DESPERATE Irish Press bosses today failed yet again to stop the XPress when they wheeled out the legal big guns in a bid to put us off the streets. But the XPress is still here - and set to stay - bigger, brighter and better designed than it's ancestors. Father of the Irish Press Chapel of the NUJ Ronan Quinlan yesterday received a letter from top legal firm, William Fry, Solicitors, acting for the Irish Press company which holds the titles of the three papers, claiming that we were breaching copyright.
Now, in what is set to be our biggest circulation boost to date, your XPress has a new fresher look that is set to carry us to even greater success. Unable to ignore us any longer, Vincent Jennings and Eamon DeValera, have reacted to form, and called for the lawyers. The letter from William Fry, acting for Irish Press Publications, tries to dismiss the XPress, even while warning of dire legal consequences. The XPress titles are "certain documents which purport to be publications", says Fry, despite the fact that there is clearly no "purporting" what soever about the XPress. It is a publication, and a very popular one, with a daily readership of 25,000, and rising. Members of the Irish Press Chapel are acting "in concert with others whose identity is unknown" to produce these publications, say the legal eagles mysteriously.
Calling on us to "immediately discontinue the use of our client's trade marks, or any marks resembling them" Fry warns us that, unless we stop the publication of "these materials", its client "will take such action (including injunctive action) as may be necessary to restrain such publication and/or publication (sic), and to hold you and all other parties participating in these activities liable for the damage caused to our client' . In a spirit of charity towards the ill-fated duo who sent 600 workers to the dole queues, we have decided to take note of their sensitivities, by unveiling a new masthead design. It is clearly damaging to the pair for the public to see what a wonderful job we're doing in producing a top class newspaper wlth no money, no resources, and no facilities. But then again, we're used to that.
ESSENTIAL READING: Fianna Fail leader Bertie Ahern and Dick Roche, the Party's candidate in the forthcoming Wicklow by-election, peruse a copy of the XPress.
In last week's fascinating instalment we told you about my entry into mainstream journalism; it was due mainly to my involvement with a famous man, Charlie Lenihan, pioneer farmer and radical politician and publisher of The Taxpayers' News.
When Charlie departed this mortal world, I was asked to write his obituary in The Kerryman; a few weeks later another great friend of mine went to his reward. His name was Sean O' Riada; I was asked again by the good people of our local paper to write a little piece about him. And eventually I was asked to write for The Kerryman on a regular basis; with The Taxpayers' News I had been in main stream journalism; now I was in mainriver. And I couldn't have encountered stormier waters: the trou bles in Northern Ireland were erupting more alarmingly by the day. My role in The Kerryman was more or less that of political writer: it was a dodgy task in those days of wild and whirling words - and worse. I was - and still am - what you might call an international socialist: in simple language, I feel that I have more in common with the Welsh coalminers - when they had coalminers - than with our local capitalists. I had no use for those people, many of them decent men and women, who believed that independence from Britain would bring about a Paradise in the island of Ireland. The self-styled IRA - both Official and Provisional - were not amused: the concept of free speech was not high in their list of values.
In hindsight now I do not see myself as having been brave but merely innocent. And also in hindsight I realise how liberal was the editor of The Kerryman: Con Casey was a devout Catholic and an old-fashioned nationalist - he never asked me to change a word. It was bad enough rejecting the concept of a united Ireland as a barren myth; I did worse. I wrote flowingly about a local man who, as well as being a boat builder and a steel erector,trebled as a poet - and a very good poet he was and still is. His poetry is both Iyrical and political; in my article about him I published some verses that could be interpreted as Marxist. After a few years of my involvement with The Kerry man, the good Con Casey retired; I hasten to add that there was no connection - his time had come. His successor, Seamus McConville, was equally liberal and possibly even braver: the alleged IRA - both factions were now at their most virulent. We survived. All I can say in my defence is that I could see then what it took many people about a quarter of a century to see. I put it very simply: every bullet and every bomb militated against the concept of a United Ireland, even if that dream could ever become flesh.
My work with The Kerryman wasn't all concerned with politics: far from it - in provincial papers you do not worry much about demarcation lines. On one unforgettable occasion I "covered" a minor County hurling final - now read on...
It was a terrible Sunday in November. What was the colour of the wind? It was somewhere between grey and black. Believe it or not, the game ended without a goal or even a point. Contemplate the score line - 0-0; 0-0. It should be in the Murphy or the Beamish Book Of Records. The Kerryman was then printed in Russell Street, in the living heart of Tralee; with its little pubs and cafes it resembled Soho - before Soho became the capital of sleaze. The building that housed the paper was Victorian; the printing presses were equally ancient but utterly reliable. When the presses began to roll about four o'clock on Thursday evening, all bedlam broke loose. Plaster flew off the walls; the grey hounds in the kennels next door started to howl; glasses flew off the shelves in Laide's pub across the lane. And all the editorial staff adjourned for a very unquiet drink - or perhaps two. Insults flew; I once heard a certain sports reporter say to our editor, Seamus McConville: "You are capable of thinking that a colon is a part of your back side." You could buy The Kerryman in Tralee on Thursday evenings around six o' clock; it was datelined "Saturday". Occasionally, I would see some visit ing Briton or American look quizzically at that dateline as he sipped his drink in Benner's Hotel. It could only happen in a poor, forward little country like Ireland.
Let us return again to hindsight in the context of my career, such as it is, in journalism. When I edited a newsheet in a boarding school, I was expelled - and thus lost my scholarship. When I edited The Taxpayers' News, I was involved in a libel action that cost me half-a-year's wages. When I was a political writer for The Kerryman, I could easily have lost my life. It would have been a notable treble - all in the cause of free speech.
(To be continued).
CHILD'S PLAY: Kate Shanahan and Luke take part in Sunday's parade.
7 am. It's not every day that Junior gets to go on his first protest march with Mum - we're with the Irish Press workers in the National Children's Day parade - and Luke (18 months) insists on putting on his brand new blue boots for the occasion. Try to persuade him that boots and a nappy are taking under-dresssing to the extreme.
8 am: One very large bowl of porridge and a nappy change later and the process of dressing Junior begins again.
8.30. Excitement mounts as Dad tries to get Junior's trousers on over the boots because our pint-sized agitator refuses to take them off.
9.15. Pack one baby bottle, one packet of biscuits (emergencies only) and one nappy plus wipes. Put baby buggy in boot of car, get baby out of boot, what a challenging child he is, head for assembly point.
9.45. Arrive at Cuffe St, nobody else from the Irish Press there yet, join up with a couple of pom-pom waving tots.
9.50. Press crew arrive, exclaim over each other's offspring, and start wondering when the parade will begin. Peigin is dispatched to find a steward. Find out that the parade won't start until 11 am. Horror all round as we wonder how we're going to keep the under 2's occupied.
10.15. Luke getting very agitated, tries to get out of pram and throw himself under traffic. Tell him it's not that kind of protest. Go for walk to look at the other groups. Luke spots large group all holding balloons. Gets hysterical. Mummy has to get him a balloon or else...Approach woman at centre of group and ask her for a balloon, she's holding about thirty, offer her money. She says no. She is middle-class and not amused. Look to see who I'm pleading with. One of the kids is holding a sign saying "Breastfeeding". Great, I've just been rejected by the Irish Childbirth Trust. Think of witty one-liners like, "you'd know that baby was bottle fed, he's so intelligent," or "whoever invented the epidural; should he be canonised or what?"
11 am. March starts, our little band winds its way around St. Stephen's Green. People on the footpath start to clap, momentary confusion and then its lump-in-throat time, they're cheering our Support the Irish Press workers banner.
12 am. We're outslde Bewleys in Westmoreland St, it's very very cold and the tots are starting a minature protest of their own. Take Luke out of pram, he's nice and warm, in fact I can feel the heat seeping through from him to me. Did I say seeping? Oh no, he hasn't, yes he has, right through his clothes and mine.
12.30 pm. The Irish Press crew get to the reviewing stand, a woman with a golden chain comes down to congratulate us. Feel like heroes.
1 pm. Home for coffee, clothes changes all around and lunch. Give Luke a big hug. He raises one fist in the air, his baby babble sounding suspiciously like a chant. 'Hey Hey Vincent J, how many Mums and Dads did you sack today'. That's my boy...
Acclaimed Irish film maker Neil Jordan will deliver an address on the issue of Freedom of Speech prior to a special showing of The Crying Game in the Adelphi 4, at 8.30, this coming Thursday, June 15. Admission is £4.50 and all proceeds are in aid of The Press Journalists' Fund.
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