A tribute to the late Dermot Russell, renowned Cork journalist and editor

Like anyone who began working in newspapers almost 70 years ago Dermot Russell – universally and affectionately known as Rusty – would not recognise today’s world of communications, writes Jack Power.

After all, he was in the news business for almost a decade before RTÉ television began broadcasting in 1960. He and his peers saw almost unprecedented change in how information is shared and consumed, rolling change that continues today.

However, anyone lucky enough to have known him as a colleague would have no doubt but that he would have adopted to today’s media landscape with aplomb and the barely concealed sense of roguery and pleasure, he always brought to his work. Twitter – or thumping keyboard warriors - would not have fazed Rusty.

Rusty died peacefully last week at Cork University Hospital – which became known as The Wilton Hilton because of a Cork Examiner headline published during his time running that paper’s news desk.

Neither would he recognise today’s rugby, one of the games – golf was the other - he dedicated the first half of his career to. It was a long career which began in 1954 when he joined The Cork Examiner and ended in 1991 when he retired. Just like today’s media world, today’s rugby marches to a drum that Rusty would not recognise or indeed celebrate. He always preferred guile and speed to force. He would not be enarmoured by today’s game, one increasingly reliant on raw power and one that, because of professionalism, is embracing commercial priorities he might not cheer.

He always insisted that Mike Gibson was the very best Irish player he was lucky enough to see in a professional capacity – a view he clung to doggedly no matter who came along. It was one of his party pieces that he almost defied you to change his mind. None did.

Rusty was always proud that he was the Cork Examiner reporter who got to record Munster’s win over the All Blacks almost 42 years ago

If in the mood, and with the right audience, he often slipped into a kind of reverie and gladly told, and retold many times, the story of that famous day. That party piece was almost lost to him when he called time on his career as a rugby correspondent in 1981. He was succeeded by Barry Coughlan who always took great glee in raining on Rusty’s parade by pointing out that during Rusty’s long years as a rugby correspondent that Ireland had not won a Triple Crown but that they did – in 1982 – in Coughlan’s maiden year as one of the Examiner’s senior rugby writers.

“Were you holding them back Rusty?” goaded Coughlan, “You must have been.” Rusty would smile, knowing that sharing the limelight was all part of being a member of a team whose members knew they could rely on each other.

Rusty turned to golf for the summer months with an appetite and dedication that survived many a long, cold, wet day following one international hero or another trying to come to terms with Ireland’s links golf. One who did, Severiano Ballesteros won Rusty’s eternal admiration as he regarded him as one of the very the best golfers he had seen at close quarters.

When he began the second half of his career in news Rusty brought with him an enviable contacts’ book, then, long before the internet, a foundation stone for any aspiring reporter. He generously shared these details with anyone who might put them to good use and built up a considerable bank of loyalty doing so. He won loyalty too by encouraging, and more importantly supporting, young journalists to continue their education. He insisted that any young journalist should be proficient in shorthand, a forgotten skill today.

In many ways Rusty was an old-school newspaper man straight from central casting. When he covered rugby matches he did so cocooned in the then mandatory sheepskin coat, a rugby club or college scarf all aflutter. He occasionally sported a Cashmere polo neck, an almost unknown sophistication in Munster's tooth-and-claw rugby grounds back then.

When he turned to news he prowled the newsroom always with a notepad in hand and a biro behind his ear. The closest he might get to panic, when as a besieged news editor, was to take off an invariably well-tailored jacket and roll up his sleeves. He was never without a tie. He had the energy of the sportsmen he had covered for so long and put it to good use.

During that time he applied it to trying to maximise the newspapers’ potential – he was for a period editor of The Evening Echo - and helped lay the foundations that were to bear fruit in later years.

The opening words of his report from Thomond Park on October 31, 1978 were “The talented, dedicated and inspired men of Munster …” Those three adjectives are an accurate summation of his newspaper career, the kind of career that can never be repeated. To his wife Rose and their sons Derek, Mark and Roger, and their daughters-in-law and grandchildren, we offer our deepest, fondest condolences.

Rest well Rusty.

Dermot is mourned by his wife, Rose, his sons, Derek, Mark and Roger, his sisters, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, relatives and friends, to all of whom our deepest sympathy is extended.