Ben Lowry: Memorial service in east Belfast was for a pop music journalist whose magazine I remember as a teenager
This week I was at the memorial service for Barry McIlheney held in east Belfast, a music writer.
We were covering the event, at St Mark’s Church of Ireland, but I also wanted to pay journalistic respects to Mr McIlheney, 67, who died suddenly in Spain, where he lived.
I am sorry to say that I never met him. But his past struck a chord with me. Mr McIlheney edited a pop music magazine Smash Hits, which my generation will remember well. It has particular resonance with me because in 1983, nearing age 11, I moved from reading comics to a music magazine Number One. It was set up as a rival to Smash Hits, which was then biweekly (Number One was weekly). In 1986, Mr McIlheney became editor of Smash Hits, which was a fine publication. That was when I began to lose interest in pop and got more interested in politics, but I now learn that he greatly increased its sales, and won the circulation war.
He then went on to become the first editor of the film magazine Empire, amid many other achievements. Like many people from Belfast, he stayed in close touch with NI. Among the tributes paid was one by the Anglican archbishop John McDowell, who knew Mr McIlheney as a teen. The service included fine hymns and a rendition of Gabriel Fauré’s Pie Jesu by Ms Olive Edebiri – alumna of Cliftonville Primary School, which he attended.