It took me years to win my award – and just a few hours to lose it...

GOD knows where it is. Last week, I was lucky enough to be named Columnist of the Year in the popular newspapers category at the Newsbrands Ireland Journalism Awards. It was my third time nominated for that award, and my first win, so I was pretty delighted when my name was called out and I took to the stage to collect the trophy, an attractive metal quill atop a sturdy plinth.

At least, I think that’s the best way to describe it, because within hours of winning it, I managed to lose it. Foolish doesn’t begin to describe how I feel and, to be honest, I’m ashamed at what appears like flippant ingratitude when nothing could be further from the truth.

So how did it happen? Well, the awards are presented over lunch in the Round Room of Dublin’s Mansion House (and a lovely lunch it was too, goat cheese and beetroot salad for starter, chicken supreme for main, and a wicked fruit compôte for dessert).

Now, in the years I’ve been working as a journalist, the image of the boozy hack has largely been replaced by an altogether healthier respectability. Younger journalists seem more concerned with personal wellbeing than we were; I still remember the shock when I saw one take out his lunch in the office and found myself looking at a small platter of sushi. It took smelling salts to bring me round, because my own memories are of fish and jockeys’ whips – as my late friend and colleague Paul Drury always referred to chips – and cans of sugary minerals or vats of sludgy coffee, rather than smoothies.

Raucous

On awards day, though, it feels like we all enter a time machine and emerge in 1987, when life was just a little more raucous. The awards are announced before, between, and after courses. There are 26 categories, and while the first handful are greeted with a polite smattering of applause and the odd cheer from colleagues of the winners, the responses get a little more effusive by the end of the proceedings.

By the time Rosita Boland of The Irish Times was announced as the overall Journalist of the Year, for her magnificent interview with the man who was tragic Ann Lovett’s teenage boyfriend, the roar that went up was on a par with that which greeted the end of Ireland versus the All Blacks. Because, yes, we have our pints and our glasses of wine and get a bit rowdy and, when the awards finish, we either walk across Dawson Street to a café bar called 37, or around the corner to the venerable institution that is Kehoe’s of South Anne Street, and continue as we started.

Mindful of this, my colleagues Roslyn Dee and Helen Rogers, who rather gamely were actually both going back to work, each offered to take the trophy and keep it safe in the office until I could pop in to collect it. There is nothing like an overconfident fool, and I assured them I would be fine, and that nothing or no-one would prise this prize from my hands.

And, for a while, that indeed was the case. As I was crossing Dawson Street, a woman came up to me and said hello and, to my delight, it was Carol Ellis. Carol was my older sister’s best friend when we were young, and used to come to Leeds with us when my dad took us on football weekends.

She now lives in South Africa and I haven’t seen her for years. She was meeting a friend so I invited them to join me and, protective as an honorary big sister could be, she sat guard over the award for two hours while I dipped in and out of a dozen conversations and happily accepted whatever drink was pressed into my hand by friends who wanted to congratulate me.

Appeal

You can see where all this is going. Mindful that others I knew were in Kehoe’s, I decided to walk there, trophy in hand. The pub was packed, but it was a lovely mild night, so I was drinking outside until I finally decided, around 10.30, that enough was enough, and caught a taxi back to the house of a friend who kindly put me up for the night.

No sooner was I in the door when I realised the trophy wasn’t, but the taxi had pulled away. I had hailed it on the street, so unlike one ordered through MyTaxi, I had no idea who was driving it. I put out an appeal on social media, rang the lost property offices in every Garda station, and waited. And still I wait.

Of course, as the days have worn on, I can no longer say with any conviction that it even was in the taxi in the first place. I wouldn’t be the best witness to what happened as all those celebratory drinks took their toll.

One of my friends left his award in Kehoe’s, and they held it for him, so I rang the pub, to no avail. I heard two others also phoned to see if their own trophies were there too, so I’m not alone in being forgetful. I’m annoyed with myself more than anything else, and should just have accepted the offer and sent it to the safety of the office.

All that said, though, my own win, lovely and all as it was, is not my only memory of the day. Newspapers all over the world are under siege, whether from free online content, from changing lifestyles, even from the likes of Donald Trump, who labels any criticism he dislikes as ‘fake news’ and calls us horrible, disgusting people.

Truth

In truth, we’re anything but. Day in, day out, stories in print media still dictate the news agenda because those of us who chose this career fundamentally believe in unearthing truth, even if that truth is unpalatable for some.

That’s why print journalism has never been so important, no matter if it is consumed in the traditional way or in digital editions.

Content does not come free, and we invest millions every year to ensure we reveal, inform and, yes, entertain. We manage to do so despite defamation and libel laws that are among the strictest in the world, mindful of the old maxim that news is what someone somewhere doesn’t want you to know.

That’s why, at last week’s awards, I was happy to cheer all the winners, rivals or not, as they collected their awards – their work matters, more than ever in the age of bluster, disinformation and spin.

And, on that subject, there is a happy ending, though before I get there, I’d like to thank all the readers who sent their congratulations, and one lovely lady in particular who went to the trouble of posting a blessed miraculous medal to me. It is sometimes easy to forget that what you write has resonance beyond your desk, and praise from a reader is worth just as much as an award from your peers.

Anyway, the lovely people in Newsbrands Ireland, and the awards sponsors the National Lottery, have been in touch and are organising a replacement trophy for me, when they easily could have left me stew in my own juice.

And this time, I promise, I’ll sleep with it on the pillow beside me.