MY first job in journalism was as a junior reporter at The County Down Outlook in Rathfriland.
As far as I know, I was the first Catholic to get a staff job there and I suppose I was quite proud of that.
But whether I was the first or not, I got on great. Not a bother.
I was just delighted to get a start at a small, but very well established, publication. The Outlook offices were a living/working museum of the print newspaper industry and I used to look on while a lovely fella called Herbie (who was also the photographer) put together ‘The Burning Bush’ (a Free Presbyterian newspaper) on an antiquated hot metal machine.
It was as old as Methuselah (who coincidentally might well have featured in the pages of ‘The Burning Bush’) and after the hot metal action had been completed the paper was printed out, also by Herbie, in one of the many other dark and dusty rooms in that rabbit warren of a building.
I don’t know who wrote the articles for ‘The Burning Bush’ – nobody ever asked me to chip in – but I covered all sorts of stories at The Outlook.
The door of the little portable building that served as our newsroom rarely stayed closed for long and a prominent DUP politician was one of the regular visitors.
He gave everybody a Christmas card except me during one of his calls.
“You’re sport,” he said with a sideways glance as he walked past my desk toward the news reporters.
I covered news too but I was happy enough.
The late Jerry Quinn had been doing work for The Outlook on a freelance basis long before I started and I doubt he got a Christmas card either.
Jerry was a GAA pioneer and I had the utmost respect for him because there were issues beyond sports writing that he had to take into account.
You better believe that there were many in that part of loyal county Down who would have been up in arms about Gaelic Games appearing in their local newspaper.
Jerry carried on regardless.
The owners of The Outlook never took much interest in GAA but they had the good sense to realise that so many in their catchment area, which included strongholds like Burren, Mayobridge, Clonduff and Kilcoo, lived and breathed Gaelic Games. Jerry covered everything from camogie to football and sales of The Outlook benefitted enormously from his writing and the army of club correspondents he cultivated throughout the county.
I remember going along with him to interview the late Danny Murphy at his home in Hilltown when he was appointed Ulster GAA President. We went to the Down senior championship final preview night. He got me a press pass to cover county games.
The GAA might not have made the back page often, if ever. Jerry’s stories appeared well down the paper after the soccer and the cycling and the bowls but they were in there and Jerry Quinn was undoubtedly one of the GAA’s ground breakers in the media at local level.
At ‘national’ level there have been others whose passion has ushered the GAA into the mainstream where it is now.
In 1960, BBC Northern Ireland covered the 12th of July demonstration ‘live’ for the first time with an outside broadcast. Just over two months later, Down became the first county from the North to win the Sam Maguire and there was a record attendance at Croke Park (over 87,000) when the Mournemen beat Kerry in the final.
It was an historic moment but the build-up, the game itself and Down’s joyous homecoming all received scant, if any, coverage on the BBC.
The whole thing was basically ignored.
The following year, Down won the Sam Maguire again and this time over 90,000 (still a record attendance which in all likelihood will never be broken) packed into Croker to watch them beat Offaly.
Again, the coverage of a famous win was miniscule.
Thirty years on from Down’s breakthrough All-Ireland, BBC got around to doing their first live coverage of a GAA game which was the 1990 Ulster Championship clash between Antrim and Monaghan. Perhaps not the first game you’d think of to kick off with, but don’t knock it.
There were highlights programmes first and then the BBC appointed Armagh’s eloquent and knowledgeable former skipper Jimmy Smyth and Fermanagh legend Peter McGinnity to do the commentary on live games during what turned out to be an absolutely golden era for the GAA in Ulster.
Jim Neilly, Jerome Quinn, Austin O'Callaghan, Jackie Fullerton, Mark Robson, Owen McConnon, Brian Canavan, Mark Sidebottom, Thomas Kane and many others have played their parts as the Beeb expanded their coverage.
All that work reaches a pinnacle this Sunday when Thomas Niblock presents the All-Ireland final (which obviously doesn’t even include an Ulster county) live from a studio in Croke Park.
Well done to Thomas, who is also the presenter of the excellent GAA Social podcast of course. There was a period a couple of years ago when I began to suspect that there was more than one of him. He seemed to be everywhere. Every county game, every club championship game, there he was. He seemed to appear out of nowhere after the final whistle with a cheerful: “Alright big man?”
He has put in a lot of hard yards and it’s a proud day for everyone who has been associated with improving, expanding and publicising Ulster GAA that a once reluctant BBC is now embracing the games to such an extent.
Haven’t times changed since 1960? The BBC doesn’t cover ‘The Twelfth’ live any more but they are covering the All-Ireland final. The world has turned and I don’t write that in a triumphalist way, I’m not claiming a win for one side over the other.
For me the GAA’s arrival on centre stage is nothing more than a victory for sound editorial judgement and, let’s face it, who doesn’t get goose pimples at the thought of sound editorial judgement?
The BBC is in Croke Park on Sunday because these remarkable amateur games of ours are worthy of coverage and there is massive interest in them which their viewing figures will no doubt reflect.
The perception of the GAA will only benefit from this increased exposure so well done to BBC NI.
Next target: The back page of ‘The Burning Bush’.
Move over Methuselah.
