The Gown

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The Gown, is the independent student newspaper at Queen's University, Belfast. It was formed by Richard Herman, a medical student, in April, 1955 and in 2005 Dr Herman was able to attend the papers 50th Anniversary. The paper is run voluntarily by students, and is funded entirely by advertising without University or Student Union assistance. From terrorism to teletubbies, prostitution parties to political protests, The Gown has reported it all, providing a colourful account of life within the University and within Northern Ireland.

Throughout the Troubles, a term used to describe the 30 years of political violence in Northern Ireland, the newspaper covered the deaths of local MP, Robert Bradford and the murder of Queen's university lecturer and Assembly member Edgar Graham in 1983. The paper also interviewed Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein during the height of the Provisional Irish Republican Army's campaign. The Gown also interviewed a then little know band called U2.

Past contributors include Mark Carruthers and Maggie Taggart of BBC Northern Ireland, The Observer's Henry McDonald, Nick Ross, journalist Eamonn McCann, Irish Times foreign correspondent Conor O'Cleary and that paper's cartoonist Martyn Turner.