Paddy, Powers and Paisley

You've probably never heard of Paddy Murphy. Not, at least, the Paddy Murphy who worked for the Irish Press Group in the 1960s. He was a cracking reporter, filing tip-top stories from Belfast in the early, news-heavy days of the Troubles, writes Gerry Moriarty

Murphy's bosses were so impressed they called him down to Dublin, to give him a staff job. This startled his fellow Press journalist Paddy Reynolds, who had invented Murphy in order to earn two salaries. How else could a man support his long-suffering family yet have enough left over to see him through long hours in the city's bars? And so far, by supplying all of Murphy's stories, and with the help of a friendly bookmaker, to cash Murphy's pay cheques, the plan had worked. Sadly, a few days later the whizzy young reporter died of a heart attack. It took all of Reynolds's powers of persuasion to stop his boss travelling north for the funeral.

It's the story at the heart of The Late Paddy Murphy, Reynolds's memoirs, which for all journalists and anyone interested in the 1940s-1980s is a cracking read, teeming with wit, great yarns and a finally sobering awareness of how his drinking was a form of slow suicide. Reynolds tells his stories with a craftsman's pitch: funny where appropriate, serious when dealing with the horrors of the Troubles, light yet quietly profound and self-aware when dealing with how alcohol almost killed him.

There are flashes of the surreal too. Reynolds recounts how he regularly started the day with a few Powers at a local pub. Always there, knocking back brandy after brandy, was a fellow drinker who never uttered a word, even about the weather, merely nodding to the barman for a refill. One day, after the usual morning encounter, Murphy went, under pressure from his wife, Enda, for a medical, where to his astonishment he discovered that the mystery drinker was the doctor examining him. What's wrong, the doctor gruffly asked. "I'm bad with the nerves," said Paddy. "You are an' my bollocks: you're an alcoholic," said the doctor, who referred him to what he admitted could fairly be called the nuthouse. Would that do any good, asked Reynolds. "I hope so. I'm bloody well just out of it myself," said the doctor. Their paths crossed several times in the subsequent years, with both men finally eschewing drink. Sadly, the doctor came off the wagon and died shortly afterwards. Reynolds is confident that he has been teetotal for so long now that he "could swim in it - provided I don't open my mouth".

At least, in that, he is honouring a pledge to stop drinking that he made to the Rev Ian Paisley in 1963. It was around the time the DUP leader was making his name by denouncing the recently deceased Pope John XXIII as the antichrist. The editor of the Sunday Press asked Reynolds to interview Paisley at 10 a.m. on a Saturday, for the next day's paper. Fortified by whiskey, the reporter did the interview by phone, putting his slurred voice down to a bad cold when Paisley asked if he was intoxicated.

He took copious notes but, with his deadline looming, was so befuddled that he couldn't decode them. Then came an ominous knock at the door. It was Paisley. "Just as I thought: you're drunk, young man."

In a panic, Reynolds pleaded that his career was in Paisley's hands and that he would never touch another drop if only Paisley would repeat the interview. The Doc did, ranting on as Reynolds typed, which meant he was able to supply his readers with their first taste of Paisley fulminating about "old red socks" and "the harlot of Rome".

Despite his pledge, it's hardly a surprise that a relieved Reynolds instead retired to the nearest bar for a "well-deserved Te Deum drink".