Connacht Tribune – part of Galway’s fabric for 110 years

This week marks 110 years since the very first edition of the Connacht Tribune – entering the world at a time of great political uncertainty and economic difficulty…proving that, while the years go by, nothing really changes.

That first edition was published on May 22 1909 from a premises in Market Street which had once been a Poor Clare Convent.

In that issue, they laid it down that they ‘would support the Constitutional Party of the Irish people and the fullest freedom that the Irish People could obtain; the preservation of the faith of the Irish People; the preservation of the Irish language and the economic independence of the country through the development of agriculture and industries’.

The first editor was Tom ‘Cork’ Kenny, born – as his name suggests – in Cork, who learned his journalistic trade in Manchester before returning to Ireland and eventually to Galway as reporter and leader writer on the Connacht Champion, a paper which actively supported William O’Brien MP and often virulently attacked the Irish Parliamentary Party.

He spent about two years there when he was approached by Augustus ‘Gus’ O’Reilly who hoped to secure him for a paper he wished to start in opposition to the Champion, and in support of the Irish Party.

Gus O’Reilly had a couple of thousand pounds which would be enough to start this paper called the Connacht Tribune – to be managed by O’Reilly and edited by Kenny.

Then – as now – the Tribune was independent of the rest; never amalgamated into a bigger media group but securely in the hands of owners who nurtured and invested in its content and its staff for all of the last 110 years.

See the full feature in this week’s Connacht Tribune.