Recalling Times past
Hugh Oram casts an eye over a new book which recounts events at The Irish Times

Few readers care how their newspaper is produced, as long as
it turns up every morning without fail. Yet the inside story of any newspaper –
its history, its intrigues, its ups and downs and its personalities – is often
the most fascinating part of the tale.

The Irish Times, often
said by its critics to be a staid ‘establishment' newspaper of record, today
appeals to a broad section of the reading public right across the island of
Ireland and it is a ground-breaking daily in its own way with a broad character.

How The Irish Times
arrived at its present position to a mere 40,000 copies a day behind the Irish Independent (not an insurmountable
gap) is an extraordinary tale, with more twists and turns than your most
labyrinthine Jonathan Kellerman thriller.

From the Margins to
the Centre: a History of The Irish Times by Dermot James is rather modest, yet
despite being an ‘official' publication features useful historical material and
anecdotes. A former company secretary, James has written a workmanlike account.

Naturally, James had to tread warily and that might explain
why some stories about the newspaper's more colourful characters and events are
excluded. For instance, there is no mention about the stories about comic Dave
Allen's father, GJC Tynan O'Mahony.

O'Mahony, general manager in the late 1940s, went by the
nickname of ‘Pussy'. He had lost a limb earlier in life and it had been replaced
by a wooden leg. One of the best stories about him had him going to a fancy
dress party dressed as a toffee apple.

The newspaper's first editors, including John Healy, are written
about in detail. The author is critical of how RM Smyllie, editor from 1934
until 1954, was caricatured. But Smyllie was a larger-than-life character in
more ways than one and his many quirks and oddities were mirrored by
eccentricities elsewhere in the paper.

In the early days, many casual and impoverished editorial
staff when they retired simply took to living in The Irish Times building. Today, they would not get past security
on Tara Street.
In the old days too, people enjoyed remarkable longevity at the paper.

Benny Green, for many years the unofficial advertising
manager, started at the paper in 1921 and was still around by the mid-1980s. Many
of the eccentrics may not figure in James's book, but he makes it clear how the
paper long teetered close to the brink.

As a small scale newspaper with a largely male, Church of
Ireland readership in the greater Dublin area, its sales in the 1920s were less
than 1,000 and by 1929, the year of the Wall Street Crash, its annual revenues
had risen to all of