Daily Express (Dublin)

The ''Daily Express'' of Dublin (often referred to as the Dublin ''Daily Express'', to distinguish it from the ''Daily Express'' of London) was an Irish newspaper published from 1851 to June 1921, and then continued for registration purposes until 1960.Daily Express
at National Library of Ireland

It was a unionist newspaper.Sun and Wind
at multilingual-matters.co.uk From 1917, its title was the ''Daily Express and Irish Daily Mail''. In its heyday, it had the highest circulation of any paper in Ireland.

History

It was founded by the Dublin solicitor John Robinson, who remained its proprietor until about 1889, when he sold it to James Poole Maunsell.

In his ''Post Famine Ireland'' (2006), Desmond Keenan says of the newspaper:
In 1858, Karl Marx, writing in the ''New York Tribune'', called the paper "the Government organ":

The paper's first editor, James Godkin, although brought up as a Roman Catholic, had served as a Congregational minister in Armagh and as a general missionary for the Irish Evangelical Society. He was the author of ''A Guide from the Church of Rome to the Church of Christ'' (1836) and in 1838 had founded the ''Christian Patriot'' newspaper in Belfast. He was also the author of a prize-winning essay called ''The Rights of Ireland'' (1845).Smith, G. B., 'Godkin, James (1806–1879)', rev. C. A. Creffield, in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press, 2004)

In December 1858, Lola Montez, visiting Dublin, wrote an angry but inaccurate letter to the editor of the ''Daily Express'' dealing with events which had taken place almost fifteen years earlier. She insisted that, when Dujarier died, she was living in the house of a Dr and Mrs Azan, and that "the good Queen of Bavaria wept bitterly when she left Munich." The newspaper's editor responded in kind, declaring "It is now well established that Lola Montez was born in 1824, her
father being the son of a baronet."

In November 1881, Charles Boycott faced severe difficulties from the Irish Land League on the estate of John Crichton, 3rd Earl Erne, and men of the Orange Order mounted the Lough Mask House Relief Expedition. The ''Daily Express'' donated food and supplies. At the time it was owned by Lord Ardilaun.

Standish James O'Grady (1846–1928), a figure in the Irish Literary Revival and author of a ''History of Ireland'', worked on the Daily Express as a journalist until 1898.

The radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi reported for the newspaper on the Kingstown Regatta of July, 1898, and he did so by sending wireless messages from a steam tug which were then telephoned to Dublin. This has been claimed as the first live transmission of a sporting event anywhere in the world.

In 1899, the paper was the forum for the 'Atkinson controversy' about the evidence of Robert Atkinson to the Intermediate Education (Ireland) Commission, and in a letter to the paper published on 15 February 1899, Douglas Hyde, a future President of Ireland, referred to "that Stygian flood of black ignorance of everything Irish which, Lethe-like, rolls through the portals of my beloved Alma Mater."

In 1902 and 1903, James Joyce wrote many reviews for the newspaper, and its pro-British reputation is mentioned in his '' The Dead''. One of Joyce's reviews troubled the ''Daily Express''s editor, Ernest Longworth, so much that he broke with tradition and added Joyce's initials to it. Published on 26 March 1903, this was a hostile review of Lady Gregory's ''Poets and Dreamers''.Fargnoli, A. Nicholas, & Michael Patrick Gillespie, ''James Joyce A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Writings'' (Oxford University Press, 1996, )
page 50
available online at books.google.co.uk

During the Easter Rising of 1916, rebels entered the grounds of Dublin Castle and took possession of the offices of the Dublin ''Daily Express'', from the roof of which they could command the approaches to the Castle from Dame Street, Castle Street, and Cork Hill to the Upper Castle Yard. British troops regained possession later the same day.

Archived copies of the newspaper are available on microfilm in the National Library of Ireland.

Editors

*James Godkin (from 1851)
* George Linnaeus Banks (1850s)
*Dr G. V. Patton (until his death on 25 March 1898)
*John Edward Healey (to 1907, when he became editor of ''The Irish Times'')
*Ernest Victor Longworth (lived from 1874–1935; years of editorship unknown)
*James Young McPeake (d. 21 September 1924)
*Henry Stuart Doig (born 27 April 1874, died 3 April 1931), editor at the time of the Easter Rising
Descendants of Thomas Doig and Margaret Smith
' at doig.net: "Notes for Henry Stuart Doig: Henry attended High School in Dublin, Ireland, and Dublin University. He won prizes in English literature and German. Henry was a barrister-at-law. In 1896 he lived at 11 Leopold Street, London East. He became editor of the Dublin ''Daily Express and Evening Mail'', and he was the Ireland correspondent for the ''Daily Mail''. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1912. He acted as a Special Correspondent in Ireland for the Daily Chronicle and London ''Daily Express''. He was a member of the Central Recruiting Council for Ireland in 1915, and he was a member of its first deputation to the trenches in Flanders. Henry was expelled from the office of the Dublin ''Evening Mail'' by the Sinn Féin rebels, who seized it in the 1916 uprising, and held it against the military for 30 hours."

References

{{Ireland newspapers

1851 establishments in Ireland
1960 disestablishments in Ireland
Daily newspapers published in Ireland
Defunct newspapers published in Ireland
Newspapers established in 1851
Publications disestablished in 1960