On January 29 2004, the late Ian Paisley made his way to the Irish Embassy in Belgravia London, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace. It was a momentous occasion. For the first time ever, the DUP had outpolled the Ulster Unionist Party and Paisley, as party leader, arrived for his maiden meeting with Bertie Ahern, the then taoiseach, to begin a dialogue that would pave the way towards a new era of power-sharing with Sinn Fein.

“Ian Paisley showed some of his sense of humour on that occasion. That was the meeting he said he wasn’t prepared to accept cooked food. He wanted a boiled egg because they couldn’t poison the boiled egg,” Tommie Gorman, the former Northern Ireland editor for RTÉ, recalled in the fine gold stuccoed reception room of the embassy on Thursday night for the London launch of his autobiography, Never Better: My Life in Our Times.

Hosted by the newly appointed ambassador Martin Fraser, Gorman was interviewed by Dion Fanning of The Currency before an audience including former Northern Ireland secretaries Peter Hain and Julian Smith, and SDLP leader Colum Eastwood.

On another occasion, the veteran broadcaster and journalist recalled arriving at the embassy during a gruelling stint of negotiations to find Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly, who as a provisional IRA member in the 1970s bombed the Old Bailey, having a catnap on the floor in a side room downstairs.

“This place here became so central in the blossoming of relations. It was an ambassador from here who went with a formal letter of invitation with the blessing of the Irish government that led to the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in 2011,” Gorman said.

Attended by personalities from the world of business, politics and journalism, as well as family and friends, the London book launch was held in association with Mason Hayes & Curran, The Currency and the British Irish Chamber of Commerce. 

It was relatively easy. Most sports journalists were on the other side of the world.

Tommie Gorman on his post Saipan interview with Roy Keane

The ambassador said the event was really a celebration of Tommie Gorman who he introduced to those gathered as a “great man and a great friend”. “Like all good people you don’t have to agree with everything Tommie says, and Tommie doesn’t have to agree with everything we think or say or do but we all trust Tommie and we all respect Tommie and we all love Tommie,” he said.

Well-known figures in attendance included restaurateur and sometime Great British Menu judge Oliver Peyton, the former managing director of RTE News and Current Affairs Jon Williams, former political aide and House of Lords member Jonathan Caine, The Guardian’s associate editor for Europe Katherine Butler, and Bloomberg’s Neil Callanan.

In the course of the interview, Gorman spoke about the Good Friday Agreement, Brexit and the deep bonds between Ireland and its UK neighbour, noting that the next five to fifteen years will be very important in British Irish relations. “It’s one of the regrets I have about what happened with Brexit because I think our relationship has got more complicated, more strained and I actually think the EU without Britain is a lesser institution.”

He said the question of a united Ireland was likely to surface as there is a real possibility Sinn Fein will be a party of government in the south after the next election. “If we can achieve a united Ireland in my time and that’s the democratic wish of the people north and south I’d want that to happen. But I’d hate that to happen at the expense of our relationship with the neighbouring island.”

Gorman recalled his lengthy career at RTE, his stint as Europe Editor and how tenacity helped him secure a landmark interview with Roy Keane post-Saipan in 2002. “It was relatively easy,” he said to laughs from the audience. “Most sports journalists were on the other side of the world.” 

“Once Keane came back the word was out that he was going to have his side of the story in I think it was The Mail on Sunday. So most journalists once they got those shots of him walking with the dog and they realised he wasn’t going to be doing interviews, they left. So it’s a bit like if you stay awake, hang on……being there is 90 per cent of journalism.”

Gorman also got a bit of help from his late friend Michael Kennedy, the London-Irish solicitor who advised Irish footballers, including Keane. The veteran broadcaster paid tribute to Kennedy, whose decision to go into law was influenced by the trade union legal support his father had received after suffering life-changing injuries working on a building site in England. 

Returning to his time in Belfast, Gorman discussed the importance of trust in journalism and said the most satisfying part of his job as Northern editor was getting to understand unionism as a Catholic, originally from Co Sligo.

He said at moments like the present when the challenges facing Northern Ireland seem intractable he goes back to the inspiring words of the late SDLP leader John Hume who said “where you have disagreement the only solution is compromise”.

Tommie Gorman is a regular contributor to The Currency. His new book Never Better: My Life in Our Times, published by Allen & Unwin is out now.