Roy Lilley: courageous editor of Belfast Telegraph during worst of the Troubles

Roy Lilley, who died recently, was the editor of the Belfast Telegraph during some of the worst years of the Troubles from 1974 to 1992, and then editorial director until his retirement in 1998.

It was an extremely demanding role and one which required a high degree of skill amid continued political deadlock. His counsel was widely sought locally, and also by high-profile Westminster politicians, including the Northern Secretaries of State James Prior, Douglas Hurd and others.

The job also required great personal courage in the midst of extreme violence. In September 1976 the Provisional IRA bombed the Belfast Telegraph building in Royal Avenue, killing one staff member and injuring others. Undaunted, Roy Lilley published a four-page paper the next day with a defiant editorial which was titled “Our Answer” and which strongly supported the freedom of the press.

The next year he received the prestigious international Golden Pen of Freedom Award in Osaka for “outstanding action, in writing or in deed, of an individual in the cause of press freedom”. Throughout his long editorship, he consolidated the considerable reputation of the Belfast Telegraph for community bridge-building and for trying to promote political consensus in a deeply divided Northern Ireland.

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He received a number of awards, including an honorary MA from the Open University in 1977, an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II in 1998, and a lifetime achievement award in the 2012 Northern Ireland Media Awards. He recalled later that this gave him particular satisfaction as it was an honour from his peers, including his contemporaries and also the younger generations of journalists to whom he gave their first job, and many of whom went on to achieve distinction elsewhere.

Roy Lilley was also widely-respected in the Republic, where he worked closely with successive Dublin editors including Douglas Gageby, Fergus Pyle and Tim Pat Coogan. From 1975 to 1999 he was a member of the judging panel of the Rehabilitation Institute of Dublin’s People of the Year Awards.

He was born in Belfast on December 4th, 1938, and later educated at Larne Grammar School. He joined the Larne Times as a trainee reporter in 1957, and transferred two years later to the Belfast Telegraph where he was an outstanding political correspondent from 1962-64, and later from 1967-68. In between he was a Westminster lobby correspondent for Thomson Regional Newspapers. On his return to Belfast, where his mentor was the legendary editor John E Sayers, he quickly climbed the ladder as leader writer, assistant editor, deputy editor and finally editor from 1974.

He demanded the highest standards, and he had an inner steel, while also a kindness and consideration for his staff who were working in such difficult circumstances. He showed great loyalty to his colleagues, and he received their great loyalty in return. His editorial judgement, particularly on the great political issues of the day, was highly regarded and very rarely questioned, but he was also keen to send out his reporters to find some “normal” stories to give heart to his readers in the midst of the daily mayhem elsewhere.

Despite his many efforts to encourage political co-operation among the main parties, later in life he came to believe reluctantly that devolution at Stormont might not work in the long run because of the deep intransigence and mistrust all around.

Mr Lilley became a member of the board of governors of Belfast Royal Academy from 1996-2005, and a member for 20 years of the management committee of the Wishing Well Family Centre in Belfast.

He is survived by his wife Georgie, his daughters Claire and Rozalind, sons-in-law Giles and Nigel, and his grandchildren Abigail, Oliver and Lily.