‘Northern Slant Hosts’ is our new series of interviews with people in public life on key issues affecting Northern Ireland. In the first episode Roger Greer speaks with Conall McDevitt. Conall is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hume Brophy Communications, a public relations firm. He previously served as MLA for South Belfast, a special advisor at Stormont, and Director of Communications for the SDLP.

Conall McDevitt has been involved in politics, the political process, policy, and public affairs across Ireland for many years.

An incredibly interesting person and a fantastic communicator, Conall spoke about his early life and how it shaped his path to politics; his work during the Good Friday negotiations and as a special advisor in the first Northern Ireland Executive; his resignation as an MLA, and his hopes for Northern Ireland’s future.

You can watch our full conversation below, or listen on Spotify if you’re on the go. You can also read some highlights from the Q&A below.

I started by asking Conall about his thoughts on identity as a fluid concept, how his early life shaped this thinking, and how he found himself involved in politics.

I was born in Dublin. Aged nine-and-a-half we moved to the South of Spain – to Malaga, to Andalucía. And I didn’t set foot in Ireland again until I was a man, until I was 19. So it taught me a lot about who I am. I am an immigrant. I walked in the shoes of a child immigrant, like many unfortunately across the continent and across the world in the past decade. So therefore I am Irish. There is no question about that. I am a true blue, Hill 16 Dub. That sense of identity is rooted in the first nine years of my life. That’s where it comes from. It comes from playing for St Sylvester’s [GAA team] in Mallahyde as a little nipper in under-10s.

Then I go to Spain. I arrive in Spain in 1982 at the emergence of the Spanish democratic era. I become part by accident, by happenstance in what’s known as the transition generation in Spain. The generation of people who were children in that transfer of power from dictatorship to democracy, who are building the modern Spain. I am the same age as the current Prime Minister. 

But I arrived in a particular part of Spain – Andalucía, in the south. It is a place apart. For 700 years it was part of the Moorish Empire. It had one foot in the Muslim world and one foot in the Christian world. It is the bridgehead between two great civilisations; two great faiths. And therefore there is a big part of me that is Adaluz. I speak the language, I speak it with the accent. I am a product of their system. It shaped me. 

Then I returned to Ireland, and by happenstance had the opportunity to work with the SDLP, and so I moved to Belfast. There’s a nice side-story that says my family were from Belfast originally. Was that relevant? No, probably not. The most relevant thing was the opportunity to be part of the John Hume project. To be part of Hume and his vision and the dream. And so I became a Northerner by choice – and I am very proud to be a Northerner by choice. I’m still a Dub. And if you get me talking about football – soccer that is – I’m still from Malaga. 

So my life experience of identity is that it is not binary. We live in this era where we are able to talk very openly and honestly about so many other aspects of identity – gender identity and sexual identity. And I believe national and regional identities are equally as fluid, and believe that one of the greatest and most empowering things that any of us can do is to understand the complexity and richness of your own identity and to celebrate it. 

So yeah, I am both Irish and Northern Irish; but when I’m here I’m a Mexican because that’s how you Nordies like to talk about us. Whilst I’m one of you, I am not.

I’m absolutely Andalusian, and proud of it. I am a Spanish unionist, in that I believe in the integrity of the 1978 Constitution in Spain, which means that my political ideologies in terms of nationalisms are contrary and contradictory whether I see it through a Spanish lens or an Irish lens. 

The Irish person in me would love to see a new Ireland. The Spanish in me does not want to see Cataluna go independent. And people say ‘well how can you be all those things?’ – and of course you can. Life is a wonderful, beautiful series of rich questions and contradictions. And those of us who live it to the fullest are just those of us who are able to get our heads around those contradictions and turn them into liberating things, rather than prisons for ourselves.

And you turned a number of those contradictions and that journey into becoming Director of Communications for the SDLP during the Good Friday Agreement negotiations, and following that a special advisor at Stormont. Would you say that was a challenging but rewarding time to be involved in Northern Ireland politics?

Hugely. Being Director of Communications during the Good Friday Agreement process was a highlight of my career. It felt like having a premiership soccer career without having been half good at soccer. But it peaked when I was 25! It was the most special moment in our history. I will never ever ever ever ever lose the feeling of history, of momentousness that was present around that time, and I wish we could recapture some of that spirit today. 

Being in the first Executive was also a wonderful experience. It wasn’t without its challenges. Government is difficult. As Churchill said about democracy, ‘the worst form of government except all the others’. It’s meant to be difficult. It’s meant to be hard and challenging. That first Executive did great work. It laid the foundations for a new Northern Ireland. I’d like to think that those foundations remain pretty solid despite everything. It certainly showed that power sharing can work, even though it is the most challenging form of democratic government that you ever have to try and work. It can work. It dealt with certain crises very well.

And that’s the great lesson from me from the GFA process and the first Executive. This region is a region. It’s a matter of fact. For its people to flourish, it must succeed irrespective of what constitutional framework it might be operating in.

You were dragged to the frontline of politics in 2010. There weren’t too many MLAs at the time who understood the parliamentary theatre, and could do that part of the job. You seemed to thrive in that regard. Did you enjoy that part of the role? What dragged you back into politics and onto the front line as an MLA?

First of all, being an MLA was the greatest honour of my life. There is no question about that. Being given the opportunity to serve your community is a wonderful thing. And also being given the responsibility and power to make the law; to be one of the very few who have the opportunity to shape the future by laying down statute. Central to making good law is open, honest discourse. It is debate. It is being able to fundamentally disagree with somebody openly and honestly. So, the debating chamber of any Assembly and Parliament – and particularly Stormont –  must be a place where honest and open debate can happen. I always felt it was my duty to debate when I was in that chamber. Not to make statements, to debate.

For me, those few years in the Assembly were years where I felt there was an urgency to make change, whether it was by promoting the liberal agenda that I would be – I guess – perceived to be very much supportive of, or whether it was campaigning for people who had been voiceless for many decades, most notably the victims of historic institutional abuse in this region. The thing I’m most proud of during my tenure in the Assembly is my role in getting that inquiry off the ground and getting their voice heard. 

That is what Assemblies are about. They are about shining lights in dark corners and holding people and society to account, about moving us forward through discourse and disagreement. In order to get to agreement, you first have to go through the phase of disagreement. The place to work those things through is the main chamber and the committees in Stormont. It is the job and it was a great privilege and a great honour to do it.

In 2013 you stepped down as an MLA in relation to the transition from the private sector to becoming an MLA. Given what many other public figures before and since have done and lived through politically, do you ever think about what might have been if you had stuck around? 

No – I fell below the standards expected of someone with the great privilege of holding the office I held. I am very acutely aware that we are in the early stages of our process of reconciliation, of our process of region building here in Northern Ireland, and I am very acutely aware of the precedence we must all set. So I am afraid I don’t regret having to take the decision I took. I regret deeply ending up in that position. I’ve laid awake many nights asking myself why I was so incompetent, frankly, in that aspect of my duty of care to myself and my constituents and my party, my family and my colleague. But I was. When you make a mistake on something like that, you have to hold yourself accountable. You cannot go into a committee and hold public servants and ministers accountable if you are not willing to put yourself under the same level of scrutiny. 

I also believe, for what it’s worth, that none of us should see politics as a career. It’s not. It’s not a career. It is a vocation that is within you and you will likely have your entire life. But the privilege of serving in a parliament or holding high office is that: it is a privilege. You are serving. You are serving with all sorts of conditions and all sorts of constraints. When you compromise those conditions or constraints, the first point of responsibility must be oneself. So no, I don’t regret for a second what I did. I can sleep at night because of what I did.

And I thank you for your kind words, Roger. One of the most affirming things about my decision was what happened in the weeks after. I think we counted them one day, there were nearly 1,000 letters which came from around here, from around my part of town, and from these islands, just to say thank you. I would rather have done that and have been thanked good service and for having taken responsibility, than to have stayed and never have had the moral integrity to be able to make the change I believed in.

Do you get more done now [in your role as CEO at Hume Brophy] than you did as an MLA?

Not politically, no. [In] the Northern Ireland Assembly, every MLA has a huge amount of influence and power if they just figure out how to use it, and how to use the system. That is true in Scotland as well. Devolved administrations are very powerful places, and people who have the opportunity to serve in devolved administrations have a lot more power than a lot of people who sit in Westminster and who are never able to serve in high offices of state. 

I [now] run a business. We have a great privilege of representing commercial, state, non-government organisations around the world, not just in public affairs space and public relations space. It is fascinating work. You get to be involved in some of the most interesting global debates of our era. You get to remain very actively involved in big conversations, but you are just a service provider. And you are not a political agent. 

What I do today is fascinating. For anyone who is a political junkie and doesn’t want to be in elected office it is a great career. It is a wonderful privilege. We are speaking in the middle of the morning here, and I’ve had a few calls with Asia this morning about things which are going down on that side of the world. Really fascinating stuff. We were talking about the Australian election coming up next year and some of the issues which may or may not come to the fore. That’s like being let loose in the chocolate shop when you are a political junkie. It is very very rewarding from a career point of view as well.

Could you be tempted back into politics again anywhere in Ireland? 

At this moment in time, no. We have a job of work to do here with our teams. We are building a company. We are the largest independent consultancy in what we do. The first ever global agency of our type to emerge from Ireland. We are very proud of that. There are a fair few years of work ahead of us yet. We’ll stick at that.

I do want Northern Ireland to succeed. I passionately Northern Ireland to succeed. I do not want us to pass up the opportunity to make it a success. I don’t believe I am needed, or anyone from my generation are needed to make that happen. I believe there is a current generation who need to share that ambition and share that drive, and need to take it forward themselves, to be honest with you. 

So, no. I have ran my race and that is that.

In Northern Ireland we’ve had a difficult decade, and we’re probably going to go into a difficult 2021 and beyond. What are your hopes for NI over the next few years?

My hopes are that this region will find its equilibrium – find a way to succeed as a region. Whether that is a region within the United Kingdom or a region on the Ireland of Ireland, that is secondary. The principal and most important duty of its leaders – and the test by which they must be held accountable – is whether they can make is succeed as a region.

You’ll not be surprised to hear that I consider Brexit to be a great tragedy; but the Northern Ireland protocol provides great opportunities, economically, for enterprising people in this region. I wish to see them supported to take full advantage of those opportunities. That means being Northern Irish and being able to trade as Northern Irish businesses, whether it’s through the Republic of Ireland to the European Union or to the United Kingdom through Northern Ireland. 

To do that people need to unlock their minds a little bit, drop the guard just a tiny bit and stop thinking about an identity and start thinking about the one thing that they [the Assembly] do have power, agency and control over, which is social policy, economic policy, education policy in this region.

I am Darwinian. If you were to ask anyone in Hume Brophy about Conall’s approach to leadership, they would say he believes that organisations have to adapt always. Constantly adapt to the changing world around them. This region needs to learn to be a bit Darwinian itself, and adapt to the realities that is within. Brexit is one. Covid-19, this terrible pandemic is another. But if we learn to adapt, we also by definition will learn to cooperate and collaborate better, and we will understand that compromise is not a dirty word; but a beautiful, special, empowering thing that unlocks that great richness that our diversity should be driving through. 

You know, it’s going to be tough; but it’s all there. It’s all there in front of anyone. We just have to take advantage of it.

This interview is available as a podcast on Spotify.