The Meath Chronicle has reached its century and a book is promised to appear soon. The non city press, the local paper, the provincial press as it is usually called, plays a fundamental role in Irish society. It does more than log the smaller incidents which do not interest the big dailies; it weaves the story of its own people in all their activities: work on the land, sport, of course, agricultural shows, art shows, local success stories both in the district and beyond.
It is proud of its people and gladly registers all the positive side of things. But it does not neglect recording the black side. Court cases report the activities, often, of those who fall by the wayside in excess drinking or rowdyism. But the poetry and beauty of the setting is not neglected, The Meath Chronicle keeps an eagle eye on the great treasures of Ireland which stand along the Boyne. They'll be on about the new Interpretative Centre. And in the issue of May 31st they give good space, including a photograph of a large Neolithic house remains recently uncovered at the Knowth excavations. It shows that there was habitation there in the early 4000 BC era - indicating, says Dr George Eogan, that there was a large agricultural settlement several hundreds of years before the earliest of the great passage tombs.
Rightly, the courts are well recorded. Judge John Brophy deals with all, but this area seems to be thought of by speedsters as their playground. The judge hands out many fines for this offence and, in another sphere, he was critical of a bank, in a debt case, but remarked in all judicial solemnity and sympathy that banks were not the St Vincent de Paul. Church news, education news, agricultural news. Our local newspapers might well have forged the slogan, "All human life is there." Others claim it.
As to quality of reporting, as everyone knows everyone else, more or less, the reporter has to get it right. The late John Healy used to tell this: the day The Western People appeared he was walking down the street when a councillor shouted from the other side, "Hey, young Healy, do you still not know how to spell my name?" Accuracy is important in every newspaper. It is well observed in Navan. Good luck to them from Constant Reader.