Examiner and me: Happy days of Hibs and  secret hatches     

EXAMINER 180: As part of the marking of the 180th anniversary of the first Examiner, Cork writer Cónal Creedon selects some of his memories of the paper 

Cónal Creedon, writer. 'I grew up behind the counter of a newsagent's.'

Imagine a world without the internet. I came of age at a time when news was a scarce commodity – primarily beamed from Dublin by the state broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann. This singular source of broadcast news circumvented contradiction and dissent. 

The island of Ireland was insular and monocultural. We were – One Country. One People. One News. And, far from being ahead of our time, 1974 Ireland was all that Orwell’s 1984 had predicted.

I grew up behind the counter of a newsagent's. In our house newspapers reigned supreme, offering debate and opinion that challenged the Church and State monopoly of the airwaves. Meanwhile, the Examiner, with its Cork-centric perspective, carried the local voice of politics, sport and culture to the heart of the national debate.

For me, the Golden Age of print media will always be when the Examiner Office held pride of place on Patrick's Street with its finger on the pulse of the downtown beating heart. 

The palpable presence of larger-than-life, sometimes idiosyncratic journalists who frequented an array of eccentric public houses, created a forum of engagement for the great unwashed and the Fourth Estate.

This collision of wits and halfwits created a vibrant strand to the colourful tapestry of the city. It was a time of epic Examiner lore and mythical anecdotes – such as the apocryphal tale of a secret drink-hatch that linked Le Chateau bar to the Examiner Print Room on Faulkner’s lane.

The former Cork Examiner Office at Patrick's Street in 1966.

More than just a disseminator of news, the Examiner has always contributed to the quirky cultural uniqueness that is Cork. In my mind's eye I can still see my friend Johnny Kelleher’s tantalising tango, ducking and diving between teatime traffic, selling newspapers at the Coliseum Corner. 

 Another personal favourite etched in my memory is that spiralling sense of teenage urgency as we rushed from Flower Lodge into town after a Cork Hibernians game, to check the latest League of Ireland results, handwritten and thumbtacked to the Examiner Office door; a quaint and peculiar tradition resonant of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Church.

I gladly indulge the oddities and eccentricities of the past, but I also embrace new technologies and eagerly anticipate what the future might hold.

These days, the Examiner has a fully integrated online presence pumping out breaking news, 24-7.

That being said, down here on Leeside, the Examiner will always be the one we call –  d’Paper.

• The first Examiner - then titled the Cork Examiner - was published on September 1, 1841