"On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information"
About this Quote
The intent is defensive and quietly confrontational. She’s not romanticizing militants or claiming neutrality as a halo; she’s staking out journalism as an institution with its own mandate. “Prohibit media contact” carries the chill of bureaucracy, the language of lawful suppression. “We have always gone ahead” is plainspoken, almost stubborn, a reminder that censorship often arrives wearing a suit and a rationale. Her emphasis on “the right to information” shifts the argument away from whether the IRA deserves airtime and toward whether the public deserves unfiltered access to reality, including its uglier agents.
The subtext is about power: governments don’t just fight wars with police and armies; they fight them with narratives. By blocking contact, officials seek to narrow the range of imaginable outcomes and acceptable sympathies. Adie implies that once journalists accept those constraints, they become an extension of state strategy, not watchdogs.
Contextually, this is also about risk and method. Talking to the IRA wasn’t an abstract ethics seminar; it meant negotiating safety, legal pressure, public outrage, and accusations of giving “oxygen” to terror. Adie’s sentence is a compact argument for why the press cannot outsource its judgment to politicians in moments when judgment matters most.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Adie, Kate. (2026, January 18). On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/on-the-northern-ireland-question-for-instance-the-12317/
Chicago Style
Adie, Kate. "On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/on-the-northern-ireland-question-for-instance-the-12317/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/on-the-northern-ireland-question-for-instance-the-12317/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.
