Experts - Northern Ireland
After decades of sectarian violence, Northern Ireland is witnessing a period of significant political stability.
Experts By Location
Mervyn Jess
Jess started his career on a weekly paper, moving to broadcast as a reporter for eight years with Northern Ireland’s biggest independent radio station. He has been a Senior Broadcast Journalist with BBC Northern Ireland since 1988.
He has covered most major incidents in Northern Ireland over the last 30 years including bombings at Enniskillen, Shankill, the La Mon hotel and Omagh. From the mid 1990s Mervyn Jess was charged with handling the parades brief for BBC Northern Ireland working on events surrounding the Drumcree and Holy Cross disputes. He is one of the most experienced reporters in Northern Ireland in terms of covering civil unrest and street violence.
During his period covering the parading issue a Dublin publisher commissioned him to write The Orange Order.
He was deployed by the BBC to Washington and Colombia to cover the arrest and trial of IRA/FARC suspects discovered at a base in the jungles of South America. He has also reported from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Born in Comber in County Down, he is married with two grown-up daughters.
