Old Moore has stood the test of time as 2020 looms

Country Living with Francis Farragher

One of the current big media riddles in an age of instant access to all kinds of information via the internet and social media, is whether newspapers and the printed word will survive into the future. I’ve long accepted my transition into the ‘ould timer’ category and yet if I don’t have the mobile with me, I feel as if a little part of me is missing.

Whether it be to check the latest Premiership soccer scores . . . to find out the winner of the 2-o-clock at Fairyhouse . . . or to sort out a pub debate on who won the 1969 county hurling final . . . the information is there within seconds in your pocket.

So, on Friday morning last as I racked my brains . . . or the remnants of them that remain . . . to write of column of sorts for the edition after Christmas, I fell back on an old hardy annual, namely Old Moore’s Almanac.

All I had to do was to click on the computer screen, key in the title of the publication, and dozens of articles appeared in front of me about the predictions for 2020 and indeed the origins of a magazine that for many decades was always left on our window sill.

Before the first paragraph of the column (always the most difficult one) was tackled, a little whiff of guilt wafted its way into my nostrils.

After extracting a half-decent living from the printed word . . . now for a good few decades . . . here I was ready to pen a column about a publication that I hadn’t even bought.

A prickled conscience could no longer be sustained and I did the decent thing . . . trekked up to O’Brien’s newsagency . . . and forked out my fiver for the 2020 edition.

Old Moore’s Almanac, is one of the few printed publications over recent years that has actually increased circulation, being joined in that exclusive enough club by the Farmers Journal.

The provincial papers including the Connacht Tribune and the Tuam Herald continue to fly the flag quite boldly in terms of maintaining a decent standard of local journalism and healthy circulations, but in terms of longevity, we still have a quite long way to match Old Moore’s Almanac.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app

The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.