Ross O’Carroll-Kelly & the Tribune go their separate ways..
July 21st, 2007 | by Colm |
So, it’s confirmed, Paul Howard (Author of the Ross pieces) has left the Tribune.
I was curious a few weeks ago, when the column disappeared from the paper. When the note at the top stating that “Ross is on leave” disappeared too, then I was really curious. Now the one thing I didn’t expect has happened.
I first starting reading the column several years ago, almost from the very first one. It provided a disturbingly accurate picture of many people I know and knew at the time, having gone to a South Dublin private school. Then the books started coming out and it rose in popularity to where it is today, a literal bible & guide for the current generation of South Dublin schoolkids.
The Indo article gives the impression that the loss of Paul Howard and “Ross” will be a heavy blow to the circulation figures of the Tribune. Others disagree.
I, for one, agree with Twenty Major on this one. Whilst Ross started me reading the Tribune when I was younger, it is by no means the reason I have continued. The Tribune is a fine paper with many fine writers including the always entertaining and intelligent Diarmuid Doyle, to name but one. The key issue now for the Tribune is what it will use to hook the younger generation, just as Ross did me and others.
4 Responses to “Ross O’Carroll-Kelly & the Tribune go their separate ways..”
By seanachie on Jul 22, 2007 | Reply
I can’t agree; for years the Trib has been stumbling along wheezing like an old consumptive in a Seán O’Casey play. No amount of root-and-branch treatments, which usually involved ripping off wholesale the editiorial ideas and layout of British newspapers such as The Observer, have managed to lift it from this mire of mediocrity.
This is a shame as the Tribune, back in the day when Vincent Browne was running things, and even as recently as Matt Cooper’s tenure, was a vital counterbalance to the right-wing bilge spewed by the Sindo every week. Ireland still needs a newspaper like it though the SIndo is far more worth reading, if only for Gene Kerrigan, Declan Lynch and Eamonn Sweeney. A measure of how much disarray the Trib is in is that it took them years to mount an online edition (and one look at their site shows how pitifully short of ideas they are) and they still have not found out what RSS is. They’re a <i>newspaper</i>, for God’s sake. Of course, there are still good writers on the Trib but in losing ROCK they have lost their biggest draw.
By OneForTheRoad on Jul 22, 2007 | Reply
<p>declan lynch is a total and utter cunt.</p>
By Alan on Jul 22, 2007 | Reply
Wonder was it your school that Morag Prunty wrote about in the Tribune a few weeks back, where a group of visiting students from Mayo went to play a basketball game. The girls from the unnamed exclusive south Dublin school subjected the Mayo team to jibes such as “you can smell the poverty off them” and “who let the dogs out”. The most shocking thing according to Prunty, was that none of teachers from the south Dublin school did anything to stop the taunts.
She went on to say that the Mayo girls were very upset. She believed that this was (for want of a better phrase) - calls abuse. ‘We are urban, we are rich - ergo, we are better than you.’
Anyway, it was a very good article and I bring it up in the context of this post because I believe that although Ross O’Carroll Kelly is all “a bit of fun”, I think his influence on the mindset of certain types results in this sort of behaviour. He should be banned from newspapers.
By Colm on Jul 22, 2007 | Reply
I wouldn’t know to be honest, I graduated in 2001, but it doesn’t sound like the kind of nonsense that would have been put up with in High School. Don’t get me wrong, HSD had it’s share of gits, but it was hardly as endemic as other schools.
As for R O’C-K’s influence on the current breed of schoolkids, I agree that when it was first being written, it was a reflection on young people, now they follow what’s written. But as for banning him, I’m more of a freedom of the press type rather than banning what I disagree with, that’s a little too PATRIOT ACT for me..