To Douglas Gageby, by general consensus the greatest 20^th century newspaper editor in Ireland, the obverse side of the coin of press freedom is press responsibility and accountability.

The greatest obstacle to full freedom of the press in Ireland is the draconian law on defamation. Gageby believed that if news was diligently kept separate from opinion and as accurate as possible, and if there were some other mechanism through which aggrieved readers could seek satisfaction, the financial burden of dealing with defamation in the courts could be lessened. There should, he argued, be a readers’ representative to whom all complaints and requests for corrections and clarifications could be addressed, and there should be a daily corrections column in which the record, if in error, should be set straight.

Gageby was born in Dublin in 1918 and his family moved to their native Belfast four years later. There he received his primary and secondary education, returning to Dublin to study Law, French and German at Trinity College. In journalism he worked first for the Irish Press Group, using his languages to report on Germany after World War II, and became assistant editor of the newly-launched Sunday Press in 1949. After a period with the Irish News Agency, which was set up to provide coverage of events in Ireland without the mediation of the largely British-based news agencies, he was appointed founding editor of the Evening Press, probably one of the most successful newspaper launches in Ireland.

In 1963 he became editor of the Irish Times, which then had a daily circulation of just 33,000, virtually all in the Dublin area. Its "politics" were generally liberal, Protestant and unionist. Gageby brought to it a passionate belief in the ideals first enunciated by the United Irishmen and now best seen in the political philosophy of Nobel laureate John Hume: a belief that all in Ireland should unite under the common name of "Irishmen" rather than, as has been the case for half a century, the separate names of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. He thus beefed up the Belfast office of the Irish Times and it became the only newspaper on the island of Ireland to provide detailed and comprehensive coverage of the Northern Ireland parliament which was then sitting at Stormont. Douglas Gageby began building political bridges with his "newspaper of record".

He also had a keen concern for the environment, for health and other social and infrastructural issues that previously received little press coverage. He appointed many more specialists to the Irish Times newsroom and coverage expanded greatly. At a time when it was illegal to import, sell or distribute contraceptives in the Republic of Ireland, he ran a series of articles on contraception despite running the risk that the newspaper might be banned by the State censor. It was not and its sales rose steadily to 70,000 a day by the time Gageby retired in 1974. He was brought back as editor in 1977 and, when he finally retired in 1988, another 10,000 copies per day had been added to the circulation.

In 1987, he was appointed chairman of a special committee set up by the National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) to examine freedom of the press in Ireland. Under his chairmanship the committee produced the first report on Press Freedom and Libel (by Professor Kevin Boyle and Law Lecturer Maria McGonagle), pointing out the constraints on Irish media imposed by the out-dated and one-sided defamation laws. The committee was later to make a submission to the Irish Law Reform Commission arguing for a change in those laws and even submitted a draft bill to the government.

The Committee also recommended the setting up of readers’ representatives in every newspaper and the establishment of regular corrections and clarifications columns. These steps were taken and, although the costs of potential libel suits have fallen somewhat, the laws have not yet been changed. Even so, Douglas Gageby contributed greatly with NNI to getting a national debate underway.

Throughout his career, Gageby was always more concerned with the responsibilities of newspapers as a service to their community, than with any power they might have in that community. His motto might have been: "the people need to know".

Though never formally designated as crime correspondent, Veronica Guerin made the Sunday Independent crime beat her own.

Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s was beset by organised crime, a problem about which the public was largely unaware and the police almost powerless against. Guerin was almost single-handedly responsible for exposing the full extent of the gangs’ activities and the "untouchabililty" of their leaders, men who were making fortunes from crime, mainly drugs.

She viewed her job as telling people the truth by shedding light into the darker corners of society. With the endearing zeal often found in those who come late to the profession, she saw the role of the reporter in society in simple terms: there are good guys and bad guys, and journalists are supposed to be on the side of the good guys.

Not surprisingly Guerin incurred the anger of the gangsters and was once shot in the leg at her home in what she believed was a bungled assassination attempt. Colleagues and family pressured her to stop writing about crime but, although the Sunday Independent offered her a career move, she refused to be intimidated. And when she was honoured with a special award for bravery at the Journalist of the Year ceremony, she was briefly annoyed because she suspected it might have had more to do with the bungled assassination attempt than with her work.

Guerin was dismissive of any suggestion that she was courageous. She knew there were risks and she knew real fear. She didn’t want 24-hour protection, like a showbiz celebrity with bodyguards front and rear. She had a choice in dealing with intimidation: give it up or go on. She chose forcefully to go on.

On 26 June 1996 Veronica Guerin was gunned down in her car while returning to Dublin. The police put unprecedented resources into the search for her murderers and to date one man has been convicted of her murder and is serving a life sentence. Two others are awaiting trial.

Her death horrified the nation and forced the government to introduce effective legislation to counter serious crime. The police, using that legislation, which includes the power to seize criminals’ assets, have made substantial progress. Every major newspaper now has a crime correspondent and the activities of major criminals are covered exhaustively.

Today Ireland still has problems with drugs and crime as it always will. But it is now a very uncomfortable place for the criminal godfathers to operate.