Former senior ‘Irish Times’ journalist Dick Grogan dies

The death has occurred of  Dick Grogan, a former senior journalist with The Irish Times.

Grogan was a former Northern Editor with the newspaper and reported from Derry on the day in January 1972 when the British army opened fire on a protest march, killing 14 unarmed civilians.

In 2002 Grogan, who covered the tribunal into the Bloody Sunday massacre for this newspaper, gave evidence to it about his experience of the day.

After the march got under way about 150 protesters went to a security barrier and started stoning the Army.

The troops responded with water cannon, rubber bullets and CS gas canisters, he said.

Soon he heard gunfire. “Very many single shots fired in rapid succession by many weapons. I was sure this was high velocity rifle fire.”

He said that afterwards he was shocked by the “one-sided” reports on the BBC and ITN, which seemed to be based solely on the army version of events.

As well as being Northern Editor, he worked as environment correspondent, deputy news editor, opinion page editor, and south eastern correspondent.

He is survived by his daughter Muireann, son-in-law Yuichi, granddaughters, brothers, his sister Oonagh and other family members.