COMMENT: Great memories after 30 years of local newspapers

THIS month, I celebrate something of a milestone as I mark 30 years working for this local newspaper group.

Back in January 1989, there was just one edition of Northside People – it would be another six years before we published a Southside paper. Somewhat bizarrely, the office was located on Rathfarnham Main Street. The reality was that most of the staff were Southsiders.

At 19-years-of-age, I didn’t have much experience of the interview process but was quickly put at ease by editor Joe Lowry. To me, he seemed like a man of the world who had been in the newspaper business for years. In truth, he was a 23-year-old Rathmines College journalism graduate who had only recently taken up his position.

The next stage of the interview involved Joe introducing me to the paper’s then co-owner, Sylvia Webb.

“Do you drink?” was the first thing she asked me. 

I sat there, frozen, trying to think of the correct response.

“I take the occasional pint,” I told her.

“Good,” she said. “We don’t want any squares working here.”

And that was it. A few days later, I received a letter in the post informing me that I had been appointed as trainee reporter. The money wasn’t great at first but I knew it would be an ideal place to cut my teeth in journalism.

And it certainly was. One of my first ‘exclusives’ was an interview with the remaining members of Aslan after they went their separate ways with troubled singer Christy Dignam. 

I also managed to annoy then Taoiseach Charlie Haughey when I criticised him in an article I wrote about the Stardust victims, resulting in an angry phone call from his legendary PR handler, PJ Mara. 

After five years, Joe Lowry decided to take up a position overseas with the GOAL aid agency, moving later to the Red Cross and then the International Organisation for Migration. In 1994, I was appointed as his successor and oversaw the launch of a second edition of Northside People, followed soon after by the first Southside People.

By the mid-nineties, we had outgrown our small office in Rathfarnham so made the bold move across the Liffey to Omni Park in Santry, where we have remained since. 

I have had the privilege of working with some incredible people over the past 30 years and formed many enduring friendships at Dublin People, particularly with Joe Lowry and the now retired sales manager, Ray O’Neill. We lost a few dear friends along the way, most notably Sylvia Webb and sales executive Noel Mullen – one of Dublin’s great characters who had zero tolerance for political correctness.

While I am the longest serving member of staff, there are others not too far behind me. Many of my colleagues have raised their children, from birth to adulthood, while working here. As a team, we have shared in each other’s successes, achievements, celebrations and struggles.

It has been an eventful three decades, to put it mildly. But nothing can come close to the precious memories of those early days of 1989.