British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced the creation of a special Foreign Office team to assist IRA victims’ families in their search for compensation from the government of the Libyan Jamahuriyah. What about the victims of loyalist violence? The dogs in the street are aware of British intelligence involvement in the Talbot St. bombings in Dublin. Will Mr Brown give compensation to surviving vifctims of this atrocity I wonder?
It was with immense sadness that I learned of the closure of the Cavan Echo. This will be looked back upon by future generations as a brave and courageous venture in Cavan journalism. The Cavan Echo showed a new way in local journalism, one which demonstrated that “local” need not mean parochial or sub=standard when compared with journalism at a national level.
I am eternally grateful to Declan Young for asking me to get involved, and through my contributions I had the joy of working with great editors like P.J., Michael and Ian, as well as making the friendship of Mairtin and Deborah in Belfast.
Innumerable are the friends I have made through my column. It was as if I discovered a whole new reservoir of colleagues, of whose previous existence I could only dream. Many enjoyed my Echoes of the Past, and their joy was matched by mine in writing them. I felt that I was able to rescue history from the clutches of shortsighted and self-interested “historians” and give it back to its rightful owners, the ordinary people of Cavan whose ancestors had lived through it and made it in the first place.
I am planning to bring out a book containing a selection of my Echo pieces. However, I have no intention of writing any more Echoes. The concept and format must die with the paper I feel.
The Cavan Echo’s demise was due to the downturn in the economy. It is ironic in this country which pays such lip service to the principals of the free market that private-sector institutions have been allowed to go onto the rocks un-mourned, while certain others associated especially with local government continue to receive a seemingly inexhaustible supply of public funds which are in such short supply that even the widow’s mite is now under threat. I am thinking here especially of that bloated, superannuated white elephant in Ballyjamesduff, which remains open even though it has never made any money, and continues to resolutely haemorrhages it, while council staff members are let go because of a lack of funds to pay them.
After I departed from the Echo I mentioned my plight to a friend who has good contacts with a much longer established local newspaper here. He made enquiries on my behalf as to whether they might like to benefit from my availability by employing me. While senior members of staff promised to contact us they never did. They passed over the possibility of explaining to me that they too were in financial straits and were thus prevented from taking me on. But it seemed as if they could not lower themselves to do this. Were they afraid that a hand would emerge from the telephone? But even if they were cash rich, how could they employ me? What would their masters in Cavan County Council say? The knights would be appalled. It seemed as if my copy, freely given to them (if for a fee) was not as tasty as stealing my words and applying a staff member’s (though now thankfully retired) by-line to them. A short ‘phone call would have helped to establish contact and trust. Instead I had to make do with a visit from the sniggering, bad-minded racist who informed me that I might think I was bad, but longer-established i.e. better columnists had been let go by the local newspaper. Needless to say he bellyached about how little the paper was paying him for photographs –something he no doubt put down to foreigners.
The upshot of the above is: You had your chance Anglo-Celt, but the Echoes of the Past are dead like the Monty Python parrot.
