Malone Rides off Into the West

Retiring editor, Declan Malone revealing all in The Kerryman this morning.
Retiring editor, Declan Malone revealing all in The Kerryman this morning.

In a move he’s been contemplating for the past 26 odd years, Declan Malone is stepping back from his post as editor of The Kerryman,

He finally made that mad dash to freedom over the last couple of weeks and came clean about it all this morning on page two of the county’s leading news source.

A native of Dingle and a journalist by accident, Malone has directed The Kerryman through the roughest, toughest period in its long history since it was founded in 1904.

He has worked there under a string of editors and lasted as long if not longer than most of them.

He was the gate-keeper or deputy editor to Gerard Colleran and he learned his trade well – though he never had to bark then.

“It was a tough, demanding apprenticeship in journalism, delivered by some of the best and most uncompromising people in the business. The college approach to journalism was binned as quickly as bad cop; not unceremoniously mind,  but with great ceremony so you’d be in no doubt this was a trade where people got their hands dirty,” he wrote in the revelation this morning.

Though I wished him well in a future he plans to spend lolloping behind around Ventry Harbour, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him he’d be missed.

He knows damn well that an incumbent or two sios an bothar will want a look at the gallery on the office hall to remind them of who he was and what he looked like.

We’ve been through many a rough morning at opposite ends of a phoneline and said things to each other that many would fall silent from.

If he has a charm that I found I could grace his going with it would be the fact that once the phone hit the cradle – that was it. There was no more about it – whetever it was.

I wish him long years of marching with the John Street Wren Band,  tight lines and full pots and the health to haul it all ashore. – John Reidy 11-3-2015