Daily
Ireland, it seems, is not making the mark its
sponsors initially hoped for. Its sales are said
to be well below the daily average of 20,000 Mairtin
O Muilleoir is alleged to have stated would be required
in order to allow it to break even. Fionnuala O'Connor
observed, 'Daily Ireland can't cover the
Belfast-Dublin corridor, rumour has it, let alone
sell Ireland-wide.' Some estimates have its customer
pick up as low as 4,000. On its second day on the
streets I bought a copy in the local shop. I didn't
hide it up my coat on the way out even though the
shopkeeper told me she had only managed to sell
two on the first day. In another local shop a mere
week ago, it was not stocked at all. Nor was my
wife able this weekend to obtain a copy in some
shops in town.
Last
Sunday evening I happened to get a lift from a West
Belfast newsagent and in the course of casual conversation
he made the point that he hated having to do the
'returns', as he called those papers that did not
sell and had to be sent back to the supplier. As
he had broached the topic of newspapers, I asked
him how Daily Ireland was faring. 'Two max,'
was his terse reply. Thinking that two a day was
seriously low, I asked why customers weren't lifting
it. 'Provie mouthpiece,' was his nonchalant response.
But, I persisted, these are 'Provie' areas; all
the more reason for people to buy the paper. 'Nothing
in it that isn't in AP/RN,' was how he parried
me. Inquisitive, I asked how the Irish News
compared against it. He said that he normally pushed
80 to 100 copies of the established Donegal Street
concern each day. On the days when the paper's death
insertions were dedicated to a local, he had no
returns.
It
was always going to be difficult for Daily Ireland
to compete with the Irish News. A newspaper
must at least do news, and news seems not to be
Daily Ireland's strong point. Despite the
professionalism of its lay-out, people buy their
staple daily to read the content, not admire the
design. Sports coverage features prominently but
the paper's range of political columnists don't
exactly set the place on fire. Being thankful for
small mercies, it is a relief to learn that they
only get around 300 rather than 800 words. I know
many of the writers, acknowledge their ability but
see the line wrapped so tightly around their necks
that their talent is strangled. Recently some have
been lining up to swell the ranks of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Leadership. Heretics beware.
Although
aspiring to be both "national and nationalist"
Daily Ireland's claim on this front was exposed
from the outset as only being partially true. A
unionist who had been asked to feature as a columnist
initially accepted then declined after claiming
to listen to Mairtin O Muilleoir state at the launch
that his paper would not carry anything that would
offend the nationalist community. Nationalist surely,
but hardly national. To compound problems, O Muilleoir's
contention that the paper is 'not a Sinn Fein newspaper
or a mouthpiece for any political party' was left
looking threadbare when Sinn Féin's Caoimhghín
Ó Caoláin campaigned for investors
for the paper.
Hammered
last week in Ireland on Sunday by Cathal
McCarthy, a commentator and newspaper reviewer for
RTE, who seems to think Julius Streicher's Der
Sturmer had more going for it than the new product,
the most positive description to have come the way
of Daily Ireland since has been that of an
Internet wag who has taken to terming it 'Dreary
Ireland'.
Despite
the considerable downside, more sources of information
and perspectives are better than less and for that
reason alone the function of democratic scrutiny
would be weakened if the paper were to collapse.
While its message may be indistinguishable from
that propagated in the pages of Sinn Fein's publications,
it nevertheless asks questions of the state that
can only be welcome. Where else will we find the
case of Kathleen Thompson gunned down by the British
Army in Derry 34 years ago raised? Its continuous
questioning of policing structures must be considered
essential in any democracy. However, if it cannot
bring the same degree of rigour to examining the
behaviour of the most powerful within its own community,
its very necessary critique of the state will be
dismissed as whataboutery.
In
a sense any newspaper trying to articulate a nationalist
perspective should be seeking to emulate the successes
of the Irish Press when it was first launched
under the auspices of Dev. Up against the Irish
Independent and Irish Times there was
space for a newspaper saying something radically
different. Perhaps had Daily Ireland been
launched to fill the vacuum created a decade ago
when the Irish Press folded it may have proved
a much more successful venture. It is a sad indictment
of the autonomy of intellectual and cultural life
within the republican constituency that the more
creative and exciting writers are to be found in
the Sunday Independent. Republicans cede
such ground largely by default, in their willingness
to permit creativity to play second fiddle to conformity.
Daily
Ireland would seem to face a dilemma best summed
up by one republican last week. His concise appraisal
- 'a good idea in the wrong hands'.
