With reunions in full swing this time of year, our motoring columnist Brian McDaid takes a journey back in time to when he didn’t take photos or write for the news publications. Instead, he focused on how news travelled on the road when it was delivered by hand by newspaper boys in Letterkenny.
Up at the junction of Crossview House outside Gallagher’s Hotel you could be forgiven for thinking you were on O’Connell Street in Dublin as one of John Crerand newspaper boys belted out the titles of two products he was selling ‘ PRESS OR HERALD’
Press or Herald
When you stood at the junction long before the one-way system, and link roads all the traffic had to pass through that junction if they had any business to do in Letterkenny. Motorist and locals heading from work would buy an evening paper to catch up with the news on their way home.
In them days from my memory there was only a few shops that you could buy daily newspapers in Letterkenny that was Clarke’s and Barr’s.
John Crerand looked after the evening news for Letterkenny from his home on the Church Lane. His old Ford Corsair would land laden with newspapers six days a week without fail.
An old Ford Corsair which was the mode of transport for Late John Crerand to carry the Evening Press into Letterkenny every evening.
The stories that the great Con Houlihan penned on to sheets of paper in Dublin and the images of deer in the Phoenix Park captured by staff photographer Austin Finn were all a part of the Evening Press which was by far the better seller compared to the Evening Herald.
The Old Evening Press which was great seller in Letterkenny in the 1970’s
At the height of its sales the Evening Press had a nationwide daily circulation of 175,000 papers of which I sold 48 every evening.
There was no calling ‘Press or Herald’ on my paper run, it was door to door in the area of Letterkenny where I lived. We headed out of the Church Lane and up Glencar on my paper run. If you were lucky and the papers arrived in Letterkenny in time. You would get a few sales at St. Eunan’s Cathedral from people who would call in to say a prayer on their way home from work.
We always prayed for light Evening Press edition, with few pages in them they were lighter but still heavy. The hairy cord used to secure the papers on their journey from the print press at Burgh Quay in Dublin to Letterkenny was once again modified into a sling to carry the papers on the last mile of their journey by foot.
A coat doubled up as a bit of cover for your neck against the grinding a cord could inflict and also keep your clothes from getting covered in newsprint.
The cost of transport for the last mile and the sale at the front door of a family home gave the newspaper boy a less than a half of one new penny per paper, in theory anyway!
Return had to be taken back the next evening and the taking had to tally up at the end of the week before the newspaper boys’ wages were sorted.
The Old one shilling piece which was still used when the new decimal currency came in in 1970 which had a street value of five new pence
The Evening Press cost 4 new pence in the 1970’s which was a great price for a newspaper boy because most of your regular customers would give you a five pence piece or a shilling in old money and would let you keep the change. It was a nightmare if someone gave you a fifty pence piece in them days as it would leave you without change for the rest of the paper run.
A five pence paper which bought an Evening Press and a penny to spare for a tip for the paper boy.
Papers had to be delivered in rain, hail and snow and there were very few days that they didn’t make the journey all the way from Dublin and through Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles.
The very last customer at the top of Glencar was our local Vet Brendan Mc Feeley who always gave a good tip but there were days that you could make the journey to the very top to his house on the Hill to find that he was out on a call and you would miss the sale.
Wet days were the worst days for selling newspapers. Even though you always carried a Dillion’s shopping bag to cover the papers they always ended up soaking wet and some of your customer might not even answer the door to buy a paper that was laden with water.
Full Circle
As the paper boys moved on through school and followed their career my journey brought me back to newspapers working with the local papers in Letterkenny.
Some of the work that I covered made national news and I had the pleasure of seeing my own photos used in the same Evening Press that I delivered door to door as a child. I had the pleasure of meeting the great Con Houlihan when I was sent to cover a Finn Harps game in Dublin.
Con Houligan who was one of the great writers for the Evening Press which was sold all over Ireland.
The person I always hoped to meet was Austin Finn but that was never to happen. Austin Finn was knocked down by a car near Ballsbridge in the turn of this century and died. That day he was on assignment capturing what he always captured – local people going about their everyday life. He was 56.
Austin Finn at work for the Evening press in Dublin.
With the technology that we have today where news can be sent anywhere at the press of a button on a mobile phone, it’s hard to believe in days gone by the rushing about taking a photo, heading back to the darkroom and developing a black and white film, making a print, drying it out before shipping it off on a bus to the printers in Ballyshannon for the Donegal Democrat – were I worked for 25 years – or occasionally sending photos off on the Express Bus to Dublin to meet a deadline, and on some occasions the newspaper coming the whole way back from Dublin to make the final part of their journey sitting across from the driver on the front seat of a Lough Swilly Bus. Those were the days
Press or Herald …. Press or Herald