Influential foreign correspondent Robert Fisk dies at 74



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Veteran foreign author and correspondent Robert Fisk died after suffering a suspected stroke at his home in Dublin.

As the Irish Times reports, it is understood that the journalist felt ill on Friday and was admitted to St Vincent hospital, where he died shortly afterwards. He was 74 years old,

Fisk was one of the most respected and controversial British foreign correspondents of the modern era and was described by the New York Times in 2005 as “probably Britain’s most famous foreign correspondent”.

He had a long relationship with Ireland dating back to 1972 when he moved to Belfast to work as a Northern Ireland correspondent for the London Times at the height of the unrest.

He subsequently did his Ph.D. at Trinity College, completing a thesis on the neutrality of Ireland during World War II. He had a house in Dalkey where he lived for many years.

His career in journalism began with the London Sunday Express but that relationship was brief and he soon moved to the Times.

After making a name for himself reporting from Northern Ireland for that newspaper, Fisk briefly moved to Portugal and then Beirut, where he worked as a Middle East correspondent, once again for the Times.

He covered, among other events, the Lebanese civil war, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war.

He joined the London Independent in 1989 after a dispute with the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper and continued to work for that publication until his death. It is understood that he was planning his return to the Middle East in recent days.

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