This much I know: Niall O’Dowd

Ronald Reagan once said ‘Home is where they have to take you in’ — I like that idea.

Although I live in New York, I still return ‘home’ to Dublin and Drogheda, where my family now mostly live.

I tell young people all the time not to plan their lives down to the last detail — let it unfold. I left for the States in 1978, but I never consciously emigrated. One year just led to the next.

My plan was simply to see America and go as far West as I could. Ireland seemed very narrow at the time. Before I founded my first newspaper I worked in construction, started a painting company and generally just got by. The GAA helped me enormously to build up a circle of friends.

Being an emigrant makes you a stranger in two countries and coping with that reality is a constant challenge.

I’ve been interested in political affairs as far back as I can remember — my father was a huge follower of de Valera and politics was always around. Two of my brothers Fergus, now a Minister of State and Michael, former Mayor of Drogheda, went into politics.

The secret to diplomacy is persistence. It took from 1991 to 2008 before the Irish peace process finally worked out.

I will never forget the moment I realised what had happened on 9/11. I had just dropped my daughter off to day care on Manhattan’s upper east side when a friend rang to tell me. I collected my daughter, went back to our apartment building and watched this horrific plume of smoke begin to spread across the city.

I liken the feeling to being in an earthquake, something which I experienced in San Francisco: suddenly the very certainties of life no longer hold. We had no idea if there was a nuclear component, or if the attack was the first of many.

I knew immediately who was responsible. I had just finished a book by a colleague on the 1993 bombing of the WTC by militant Islamists and I guessed they had come back to finish the job.

9/11 changed the world for the worst — it got George Bush re-elected and created wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that we are still fighting. But, the way the city responded in the immediate aftermath was magnificent. The humanity and the outpouring of love was incredible.

I knew many families who lost people in the attacks. The way they handled it, with such grace and fortitude, inspired me to tell their stories in my book ‘Fire in the Morning’.

I try my best to have some kind of balance in my life but my wife would say I work too hard — I always have another story to break.

My worst habit is obsessing over things, be it a story or some detail of my life. I have to learn to let go.

I have a passion for horse racing. I spend my vacation at Saratoga in upstate New York where they have six weeks of the equivalent of the Galway Races.

The best advice I ever got is that you can make a difference when you really try. Don’t be intimidated by titles, or power, or conventional wisdom.

My heroes are Bill Clinton: for what he did for peace in Ireland. John F Kennedy for what he did for the Irish in America and Ireland. And Paul O’Dwyer, Mayo-born New York activist and lawyer, who fought oppression all his life.

Niall O’Dowd is an Irish journalist and author living in Manhattan whose book ‘Fire In The Morning’, about Irish people during the 9/11 attacks, reached number two on the Irish best seller list. He is founder of the Irish Voice newspaper and Irish America magazine, as well as overseeing the magazine Home and Away. He recently launched irishcentral.com