The Sunday Tribune

17 April 1983 The Sunday Tribune edited by Vincent Browne was re-launched. The original Tribune had gone bust the previous October after just under 2 years in print. I was just 25 and joined the new venture as Financial Controller. John Kelliher then Controller of Programmes RTE (now the Film Censor) was Managing Director, Barbara Nugent was Advertising Manager. The late Tony Ryan then CEO of GPA and later founder of Ryanair was our investor.

First Issue - 17th April 1983
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They were very exciting times. There were just 20 journalists, 5 advertising staff 3 accounts staff, 2 PA's and a receptionist. We all shared the second floor in the Joe Walsh Tours building in Lower Baggot Street. Over a total of almost 10 years there was great camaraderie, many discussions and arguments and some stunning rows! What I remember about the first few weeks was that after 3 years post qualification experience as the Company Accountant in a printing company in Sandyford it was much more like the atmosphere in SKC where I had finished my training just 3 years before. One of the biggest shocks when I "moved to industry" was that change in the workplace structure - where management was a small group. And you ended up with a very small number of friends in work.

Signatures on First Edition.
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For another thing it was based back in town. Baggot Street was a lively place at the time. Doheny and Nesbitts was just beside us, the Baggot Inn and Toners were across the street. And If you were prepared to travel 50 yards you had the famous O'Donoughoes. The relaunch attracted a lot of media attention. With the exception of yours truly it was a star studded cast: Paul Tansey had been enticed from The Irish Times, Gerald Barry, Deirdre Purcell and John Kelliher from RTE.Of course having Tony Ryan as main shareholder and investor was also big news. The run up to the launch was pretty exciting stuff. We had to make agreements with the print unions, the Newsagents, the NUJ, and there was the small matter of getting a printer for the newspaper!

I can remember attending my first of many meetings with Vincent and the Dublin Print Group of Unions. This was a constituted council with a chairperson and secretary who had representatives from st least 6 unions involved in the Printing and Publishing in Dublin. It seems incredible now but they determined which days newspapers were printed! The 6 Unions I remember were the NUJ (journalists) NGA and IPU (printers and compositors), WWU (bookbinders), ITGWU no. 16 branch (delivery drivers), ITGWU no. 2 branch (clerical workers). Each union had normally 2representatives and then there was Vincent, John and me. The meeting usually ended in impasse - either with Vincent holding out for something or the unions insisting that this new paper would not get launched unless it paid terms and conditions enjoyed by the previous Tribune staff. There was a strongly held view that the weekly costs in the old Tribune had run at 75k which was at least 50% more than we planned to run it now. The main difference was in numbers of staff but rates of pay and work practices were a big part of it also.

Its also hard to imagine the pre-computer world we were required to live in at the time. PCs were around a couple of years and word processing was well established, but journalists in Ireland and England were using manual typewriters, their copy was edited and marked up manually and then passed to compositors who re-typed everything into long columns or galleys which had to be cut up and stuck down onto pages before making the film which would then be made into metal plates at the printers.

There were many exciting changes in the 10 years at the Tribune:

• We spent three years in an almost permanent state of crisis;
• Tony Ryan left us (or did we leave him) after just 1 year;
• Cash to pay the printers each week became a weekly obsession from mid 1984 until April 1986;
• In October 1987 we launched on the Stock Exchange - listed just a week before the Stock Market crash;
• The following year we introduced "direct input" where the journalists typed their stories directly into the production system on onto PCs which transferred it directly to the production system. We were the first newspaper in Ireland to do that thanks to the genius, negotiating skills and force of character by Vincent Browne - but that's a different story for another time.
• We launched a weekly upmarket free. Newspaper with 8 local editions in 1990 Independent Newspapers acquired a 29% stake in unfriendly circumstances and effect - it neutered the paper as a commercial operation thereafter.

Great friendships great fallings out. I spent my last year as Finance Director where the Editor Vincent would not speak to me unless he had to! It takes 2 to tangle so maybe he had cause!

Last Friday Vincent arranged for 8 of us to get together as a reunion to mark 25 years since the relaunch. Tina Roche couldn't make it but the rest of us were there - Vincent, Barbara, John Kelliher, Paul Tansey, Gerald Barry and Barry Connolly. It's strange but it seemed like we were having conversations simply continued from 15 or 20 years ago! We met in Foleys in Merrion Row - a neutral venue! Vincent of course was late! We went on to dinner in The Unicorn. The time flew and when we were thrown out because we were the last people left in the restaurant it was after 2.30.