offalyhistoryblog

The closure in 2012 of Offaly Express, where I served as a staff reporter from 1988 to 2007, marked the end of an era in local journalism.

When I was a schoolboy, living in Tullamore, the dominant local paper was the Offaly Independent, though the Midland Tribune circulated to a degree from Birr. The growth of Tullamore led to a feeling that a specifically local paper was needed, and in 1978, the Tullamore Tribune was launched, under the editorship of the late Geoff Oakley. He remained in that post until he retired in 1994, when he was succeeded by Ger Scully.

The Offaly Express emerged as a sister paper of the Portlaoise-based Leinster Express, which began to circulate around Tullamore in 1984, though it already had a presence in Edenderry and the eastern half of Offaly. Much of the credit for the Offaly edition must lie with the late Kevin Farrell, who would surely have enjoyed the irony of the fact that his death in July 2012 took place the very day on which the Offaly Express ceased publication and that it had to hold on to report the sad news of his passing.

Kevin was a colleague from my first days with the paper, along with the late Eddie Rogers. I can’t exaggerate how much I learnt from both men. I had already worked on a freelance basis for the Express when I began to work in journalism in 1985 and, after a year and a half with Offaly Independent in 1987-88, got a full-time post with the Express.

While I worked with numerous journalists in my time there, too numerous to mention, those with whom I worked for significant periods were Alan Walsh, who became news editor and is now editor of the Longford Leader; Damian Moran, who became sports editor for both Offaly and Leinster Express and is now editorial hub manager with Iconic Newspapers in Portlaoise; Vivienne Clarke, now a journalist in Dublin; Conor McHugh (now national organizer with the Social Democrats), Gearóid Keegan (now deputy editor of the Tullamore Tribune), Kevin Corrigan (now sports editor of the latter title) and Paul Rouse (now a history lecturer in UCD). Eoghan MacConnell, now with Leinster Express also cut his teeth there, while I worked from time to time with David Power, who was mainly based in Portlaoise, and who now also works with Iconic in Portlaoise as a multimedia journalist.

Christy Donegan, of course, was the compositor in Tullamore. Accounts and advertising staff included Marc Lynch, Charlie Quinn, Patricia Hanlon, Siobhan Godley, Emer Egan, Joleen Hall, Rose Ciamberlano, Deirdre Meehan, Patricia Wallis, Anne Marie Phelan, Eveleen Devery, Karen O’Connor and Alison Casey – my apologies if I have left anyone out, but I am thinking of those with whom I worked for significant periods.

Photographers with whom I worked included Ger Rogers, himself an old schoolmate and a son of Eddie, along with Jeff Harvey and his father Alf, as well as Richard May, Joe O’Sullivan, Mary Dunne, Kevin Byrne and the late Jim Yorke.

My first editor was, of course, the legendary Teddy Fennelly, who describes his own memories here: https://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/home/228906/the-leinster-express-through-the-years-and-memories-of-the-70s-80s-and-90s.html?fbclid=IwAR0O5Vv83Ay_bOiqyyrA6qdAFGnJZ8llqxy2q613ZBqV8lqLEFSg38V3VMs

Now retired, he was renowned for his knowledge of Laois history and I always found him a great employer. The second was the equally legendary John Whelan, now a PR consultant with Communicate Ireland.

The co-owners in the early days were Teddy Fennelly and Derry Quinn, whom I always found to be a thorough gentleman. Later, the paper became part of the Leinster Leader group, which, in turn, was acquired later by the Scottish-based Johnston Press.

Part of a wider trend of acquisition of newspaper groups by large conglomerates, it was ultimately to prove the undoing of Offaly Express, as Johnston Press came to the conclusion they had spent too much on their Irish titles and sought, unsuccessfully, to sell them in 2009 before closing Offaly Express and Donegal on Sunday in 2012, as well as reducing the number of editors.

It is a striking fact that none of the journalists who were with Offaly Express at the end now work for Offaly-based media.

In terms of technology, I am old enough to have used manual typewriters, which were in use in the Offaly Independent when I worked there, and it was only when I joined Offaly Express that I began to use computers.

Of course, IT skills have become ever more complex since then, and are one of the reasons why journalism jobs are so much in decline – one person now has to do what three or four did before, with reporters being expected to do what photographers and compositors did before. The virtual disappearance of compositors is a regrettable aspect of modern media trends and I always found the Portlaoise comps very helpful.

It can truthfully be said that it has never been so easy to get published as today, but never so difficult to get paid!

Being a sister paper of Leinster Express, much of my work, of course, related to Laois as well as Offaly, whether it was coverage of the politics of Laois-Offaly, of meetings of the old Midland Health Board, or issues of farming or policing.

Of course, one of the great problems the Express faced in Tullamore down the years was that many considered us a Laois paper, or a ‘farmers’ paper’ and did not see us as genuinely a ‘Tullamore’ paper, unlike the Tribune, which is why the latter always tended to have more exclusives.

However, John Whelan saw the ‘farmers’ paper’ epithet as an asset in covering agriculture.

For a time, we sought to cover all of Offaly, but in time there was a retrenchment, and the view of John Whelan was that there was no point in trying to cover areas like Birr or Ferbane, heartlands of the Tribune, though Alan Walsh’s unrivalled hurling coverage ensured there would always be good sales in south and west Offaly.

In terms of stories I wrote which attracted national media coverage, the most memorable but saddest was, of course, the 1997 interview with the boyfriend of the missing Tullamore woman Fiona Pender.

I spent an hour and a half sitting in a van with him, questioning him about his prepared statement, but was surprised at the level of national media coverage which followed.

Of course, Fiona, who went missing in 1996, has never been found, and our thoughts and prayers must remain with her brother John. I was always conscious of the courtesy and hospitality shown to me by her late parents Seán and Josephine when I called to their home at Connolly Park in relation to the search.

Josephine showed incredible courage and perseverance in highlighting the need to continue the search for Fiona and her unborn child. Having also lost her other son Mark, and her husband, she gave a tremendous example to all of us.

The closure of Offaly Express made clear to me that there was not going to be any future for me in journalism. An ill-fated return from London, where I had worked for the Romford Recorder and then as a sub with Associated Press, saw me made redundant in the economic crash by another title.

After returning to England I retrained a number of times for various roles.

It is ironic that, with the closure of the Offaly Express and the reduction of the Offaly Independent from a three-reporter, paid-for, title, to a free-sheet run from Athlone and Mullingar, the Tullamore and Midland Tribunes dominate the Offaly media scene to a degree one could never have imagined twenty years ago.

That said, the Tribune was, as earlier stated, always the dominant paper in the town of Tullamore, with the Express being associated more with the villages and rural areas of east Offaly, such as Geashill, Clonbullogue, Daingean and Walsh Island.

For that reason, it was no surprise that the Tribune did not expand staff following the Express closure – in fact, the intervening years have seen a reduction in both news and advertising staff in the Tribune group.

In 2019, Iconic Newspapers, who had acquired the remaining Republic of Ireland titles from Johnston Press (now JPI), purchased the Tullamore and Midland Tribunes, which were the sole remaining Republic of Ireland titles in the northern-based Alpha Group. That group had earlier closed a number of titles south of the border.

The acquisition, which was given the go-ahead the following year, officially underlined that there was effectively just one local paper in Tullamore – a far cry from the days when visiting politicians like Des O’Malley were gobsmacked at the presence of three local titles.

The merger of the Offaly Express website (which had survived the closure of the print title and consequent redundancies) with that of the Tullamore Tribune was a further sign of consolidation on the media scene.

The website, edited by Damian Moran, combines reports from the latter title with those of other midland titles in the Iconic group, namely Leinster Express and Longford Leader.

Of course, the younger generation are now getting their news online and thus the demand for the traditional local newspaper has greatly declined. Social media remains an ever-present threat to print media.