Tag Archives: media

On Chicago, baseball, rugby and Irish news coverage

UPDATE:

The “black stain in Irish rugby has been removed,” with a first ever victory over the New Zealand All Blacks in 29 attempts, 40-29, before more than 63,000 in Chicago.

ORIGINAL POST:

The Chicago Cubs’ historic World Series victory, which ended a 108-year championship drought, generated plenty of headlines on Irish media websites. The same was not true in print the last time the team won baseball’s fall classic.

I searched the Irish Newspaper Archive but couldn’t find any Cubs coverage from October 1908. Two days after Chicago’s Series win over Detroit, the Freemans Journal reported on a “big fire” that destroyed a railroad office and corn elevator in the city. A few weeks later, Kilkenny People detailed the sensational  case of a native-born priest who survived being shot twice outside of his Chicago church “by a ruffian whom he was attempting to arrest.”

Most contemporary Irish media coverage of the Cubs’ 10-inning win over Cleveland also included references to the 5 November rugby match between Ireland and New Zealand at Chicago’s Soldier’s Field. The teams have played 28 times over 111 years, with Ireland’s best result a 10-10 draw in 1973. Maybe another championship drought will come to an end.

Meanwhile, Cubs fans can select from plenty of Irish gear at the team’s official MLB shop.

shirt

 

Belfast newspapers: Nationalist, centrist and unionist

One of the delights of my recent trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland, was encountering the offices of three daily newspapers within a few blocks of the city center. Some history of each paper is linked below, plus more here on media in Northern Ireland. The papers are:

The Irish News, which supports the nationalist cause …

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…the generally centrist Belfast Telegraph, and …

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… the unionist Belfast News Letter.

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