Still championing Clare after all these years

It's a long, long way from the Clare Champion's origins to here. And to prove it, a celebration in Ennis tonight will mark exactly 100 years since the newspaper first appeared, promising to be "the inveterate foe of landlordism, shoneenism, grabbers and castle hacks."

For almost all of the past century, the Champion has been Clare's only local paper, selling there and in south Galway, with a current circulation of 23,000.

Thanks to the proximity of Shannon Airport, it was also probably the first provincial title to be sold overseas. And it launched the careers of some of Ireland's best-known journalists, including the late Dick Walsh of The Irish Times, the broadcaster and former government spokesman, Sean Duignan, and the editor of the Irish Star, Gerry Colleran.

Owned now as it has been since 1903 by the Galvin family, which also has interests in Clare FM, the paper had controversial beginnings. A short-lived forerunner, the Clareman, was also established by the family.

But after it had been closed down in a libel action, its founder, Tom Galvin, raided its offices for the printing equipment and he set up the Champion, with the emblem of the phoenix rising from the ashes. He died six months later. The paper's campaigning tone - Catholic and fiercely nationalist - survived, however, although its agitation for "an Irish Ireland and an Irish parliament" was interrupted for six months in 1918 when it was suppressed.

Resuming under Josephine Galvin and her editor husband, Sarsfield Maguire, it pledged to be "a clean and honest journal which, true to the motto and having arisen to complete its task, will remain firm to the cause until our people become free men and victory is won".

The current managing director, John Galvin, took over in 1994, following the retirement after 25 years of his father, Flan.

The centenary is be marked tonight by a dinner in the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis, an event which will illustrate both how much and how little has changed in Clare in 100 years.

One of the Clare Champion's greatest successes was its espousal of Eamon de Valera in the famous East Clare by-election of 1917. Tonight's guest of honour will be the local Minister of State, de Valera's grand-daughter, Síle.

Other guests will include the Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, the Church of Ireland rector in Ennis, the Rev Bob Hanna, and all current TDs and senators from Co Clare.