Obituaries

Stephen Grimason obituary: First journalist to get a copy of Belfast Agreement

‘I believe I was given the document to nudge [the agreement] over the line,’ he later said

Stephen Grimason on BBC TV on Good Friday 1998. In his hand is the text of the Belfast Agreement. Photograph: BBC Northern Ireland

Sat May 11 2024 - 01:00

Born March 27th, 1957

Died April 27th, 2024

Stephen Grimason, who has died aged 67 after a long illness, is the journalist who achieved a world scoop in being the first to obtain a copy of the Belfast Agreement. “I have it in my hand,” was how he famously heralded its publication.

Later, as director of communications for the Northern Executive, he had the job of managing the press and public relations of some demanding and at times difficult politicians such as David Trimble, Seamus Mallon, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness.

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For several years as political editor of BBC Northern Ireland he reported on unsuccessful attempts to kickstart a viable peace process into gear while his good friend, the author and former BBC security editor Brian Rowan covered the equally dismal beat of bombings, shootings and killings.

With sound reason their reports tended to be pessimistic. In the BBC Belfast newsroom they were known as “Doom and Gloom”.

But in spring 1998 there were indications that the clouds might lift and Grimason with the rest of the Belfast political press pack was stuck up at Castle Buildings, Stormont, where the American former senator George Mitchell was chairing talks aimed at achieving a comprehensive peace and political agreement.

The climax of those negotiations was Holy Week that early April and during those days from the Monday to the Good Friday, when the deal was done, the mood swung between guarded hope and despair.

This time Grimason was optimistic. “There was a lot of pessimism about but by the Monday I thought there would be a deal and that was because John Hume and David Trimble told me so. There was nowhere else to go.”

“We survived the Troubles on the basis not of counselling, which we never had, but on black humour and alcohol”

—  Stephen Grimason

Around 1.20pm on Good Friday he was given the agreement in a brown envelope. But a problem arose because the BBC live coverage of the talks presented by Noel Thompson was about to go off air for a period. “I was fearful that if there was a half-hour break that somebody else might get it.”

“So I immediately rang the [BBC] gallery and said, ‘I’ve got the document. Get me on air’. And then I broke the cardinal rule of television journalism, of running as fast as I could up the stairs and sitting down to realise I hadn’t a breath in my body.”

Still, he managed to produce the first public copy of the Belfast Agreement and to declare to Thompson and, in a sense, to the world, that agreement appeared imminent although it was more than three hours later before the deal was concluded. He never disclosed who gave it to him, noting, “A source is not just for Christmas.”

“I believe I was given the document to nudge [the agreement] over the line,” he added.

Three years later he became director of communications for the Stormont Northern Executive, a post he held until 2016. He had great respect for the initial first minister and deputy first minister David Trimble and Seamus Mallon but said both men could be “irascible” at times.

After the DUP and Sinn Féin took over as the main parties from the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP Grimason observed one of the first signs of how the odd “Chuckle Brothers” pairing of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness could have a genuinely cordial relationship. That was after they wrote to the then Northern secretary Peter Hain asking him to vacate Stormont Castle so they could have their first minister and deputy first minister offices there. It resulted in McGuinness saying to Paisley, “You know that your first letter as first minister is a ‘Brits Out’ letter.”

Grimason’s highest admiration was for John Hume although he too could have his moments. Grimason said he made no apologies for saying that “John was the greatest Irish man who ever lived, living or dead ... but my God was he was hard work”.

A perfect example of that humour was that Grimason and Reid had a £50 bet about which of them would die first – dark but in its peculiar, twisted journalistic way, life-affirming

From a Protestant background, Grimason was born in Lurgan, Co Armagh, in 1957. Later, his teachers told him he could have a future in journalism because he was “nosy” and “always causing trouble”. He started his career in 1975, working in the Lurgan Mail before moving to the Ulster Star in Lisburn and then joining the Banbridge Chronicle where aged 27 he became its editor. He joined the BBC in 1987.

He was diagnosed with terminal cancer about three years ago, an illness he bore well, comforting his family with the maxim, “Death smiles at us all, all that we can do is smile back”. He had a great rapport with the medical teams who treated him, and was particularly thankful to the renal unit of Belfast City Hospital.

Earlier this year he and the former UTV political editor Ken Reid were awarded the Queen’s University Belfast chancellor’s medal, both men praised for “a vital public service during the dark days of fear and uncertainty”.

Of his journalistic career, much of which was covering violence or political attempts to end the killing, he said, “We survived the Troubles on the basis not of counselling, which we never had, but on black humour and alcohol.”

A perfect example of that humour was that Grimason and Reid had a £50 bet about which of them would die first – dark but, in its peculiar, twisted journalistic way, life-affirming.

At his funeral two weeks ago, Grimason’s wife, Yvonne, handed Reid an envelope with the £50, saying, “Ken, Stephen said you must take that.”

Stephen Grimason is survived by his wife, Yvonne; and by his first wife, Heather, and their four children, Jennifer, Chris, Rachel and Jonathan; his mother, Jean; sister, Cherryl; and seven grandchildren. His younger brother, Darryl, also a BBC journalist, died in 2022.

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