As a former news editor at both the Irish Press and later, Granada Television, Tom McPhail eschewed the cult of personality among journalists, which he believed could allow mediocre talent to hide behind a veil of "omniscience". It was something that he railed against to the end.
For Tom McPhail, facts were sacred. At 47, he died as he lived, full of vigour and enthusiasm for his chosen craft, despite a gargantuan battle against lung cancer over the past 15 months.
He was a newsman, a craftsman in the best tradition - he believed that a story must stand on its merits. The news story comes first, he would impress on junior reporters and his colleagues at Irish International, the successful news agency he established along with three other out-of-work journalists, in 1982; it is the journalist's job to tell it as it is. Despite strong associations with Drogheda, Tom McPhail always described himself as a "Dub". The eldest of four brothers and two sisters, his earliest days were spent in South King Street, beside St Stephen's Green. His father, Frank, was in the building trade and his mother, Mary, was at one time a member of the Royalettes (Theatre Royal dancers). They all shared a love of music. He left school at 17 in 1969 and joined the Drogheda Independent. Not long afterwards he met Adelaide, his first girlfriend and the love of his life. They were to go their separate ways, but were fated for each other, it seems. Adelaide married and had two children, Sarah and David, but things didn't work out.
Tom McPhail and Adelaide met again years later and he was to spend the next 15 years as Adelaide's husband and a beloved step-father to her children. During an industrial dispute at the Drogheda newspaper in the early 1970s a frustrated and dissatisfied Tom McPhail was informed by the NUJ's Jim Eadie that there were jobs going at the Irish Press and he should apply. His introduction to the Burgh Quay newsroom in 1971 at the age of 19 honed those skills that he had developed as a junior reporter in Drogheda. Within months Tom McPhail was promoted to assistant news editor, a position of key responsibility in a busy newsroom.
But by the mid-1970s he was getting restless. A decision to leave journalism and give free rein to his idealism by working fulltime for the Simon Community raised eyebrows among career-conscious colleagues at Burgh Quay, but he was determined. Afterwards, he went to Manchester for a time as news editor with Granada, but he returned to Dublin in 1982 when the new Sunday Tribune beckoned. He did some freelance work for the Tribune, but became particularly enthused by the onset of its sister paper, the Daily News. Hugh McLaughlin's down-market daily was an attempt to replicate the tabloid formula that he had pioneered so successfully as co-founder of the Sunday World.
Tom McPhail joined the staff as a reporter with Paddy Clancy as news editor. It lasted all of 17 issues when McLaughlin decided to cut his losses and put the Sun- day Tribune and the Daily News into liquidation. Along with Paddy Clancy, Diarmuid McDermott and the late Brendan Burke, he set up the news agency to supply court coverage for the national media. It was an ambitious project where Tom McPhail - in particular - spearheaded the development of what he called a "broadloid" style of pared down reportage that required minimal editing by news desks.
After his burial, colleagues from near and far gravitated to Mulligan's pub in Dublin's Poolbeg Street to pay their respects to Adelaide and the family. One BBC journalist looked at the space on the wall between the photograph of Con Houlihan and the plaque commemorating James Joyce and shook his head: "We should have thought of it before. We'll just have to get Tommy [the owner] to get Joyce to move over."
Tom McPhail: born 1952, died July, 1999