Farewell... with many, many thanks

AS this is the last edition of The Corkman under my tenure as editor I’d very much like to take this opportunity to thank more people than I could possible name individually.

It’s been a privilege to be at the editorial steering wheel for the past 12 and a half years, and it’s been a privilege to work with so many people who make this newspaper what it is – a great community forum.

The Corkman has always had a very close relationship with the community it serves and there is a legion of people out there who serve both – from club PROs, to community activists to people who may just want the odd piece of information, or a picture, put into the public domain. All are invaluable to their individual causes and, also the public consciousness via this paper.

A massively valuable resource to The Corkman is the small army of regular contributers and notes writers who keep us in touch with what’s going on locally, week after week. I’ve always admired their diligence and commitment and I think their value to the community, and this paper, is massive.

In-house, as it were, The Corkman has been blessed with a series of great reporters who I have been lucky to work with. The Corkman attempts to reflect life as it happens in the local world around us and, sometimes, that can be very tough on those gathering and writing the news. And, certainly, there’s also a lot of hard work involved.

Indeed, it’s been a feature of this paper that we have a wide circle of friends who help out in so many ways – from freelance journalists (many of them previously staff who have moved on) to photographers to a variety of others who add their bit to help inform the public about events in the community.

And, not forgetting the broad corps of staff, from the commercial side of the house here in Mallow, in our sister paper, The Kerryman, and farther afield in INM sites throughout the country – so many people have an input to bring us local information week in and week out.

I certainly have appreciated all the contributions people have made, in whatever capacity. They all add another piece of the jigsaw helping to fill in the picture of life going on around us.

I reckon all these contributions are very important to us locally. It’s little consolation knowing what the Kardashians are up to minute by minute if we miss the fact that half our local services are quietly closing up shop.

And, d’you know, despite all our instant technology, the only place you can still get a weekly pantheon of tailor-made local news is your local paper. For many long-considered reasons, I don’t see a viable alternative in the foreseeable future.

So, I reckon I’ve presided over about 660-something editions of The Corkman. Hopefully, I hope I’ve done a reasonable enough job of it. I once calculated that I read/checked over 20,000 words a week – that’s over 13 million words since I sat in here. Yikes! Perhaps it is time to be moving on.

However, I do leave you in good hands. The new group (Corkman and Kerryman) editor is Kevin Hughes. He is very well experienced in local news and he has a good head on his shoulders, too. Helping him is the new group deputy editor, Donal Nolan – again, a lot of experience and a good head.

So, many thanks for putting up with me, and for all the help. And farewell.