Normally at this time of the year, as people head away for the holidays, I end up being the last one to lock the door or switch on the alarm as I leave this building. A place normally so busy, but on those days you get to thinking about the year just past, and the possibilities of what lies ahead past the stroke of midnight on Wednesday week.
Writing up this editorial is the last thing I do every week; something to which I wholeheartedly devote the last 15 minutes before the deadline passes and the pages are sent to The Irish Times for final printing. Normally, this is is done on a Wednesday evening, with one eye on the building traffic and the whirring sound that deadlines make as they fly by threateningly.
Tonight, it is Sunday. The last one before Christmas. At this time of the year, penning it is different. The sense of emptiness in here seems more acute...and then at times, it doesn't. Let me explain. There is a sense of great loss here for us all still with the passing of our founder, our chairman, our great friend and our mentor, Ronnie O'Gorman. This is the first Christmas in my almost quarter century with the Advertiser that I have not met Ronnie around the corners. He was a man who trod lightly on the steps of the stairs as he'd pop up the newsroom to deliver his weekly column to the proofreaders.
Some of my first encounters with Ronnie happened around Christmastime. I was just a young student almost four decades ago when our paths first crossed and I had been asked with a friend to conduct some market research into the feasibility of the then growing Galway Advertiser. Ronnie asked the college to send us in to present the findings to the staff, and so, in the depths of Christmas week, we went into the Advertiser office for the first time; up there on the first floor of O'Gorman's.
There is his small office, with its Dickensian window looking out across the way to the graveyard in St Nicholas', our conversation interrupted by the pealing of the clock tower bell, I began an association with the newspaper and Christmas that has brought me to this point, albeit by a scenic route.
Right from the moment I first picked up an Advertiser, I felt an association with this newspaper which was born five years to the day after my own arrival. Getting the paper out every week has been an honour and a duty for the last few decades, and key to all of that was the encouraging and motivating presence of Ronnie, a man who had given his life to creating this publication, and using it to enable the growth of Galway as both a commerciial and cultural centre of excellence.
This is the first Christmas that his hand has not been across the festive editions; and the continuation of the tradition of carrying the Christmas Childrens Art competition winner on our front page last Thursday was an ongoing tribute to the generations of young artists who were inspired by his vision for a right of passage festive celebration of the west's young creatives.
His passing makes us all incredibly sad, but if anything, it makes us even more determined to ensure that the newspaper continues to act as a platform for voices and diverse opinions; for the marking of celebrations and communal joy. To cheerlead when we are on the cusp of glory and to bear the weight of sadness when that is called for.
So when I look around this empty building now, I don't feel like I am alone anymore this evening. That within our walls lives the spirit that has emboldened us over the years. The vision and belief of Ronnie lives on.
And so to Christmas.
Our gift to each other this Christmas should be the gift of time. The hardest thing in the world now is to tell yourself to slow down, to sit down, to chat, to share, to play a game with a child, to chat with someone for whom a few words means a lot. Switch off the outside world this Christmas. Put your smartphone on the mantelpiece or away in a box. The outside world will still be there when you switch it back on the next day. Above all, do not make people feel that you are just paying lip service to their desire for company. Do not give any hint that you want to be anywhere else but there. For a few days, build up a new habit of making those around feel like the most important people in your life. Because they are.
Get down on the floor and share the games; take it easy on the booze; the world that’s boozy and hazy for you might be hellish for someone else who just wants your sober company. Don’t let your children have Christmas memories that revolve around drunkenness and rows.
Adults have a responsibility to create memories for those whose lives will stretch away decades and decades into the future. As keepers of the flame of memory, do what you can to lift someone's heart, to restore the honest decency of friendship and love. Next week brings a new year, a new decade, perhaps a new way of living our lives.
On behalf of the management and staff of the Galway Advertiser, I would like to wish you a very happy and fulfilling Christmas. This is the Advertiser's 55th Christmas in Galway. We thank you for your loyalty and for allowing us the opportunity to inform, entertain, and, no doubt, occasionally infuriate you over the past year. We thank those who support us through advertising, which allows us to sustain this wonderfully Galway medium; We thank you too for your comments, both for and against our commitment to allow as many diverse voices as possible to be heard through our pages and on our increasingly popular Facebook and Twitter facilities. Thank you for letting us into your homes and into your minds.
Thar cheann an Galway Advertiser gach dea ghuí i gcomhair na Nollag agus na hathbhliana.
