Under the Clock

The Editor of the Irish Times, Ms Geraldine Kennedy, had to be forcibly restrained by staff on Friday night, after she demanded an editorial on the restoration of the newspaper’s clock.

The clock, which Ms Kennedy billed as ‘iconic’, received a front page coverage, with a large photograph accompanied by a 363 word article. This was followed by a further 692-word article on page three. Staff watched as Ms Kennedy orchestrated an on-line slide show to compliment the coverage.

Rumblings of discontent began when Ms Kennedy, who earns a basic salary of €323,000, announced plans to make the clock the subject of Saturday’s editorial.

‘It was a step too far,’ said Alison Healy, who was made pen the articles.

Three years ago Ms Kennedy faced down a significant staff rebellion, provoked by the lavish salaries of senior management. The Sunday Independent reported on 7 August 2005:

‘Geraldine Kennedy and five other directors were paid a total of €2.6m last year - an extraordinary 20.5 per cent cut of the paper's total profits. The rest of the 544 staff shared just four per cent of Irish Times profits among them.’

Insiders say the paper is being torn apart by ‘divisions that only Fianna Fail has known.’

Frank McDonald, Kathy Sheridan, Lorna Siggins, Miriam Lord, Shane Hegarty, Michael Viney, Eileen Battersby and the pol cors are firmly in favour of good quality, low cost domestic reporting.

This is in stark contrast to high-end faction, led by Roisin Ingle, who last week traveled to India for a three page article on therapeutic massage.

Divisions were symbolically on show last week when Brian O Connell wrote a piece about getting an expensive Dublin haircut, only to be followed a day later by Fiona McCann visiting the capital’s charity shops, a subtle criticism of the high-enders.

Insiders are waiting to hear from paper heavy-weight Fintan O Toole, who is both open to six month trips to China and critical of the ‘fat cat’ mentality.

The clock was originally erected at the newspaper’s offices in Westmoreland Street, at the beginning of the tewntieth century; it can now be viewed outside the paper’s news offices on Townsend Street.