Barry Cowan: Barry Cowan, who died this week, was a senior figure in broadcast journalism in Belfast and Dublin. As a reporter and presenter on both radio and television during the worst of the Troubles, he won a reputation for fairness, integrity and attention to detail.
He was a renowned and incisive interviewer and was utterly at ease with live broadcasting - a medium which he seemed to make his own.
Former colleagues, producers, politicians on all sides and public figures have praised his professionalism and commented freely about his warmth, humour and companionship.
Martin Dillon, his producer on Talkback, Radio Ulster's innovative phone-in programme, said his integrity allied with a thorough grasp of the complexities of Irish life and politics set him apart from other broadcasters.
His career at the BBC coincided with the most brutal and politically sensitive years of the early Troubles and he was to the fore as the BBC expanded rapidly in Belfast in the 1970s.
Cowan was born in Coleraine, Co Derry in 1948, the son of Fred and Myrtle Cowan. He had one brother, the late Mervyn Cowan.
He spent his early years in Ballymena, Co Antrim, and was educated at Ballymena Academy.
He went to Queen's University, Belfast to study physics and it was there that he got his first taste of television in the mid-1960s.
Along with other students, he took part in a satirical production for television called Watch It and was drawn to broadcasting.
After graduating, he joined the BBC as a studio manager and was mid-way through an attachment to the BBC World Service at Bush House in London when he was recalled to Belfast.
On his return to Northern Ireland he auditioned for radio and was soon working on local inserts from Belfast for BBC radio's main morning news programme which was then broadcast from London in the years before Radio Ulster was established in 1975.
Cowan covered the tumultuous events of the time including Bloody Friday in 1972, when 22 explosions rocked the centre of Belfast in a 75-minute period claiming nine lives.
He stood-in as presenter of BBC Northern Ireland's main evening news programme Scene Around Six in 1974 when its anchorman Larry McCoubrey left due to illness.
Following McCoubrey's subsequent death, Cowan took over the role and lent it added gravitas at a time when politics was in turmoil and violence was at its peak.
Television news reports at that time were filmed and compiled by mid-afternoon, putting the studio presenter under particular pressure to keep bulletins as up-to-date as possible despite the rapid pace of events.
For all his association with live news and current affairs, Cowan also had a lighter side.
He acted as the "straight man" in many of the late James Young's Saturday night comedy shows for the BBC.
Many in Northern Ireland first saw him on television as the young news hound interviewing Young's characters including Orange Lil, the Belfast loyalist; and Billy Hulk, the stereotypical trade unionist.
After his years on Scene Around Six, Cowan became editor of Spotlight, the investigative news programme.
He was among the first to reflect the concerns of victims' families and won an award for his work on a commemorative programme about the Kingsmill Massacre in which 10 Protestant workers were murdered in south Armagh in 1976.
He left the BBC in Belfast in the early 1980s for RTÉ where he fronted Today Tonight for a number of years.
On his return, he became the first presenter of Talkback on Radio Ulster, a live one-hour current affairs and news magazine which encouraged audience participation - a radical departure at that time.
He also founded his independent television production company, Bridge Television, which he based in Holywood, Co Down.
He made A View From The Castle, a series of interviews with previous Northern Secretaries, and Cowan In Conference, another in-depth interview series. Belfast-born Chaim Herzog, president of Israel, was among his subjects.
He died in hospital in the early hours of Wednesday following a long illness
He is survived by his wife Sue Hanson, whom he married in 1981, and their children, Christopher and Holly.
Barry Cowan: born February 1st 1948; died June 17th, 2004.