Éireann amid a controversy over the sale of an old bakery site.
In the short walk from his car to the door of Telecom HQ, Smurfit wasn’t minded to address the media — until a seemingly bizarre question was heard from an unmistakable voice: “Mr Smurfit, have you a message for the Irish people?”
It stopped Smurfit in his tracks and Charlie got his quote, to the effect the Irish people should keep up their hopes in difficult economic times.
We were in South Africa for the first democratic elections in 1994 and Charlie was present, along with a huge global media throng as Nelson Mandela went to cast his first post-apartheid vote. It wasn’t clear he would speak to the media, but what happened thanks to Charlie made it into Mandela’s autobiography, .
Walking towards the polling station, the future president of South Africa heard one voice above all others, as Charlie shouted: “Mr Mandela, who will you vote for today?”
Only Charlie Bird could have come up with that one. It caught Mandela’s attention and he came over and said laughingly: “You know, I’ve been agonising over the choice all morning,” before answering a second question about how much the occasion meant.
On the face of it, those questions to Smurfit and Mandela betokened a sort of innocence or gaucherie, which some people mocked. But as our colleague Sean Duignan was wont to point out, they got people talking to him when they hadn’t planned to say anything, and that was part of Charlie's genius.
He succeeded too where others had failed to get a quote from Gay Byrne amid speculation Gay might leave RTÉ for commercial radio. The story led the .
Charlie was truly in his element on the plinth at Leinster House. During the tumultuous early 1980s, with three general elections in 18 months, and ugly heaves in Fianna Fáil, Charlie was in the thick of it, capturing drama like the assault on Jim Gibbons and the abuse of Charlie McCreevy. Colleagues watched in awe as he cajoled Ray Burke into saying Charlie Haughey shouldn’t lead Fianna Fáil into the next election.
As a presenter of the radio show , Charlie’s desk and mine were only a few feet apart. I always found it reassuring to see him coming to work, as I generally felt his presence added 10% or more to the quality of the show. Invariably, he would suggest a fresh angle on a story or see an obvious line nobody else had spotted. Charlie missed nothing.
Probably the engagement with him that gave me most satisfaction was our collaboration late one Saturday night on a report for during the first Gulf War in 1990. Charlie was reporting on the treatment of Kurdish people who had rebelled against the dictator Saddam Hussein. They were fleeing for safety across mountains in dreadful weather after American pledges of support failed to materialise.
Charlie had linked up with Fr Jack Finucane of Concern as the aid agency sought to provide relief. The words, pictures, and raw actuality they sent back gave as vivid a piece of radio journalism as I’ve had the privilege to edit for the airwaves.
It was around this time, in the early to mid-90s, that Charlie was assigned by RTÉ to establish and maintain contact with the republican movement as the IRA and Sinn Féin embarked on the long and winding road to exclusively peaceful methods in pursuit of their political objectives. It was a demanding and at times nerve-wracking experience and, as ever, required him to build a trusting relationship with his sources.
Probably his best day on the job was August 31, 1994, when the first IRA ceasefire was declared. Charlie was the one who broke the story at noon that day and the mini cassette recording of an IRA spokesperson making the announcement is now an important museum piece of Irish history.
With George Lee, he broke several high-profile stories about malpractices in financial services, most notoriously an investment scheme promoted by the National Irish Bank. RTÉ was sued for libel by Fianna Fáil TD Beverly Flynn.
It was a torrid time for Charlie and his colleagues as the long trial unfolded and we frequently had coffee in the canteen before he headed for the Four Courts. He never wavered in his belief that the action was worth defending.
After it ended, we were walking from the court across the Liffey on Grattan Street Bridge when news broke on the radio headlines that RTÉ had won and Charlie was greeted by honking horns and drivers giving him the thumbs up.
Without doubt, Charlie’s most unsatisfactory time was his stint as RTÉ’s Washington correspondent. I took a notion to attend the first Obama inauguration in 2009 and slept on a couch in Charlie’s apartment, lazily declining his invitation to go with him to gather vox pops at dawn on the big day. He threw himself into the job but he never settled.
Sitting together at a dinner hosted by EU ambassador John Bruton, Charlie confided he missed his family and it wasn’t working out. I told him he was there only a few weeks, to give it a chance and to tell nobody. A few minutes later, I heard him telling the same story to John Bruton and reckoned he’d be home soon enough.
Perhaps there was a clue to his loneliness in a picture in his apartment of an RTÉ colleague back in Dublin. He would marry Claire Mould several years later, putting the seal on an extraordinary love story that has played out so publicly and heroically in the last few years.
Charlie’s career in broadcasting was more than enough to secure him a place in Irish media history, but in ways it fades in comparison to the raw courage and generosity that inspired countless thousands of people as he turned a terminal illness diagnosis into an opportunity to raise €3.6m for charity.
His refrain about "extending the hand of friendship" was apt because it was something he did himself throughout his life. He made no secret of his fear of having to use a wheelchair, but with the support of Claire and daughters Neasa and Orla, he somehow found the strength to adapt to the ravages of the disease.
On occasions, a group of ex-RTÉ colleagues would meet in Galway to walk from Salthill to the city centre for a meal. The trip took longer each time as more and more people approached Charlie to wish him well, take selfies, and thank him for his fundraising for the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association and Pieta House.
Just like the late-night crowds who chanted his name outside Leinster House during a heave, those people on the Salthill promenade could recognise a genuine man of the people when they saw him. Charlie Bird was on their side, always telling it like it was.
Thanks, pal.
- Sean O'Rourke is presenter of the RTÉ Insights podcast