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Barry Cowan (Read 7075 times)
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Barry Cowan
Jun 19th, 2004, 8:30am
 
The former radio and television presenter in Northern Ireland, Barry Cowan, has died.  This is the text of the BBC's announcement of his death:

June 18th, 2004

Former BBC broadcaster Barry Cowan has died aged 56 in hospital last night, following a long illness.

For more than 30 years, Barry Cowan was a respected figure in television and radio in both the north and south of Ireland.

From the early 1970s, he was a high profile presenter on BBC Northern Ireland, gaining the respect of many senior politicians.

Barry was involved in many BBC Northern Ireland productions. In 1974, Barry became the anchor person of BBC Northern Ireland's then-main television news programme Scene Around Six.

On radio, Barry was the first presenter of Talkback on Radio Ulster and presented Good Morning Ulster. He was also editor of the television current affairs programme Spotlight.

BBC Northern Ireland Controller, Anna Carragher, said: "I am deeply saddened to hear of Barry's death.

"He was one of the great broadcasters in Northern Ireland over the last three decades and combined huge knowledge of Irish and Northern Irish life in politics with a penetrating intellect and a quick wit.

"I have known Barry since we were both students at Queen's in the late 60s where he was one of a generation of wonderful broadcasters including Nick Ross, Seamus McKee and Sean Rafferty. He will be much missed."

Former head of news and current affairs at BBC Northern Ireland Keith Baker said: "When I joined the BBC in the 1980s Barry Cowan was already a legend.

"He lived for live broadcasting, that arena of the unpredictable.

"He was a superb interviewer always dogged and determined and always with the interest of the viewers and listeners at heart.

"We are all better informed about Northern Ireland through Barry's work over the years."
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Re: Barry Cowan
Reply #1 - Jun 22nd, 2004, 8:30am
 
This obituary appeared in the Guardian today, June 22nd:

By Anne McHardy
Tuesday June 22, 2004


Barry Cowan, who has died aged 56, after a long illness, was an incisive broadcaster, whose journalistic talents earned him respect across Northern Ireland's political divide, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, during some of the most bitter years of violence.

He joined the BBC in Belfast in the early 1970s as a studio manager, but quickly moved into freelance reporting and presenting. In 1974, at the time of the first loyalist workers' strike, he became an anchorman on Scene Around Six, then one of BBC Northern Ireland's most prestigious current affairs programmes, chairing fierce debates between such heavyweights as the SDLP's Gerry Fitt and Ian Paisley, of the Democratic Unionist party.

In the late 1970s, Cowan moved to Dublin as one of the founding presenters of RTE's television current affairs programme Today Tonight. In 1981, he returned to Belfast to found Talkback for BBC Radio Ulster, after which he worked on most of BBC Northern Ireland's news and television programmes, including Good Morning Ulster and Evening Extra.

Cowan was born within the Protestant community in Coleraine, County Londonderry. He was educated at Ballymena Academy and graduated in physics from Queen's University, Belfast. He had been an enthusiastic student drama performer, and his first job was as an actor, at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. His interests in the arts and leisure were reflected in the mid-1980s, when he founded his own production company, Bridge, whose film topics ranged from golf to Northern Irish history.

As a broadcaster, Cowan was always even-handed, and respected on all political sides. The controller of BBC Northern Ireland, Anna Carragher, said his sharp intellect, ready wit and ability to fly a programme by the seat of his pants made his programmes "an island of sanity". He left the BBC in March 2000 to freelance.

He is survived by his wife Sue, and two children.

· Barry Cowan, journalist, born February 1 1948; died June 16 2004
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