Garbhan Downey

Garbhán Downey has spent more than 25 years in the publishing industry in northwest Ireland as a journalist, broadcaster, editor and novelist. Since 2004, he has published eight novels and two short story collections set in the criminal underbelly of post-ceasefire Ireland.

His books have been described as “a superb blend of comedy, political dirty tricks, grisly murder and bizarre twists”. He has edited more than twenty works of non-fiction, including City of Music: Derry’s Music Heritage, 2013: A LegenDerry Year The Story of Derry’s City of Culture Year, and Feast or Famine: A Cultural Food Journey of the Northwest of Ireland – which won two ‘Best in the World’ Gourmand Awards.

Downey cut his teeth in journalism editing University College Galway’s campus magazine, while Vice-President of the Student Union there in the late 1980s. Later, while serving as Deputy-President of the Union of Students in Ireland, he wrote for USI News and several International Union of Students (IUS) journals. After completing his BA in UCG (French and Latin) and an MSc (IT) at UU Jordanstown, Downey worked as an entertainments columnist with the Derry Journal and then as a staff reporter with the Londonderry Sentinel, before moving to the Irish News to become the paper’s Derry correspondent.His offbeat reports of the 1994 World Cup for the Irish News were subsequently compiled for his first book, Just One Big Party.

Downey spent six years as a BBC news producer in Derry and Belfast, before joining the Derry News as editor in 2001. The Derry News won two Newspaper Society awards for Fastest Circulation Growth in the UK during his tenure.