Letter: Remembering my friend and Labour colleague, Brian Garrett

(Read: Liam Kennedy – Brian Garrett was of a lost generation that might have reshaped Northern Ireland if not for the men with guns)

When I look back on 2023, I remember my friend, the lawyer and Labour activist Brian Garrett.

On Monday November 13 family, friends and comrades brought Brian back to Ballynafeigh for his funeral service in St Jude’s Church of Ireland.

A packed church heard of an outstanding student going up to Queen’s University 1958 to study law and the stellar legal career which followed. However in a very real sense we knew the boy and the man never left his roots in the mixed working class community of Raby St and the Ormeau Road.

He remained a life long member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) and UK Labour Party Northern Ireland (UKLPNI) and never forgot his roots in a ‘mixed’ community. My own roots are in the same community and I contested Ballynafeigh in 1965 Stormont election.

At Queen’s in 1958 there was a rite of passage for centre-left students, marching to Aldermaston with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). He told me of standing at the rally with his life long friend Ian J Hill listening to Michael Foot and Kenneth Tynan. I had my rite of passage at Aldermaston in 1960 and went on to set up Queen’s CND.

Our paths never really diverged but sometimes I was unaware of events he had taken part in. One was the founding meeting of Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in the International Hotel 1967. That was the one Gerry Adams records that the republicans were there with instructions to vote for the communists. Brian was there with Cedric Thornberry National Council for Civil Liberties (father of Emily Thornberry). who was also a members of the Labour Lawyers.

Brian suspected that there was a republican strategy at the meeting but Cedric did not seem concerned. Brian supported my role in NICRA and never mentioned his suspicions until years later. In 1972 we worked together the Darlington Conference which was boycotted by John Hume and SDLP so doomed to failure.

Then in 1973 after Sunningdale came the watershed of the Ulster Workers Council strike. I understand Brian as NILP chairman was approached by Harry Murray, before the paramilitaries took control to act a backchannel to civil servants. Brian’s approaches were repulsed with “tell them to go back to work”. Same civil servant ended up negotiating the Belfast Agreement.

Brian was culturally British and Irish. All island co-operation was his aspiration. He served on the Council of Labour in Ireland 1968-71. He worked closely with Conor Cruise O'Brien and served as president of The Irish Association. His service to the arts, Royal Ulster Academy (RUA), Ulster Orchestra, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Lyric Theatre are some examples but he was probably proudest of his work with James Ellis and Martin Lynch as he acted as literary executor for Sam Thompson.

He was especially proud when Over the Bridge was put on in London 2013. Among his many positions he was an arbitrator and he was instrumental in ensuring that NI remained in the 1996 Arbitration Act.

His work with All Children Together ensured that funding which properly for Integrated Education was released by officials reluctant to apply it. Brian was a key advisor for Mike Nesbitt’s defamation bill from 2013 until it became The Act in 2022. (Read: Mike Nesbitt – I am forever grateful to Brian Garett for his support on reforming libel law in Northern Ireland)

He was a pro bono lawyer on a scale we can only guess at. As well as working in a busy commercial practice he was a Deputy County Court Judge until 2010.

Erskine Holmes, Belfast