In his memoir of The Irish Times in the 1940s, Tony Gray pointed out that real-life journalists never talked of "putting the newspaper to bed", writes Frank McNally
That was for the movies, he wrote. In real life, "the pages always go, or go to press, and ultimately the whole paper goes".
It was not unknown, however, for people to be put to bed on the premises. Gray recalled the sad case of Prof MacNeill, who lived in the newsroom, though he had never worked there in any capacity. A brother of the then governor-general of Ireland, MacNeill had somehow become part of the furniture, surviving on tea made by reporters and on buns brought from Bewley's by various staff members.
Beyond this, he refused charity, once shredding a £100 cheque posted to him by his brother, care of the newspaper. "He had a big, dangling red beard and he just sat there, day after day, waiting for the end," former chief reporter George Burrows told Gray. In the event, the end came elsewhere. "He used to sleep either in The Irish Times or in a telephone kiosk in College Green, one of the first public phone boxes in Dublin, and it was there that he was found dead one morning." As for journalists of that era, they never went to bed. When they were not working, they were drinking. And often as not, they were doing both.
Under the editorship of Bertie Smyllie, the serious work - which happened between 9.30pm and 4am - was preceded by a visit to the pub. Naggins of whiskey then sustained the editorial office during the arduous labour of writing leaders and checking proofs. And even at 4am they would head to a drinking club, or Smyllie's house, or wherever, for more. "It was crazy," wrote Gray, "but that was how we lived."
I was re-reading his book this week while on a break from packing my crate. We have all been packing our crates this week because today, after more than a century in or about its current location, The Irish Times is moving. It is of course a huge logistical challenge to relocate a newspaper. But based on the best professional advice available, we have chosen this date - Friday 13th - to complete the operation. Nothing can go wrong.
This is not the first time the paper has changed address. It spent part of the 19th century on Dublin's northside before crossing the Liffey to become, in time, "the old lady of Westmoreland Street". As a glance at the map shows, however, Westmoreland Street is part of a triangle. And as often happens in triangular situations, the relationship soon came under strain.
In the 1950s, after a scandalous but amicable divorce, the newspaper took up with the hypotenuse to become "the old lady of D'Olier Street" (with a bit on the side, at Fleet Street). And so she has remained until today, keeping in touch with the Westmoreland end of the family through back offices.
It is apt that the bowels of the building - a warren of corridors and cubby-holes - should be contained within a triangle. I have been lost in there many times while searching for the credit union office, or the company doctor. Luckily I always met someone who could give me directions back to the outside world, but I wonder if others have been so fortunate.
Gray mentions that in the old days, when there were no pensions, journalists kept working here until they died. If they were too old to work, they still turned up anyway.
He recalls that when he joined in 1940, there was an elderly reporter who spent all day reading the papers. He was a veteran of London's Fleet Street and was believed to have covered the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, which would have made him nearly 90. The book doesn't say what happened to him. But I worry what they might find in those back offices when they're packing their crates. At the very least, there must be ghosts.
In the current newsroom, all we have to worry about is paper. For years I scoffed at the concept, so beloved of computer heads, of the "paperless office". It turns out that there really is such a thing, after all. It's where we're moving to, apparently.
The place we're leaving, by contrast, is carpeted with ancient press releases, annual reports, and things we couldn't throw out at the time, just in case. We are now encouraged to sift through it all carefully and then file it away, in the nearest bin. But it's hard to let go. So far, I have penetrated my desk's cretaceous and jurassic layers. Today I face the dreaded carboniferous period.
Newspaper production has changed a lot since the 1940s. The old-timers already found it unnervingly quiet when computerisation replaced clunky typewriters and hot metal. But the silence deepened here a few years ago when the printing press, which used to throb like a ship's engine at night, moved to Citywest.
Probably the greatest innovation since Gray's time is the modern trend whereby journalists produce the paper while sober. Yet in some respects the process remains the same. The pages are still not put to bed, whatever the movies think. They just go.
Ultimately the whole paper goes. And after tonight, as far as D'Olier Street is concerned, it will have gone for good.