Gregory McCartney states: ‘I am very pleased to be given the opportunity to be the editor of the HU. I realise that without publications such as the HU to blaze a trail there would be no magazines such as Abridged with which it shares a healthy iconoclastic attitude. I will endeavour to continue its tradition of subverting tradition and expectation as well as bringing to the fore the best of local and international writing and art. Whilst this isn’t a time of revolution (or at least not of healthy ones) it is a time of battle as the world seems to be shifting to a conservatism that threatens individual rights of expression and creativity there is a need for a vehicle to point out the rights, wrongs, beauty, darkness and absurdities of contemporary life as well as occasionally offer a competing perspective to the grand narratives that tend to surround us’.

The Honest Ulsterman originated in the late 1960s at a time of political turmoil not only throughout the world but particularly in Northern Ireland.  Its creator and first editor was James Simmons.  The magazine it would subsequently be edited for the next 20 years by Frank Ormsby.  Later editors would include Ruth Carr, Tom Clyde and Frank Sewell, its last print issue being 2003. It was revived by the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry as an online magazine (http://www.humag.co/) with the first three online issues edited by Darran Anderson.

From its beginnings HU has presented Northern Irish writers alongside poets, prose-writers and critics from around the world. Early issues included work by Stevie Smith and Tony Harrison, as well as by Gavin Ewart, who continued to contribute until his death. It went on to include work from all parts of Ireland and Britain, the USA and Canada, Australia and many other places. Its beginning coincided with the emergence of a remarkable generation of poets, including Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and Derek Mahon, but it also provided an early, often the first, platform for subsequent waves of writers such as Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, Medbh McGuckian, and numerous others.

We would like to welcome Greg McCartney to the Honest Ulsterman and look forward to his tenure at the helm. We’re sure it will be an interesting journey.