Who is the woman in green?
Riddle of the unknown reporter on glass-strewn C rum lin Road who’s featured on cover of new book
AN appeal has gone out for eagle-eyed people in Northern Ireland to help solve the mystery of the woman in green.
The lady in question is a journalist who is featured in a photograph on the cover of a new book, Reporting The Troubles, which contains the reflections of more than 60 writers and broadcasters about the years of violence.
But no-one, including long-inthe-tooth journalists, knows who the mystery woman is.
Deric Henderson and I, the co-compilers of the book, haven’t got a clue.
But we have been inundated with requests to identify the woman and are keen to solve the mystery.
“It’s become a real talking point,” said Deric, the former Ireland editor of the Press Association who also used to work for the Belfast Telegraph.
“We’d loved to know who the journalist is. And we’d be grateful if any readers can come up with an answer.”
It has been established that the picture was taken on the Crumlin Road in Belfast in 1972 in an era when soldiers were still able to wear berets as they patrolled the streets of the city.
The photo shows local people clearing up after a bomb attack not far from Crumlin Road’s junction with Century Street.
In the background is a sign for the Crumlin cinema which closed after the blast.
In the midst of the commotion, a female journalist in a green trouser suit is seen with tape recorder in hand interviewing another woman.
Deric said: “The picture was accessed from a file from a major photographic agency by the publishers but there are no records of who’s in it. I certainly don’t recognise the reporter though I didn’t arrive in Belfast until a year after the explosion.”
Several names have been put forward by other reporters in an attempt to crack the ‘Who’s That Girl?’ puzzler.
One of the most regular suggestions is that it is Maggie Taggart, who works for the BBC. However, Maggie’s journalistic career did not start until the latter part of the 1970s with Downtown Radio.
Several people also said it might be the late Roisin Walsh, the UTV journalist who later married her Havelock House colleague, the late David Dunseith, but she has also been ruled out.
Retired journalist Eddie McIlwaine, who worked in Belfast throughout the Troubles, is also stumped.
“I’ve looked at that cover photograph many, many times but I just can’t come up with a name,” he said.
“Nowadays there are lots of women reporters in Northern Ireland, but in the ’70s it was a male-dominated profession.
“Maybe the girl’s a journalist who’d been sent to Belfast from England or farther afield to cover the Troubles.”
Reporting The Troubles was released in September.
A total of 68 contributors — including Kate Adie, Bill Neely, Gloria Hunniford and Martin Bell — tell their own compelling stories of working in Northern
Ireland during the Troubles.
Anyone who can solve the riddle of the woman in green is asked to contact ivanlittle@live.com