NEWSROOM lore has it that when Fergus Pyle was first appointed Northern Editor of The Irish Times in the late 1960s, the sub editors found that his reports of proceedings at Stormont were sometimes longer than those of the official Hansard accounts.
The story may be apocryphal. But it serves well to illustrate the energy and enthusiasm which were characteristic of one of the most versatile journalists ever to have written under The Irish Times's masthead and who died on Friday last after a short illness.
In a career spanning three and a half decades Fergus Pyle held a succession of the newspaper's most influential editorial positions, including a three year period as editor from 1974 to 1977. His influence in shaping the newspaper and the journalism of today was considerable. And he played an enduring role in developing key policies which are still reflected in the newspaper's editorial stance.
Fergus Pyle came from Trinity College, via Freiburg University and the UN, into the Irish Times editor's office as a junior leader writer. It was a not uncommon route in those days before formal training in journalism existed at any Irish university. He came with an extraordinarily well stocked mind and an elegant, sharply authoritative writing style. It might be said that a career circle was completed when he returned from Belfast in 1991, rejoining the editor's staff as an assistant editor and chief leader writer.
He was ideally suited to the multifarious tasks which present themselves each day in the editor's office of a busy national, newspaper. His excellent French and German enabled him to fly though the European papers. He would eagerly greet and discourse with diplomats and other visitors who came on courtesy calls to the newspaper's offices. He could tackle any subject or issue, at the shortest notice, and produce an editorial which would be perfectly pitched, flawlessly written and which would invariable enrich the reader's understanding.
But it was not within the confines of the editor's office that the real range of his talents became fully manifest. It was as a reporter, out on the ground, that the brilliance, the energy, the lightning judgment all came through. Thus, he was selected to be Northern Editor as the crisis gathered in the late 1960s. At a time when southern understanding of Northern Ireland was minimal, his grasp of issues and his detailed knowledge made his reports essential reading for politicians, civil servants, security chiefs and others in public life.
In 1971 as Ireland's accession to EEC membership drew near, he was assigned to Paris and two years later he opened the Brussels office. Even today, one's understanding of Europe's development and Ireland's interaction with it will be deepened by reading back through his reports, filled with detail and direct speech, whether from the factory floors of Lille or the corridors of the Berlaymont. As with Northern Ireland, this was new and unexplored territory and his reports and analysis became a vade mecum for many.
He was as committed to the ideals of European unity as he was to the attainment of a tolerant and peaceful society in Northern Ireland. He was a passionate believer in the power of political reasoning and in the capacity of human beings in combination to rise above the difficulties of their circumstances and to make a better world.
Thus, when the old moulds began to break in Eastern Europe he wanted to see it at first hand for himself. He added an Eastern European dimension to his working brief, travelling frequently through Poland, the Czech Republic and places further east. He was particularly interested in the development of Germany and identified, before most, the shifting of social and political forces which was to lead to the unification of the country under Chancellor Kohl.
Shortly after the foundation of The Irish Times Trust he became the 10th editor of The Irish Times, succeeding Douglas Gageby. Timing and circumstances combined to present the new editor with intractable difficulties. The economy was plunged into recession as the Middle East oil embargo made itself felt and editorial resources were perforce diminished. It was probably with no small measure of relief that he relinquished the editorship in July 1977, at which point Douglas Gageby once again took the chair.
Notwithstanding the difficulties, economic and otherwise, under which he operated, his editorship was characterised by several notable successes. He courageously published the "Heavy Gang" reports which revealed ill treatment of prisoners in custody and directed the investigation by the team of journalists which had been assembled for the purpose. The decision to publish was not taken easily in a climate of apprehension over the gathering strength of violent and subversive forces. That inquiry broke new ground at the newspaper.
With the possible exception of the celebrated 7 Days inquiry into moneylending, never before had such intensive methods of journalistic investigation been undertaken anywhere in Ireland. Where more cautious - and perhaps less conscientious - journalists would have been content with safe generalisations and vague accusations of wrongdoing, Fergus Pyle insisted on verifiable specifics names, dates, places, times, checked and cross checked.
And it was under his hand that the first, tentative steps were taken towards the expansion of the newspaper into the shape of today. Constrained by the capacities of the elderly printing press then in use, he envisaged and initiated a process which consolidated coverage of literature, the arts, television and current affairs into an embryonic weekend section. Designed by the expert and discerning Ken Gray, the foundations of today's stable of Irish Times supplements were laid down in that modest undertaking of 20 years ago.
He was fulfilled in his life, divided as it was between his work, his dearly loved family and his reading. To his colleagues, he seemed happiest of all in recent years, building upon life's store of knowledge and wisdom and sharing it on one hand with Mary's children and grandchildren and, on the other, with his colleagues and with the readership of the newspaper.
We, his colleagues, have lost a warm presence from our daily working lives. We shall miss his boyish cheerfulness and the endearing aura of purposeful disorder as he scanned the encylopaedia shelves or the files of the Frankfurter Allgemeine for the name of Bismarck's first cousin or last week's editorial on the proper value of the French franc.
The loss to his immediate loved ones is, of course, of a different order and on a different scale and to them we extend our deepest and heartfelt sympathy. Our task, as journalists, is now to ensure continuity within The Irish Times for the qualities and for the contribution which he made. The newspaper is vastly the poorer for his passing and that task will not be an easy one.