This article is from page 18 of the 2011-10-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
A CAMPAIGN to save a pioneering newspaper set up by Clareman Breandán Mac Lua in London has been successfully concluded with news that The Ir ish Post will be back on the newsstands next week.
The weekly newspaper, which had a circulation of 70,000 at the peak of its popularity, was founded by Mac Lua in 1970 and had been closed by Crosbie Holdings in August but has been bought by Irish businessman Elgin Loane.
Five bids were received by Belfastbased liquidators FPM for the title, with Mr Loane, who owns the classified ads magazine Loot emerged as the winner for an undisclosed sum.
Mac Lua was born in Lisdoonvarna and raised in Miltown Malbay and was a long-serving editor of the newspaper that was inspired by his devotion to the preservation of Irish culture in London.
He began his career in Dublin as a full-time GAA official and freelance journalist. In the early ‘60s, he was one of the first two full-time executive officers appointed by the GAA at Croke Park and he was also a member of the association’s central council policy committee.
In 1967, he wrote the definitive book on the GAA’s controversial ban on foreign games, The Stea dfa st Rule , and he reported on Gaelic games and boxing for the Irish Press Group.
Following publication of The Stea dfa st Rule , he was chosen as the sole (and secret) inheritor and custodian of the only extant volume of GAA founder Michael Cusack’s 1880s weekly newspaper, The Celtic Times , the first periodical devoted to Gaelic games, which he donated as a complete volume to the Clare County Library in Ennis in the mid80s.
The ethos of Cusack’s newspaper “for the preservation and cultivation of the language, literature, music and pastimes of the Gaelic race” was the template Mac Lua followed when he established the Irish Post in 1970 with his business partner, County Waterford-born, Londonbased accountant Tony Beatty. Mac Lua served as editor and joint publisher until the pair sold the paper to the Smurfit Group in the late ‘80s.
Circulation grew to peak at about 70,000 copies a week.
“Everyone involved in the ‘Save the Irish Post’ campaign is delighted with the news,” spokesperson Fiona Audley said.
“The voice of the Irish in Britain is back, the voice that was started by Clareman Breandan Mac Lua, who was a huge figure in the Irish community in Britain,” she added.
Breandan Mac Lua passed away in January 2009.