Herlihy, John Newman

by Patrick Maume

Herlihy, John Newman (1863?–1941), journalist, was born in Killeedy, near Newcastlewest, Co. Limerick, probably in 1863 (his obituaries give his age at death as 77). His younger brother, William, became chief reporter on the Cork Examiner. At an early age John joined the staff of the daily Cork Herald (he stated in a 1937 lawsuit that he had 'over fifty years' experience of journalism' (Ir. Times, 12 March 1937)) and eventually became editor; he was known for his forthright coverage of land agitation. When the Herald was taken over by the Morrogh family, who supported T. M. Healy (qv), Herlihy resigned as editor because of his disagreement with their politics. He went to London, where he worked on the Conservative Morning Standard while acting as a correspondent for Irish newspapers.

In 1904 Herlihy returned to Ireland after being recruited as editor of the Irish People, a Dublin-based weekly newspaper owned by the dissident nationalist MP William O'Brien (qv). The O'Brien papers in UCC contain about thirty letters from Herlihy to O'Brien (written while the MP was on a Mediterranean cruise for the sake of his health) which reveal that Herlihy's duties were more than merely journalistic; he liaised with malcontent MPs and county councillors to promote O'Brienite-inspired unity resolutions in the aftermath of the grassroots rejection of the Irish council bill; negotiated with William Martin Murphy (qv) on the question of O'Brien's taking a stake in the Irish Independent in return for a stronger political input into the paper; and advised O'Brien on whether Healy – his new ally (and recent enemy) – could be trusted. Herlihy's duties also included trying to sort out the consequences of the occasional drinking binges of O'Brien's lieutenant D. D. Sheehan (qv), and trying to pacify an infuriated Anna Parnell (qv) who descended on the Irish People office to express her disagreement with the portrayal of the Ladies' Land League in O'Brien's memoirs. It is clear from these letters why O'Brien highly valued Herlihy's services; he is said to have stated that if he had half a dozen more men like Herlihy his policy would have swept the country. This relationship, however, was not to last.

The Irish People was abruptly closed in 1909 when O'Brien decided to withdraw from Irish politics after being shouted down at the 'baton convention' and finding that many of his associates were unwilling to join him in a definitive break with the Irish party. With equal abruptness, O'Brien returned to Ireland to contest the January 1910 general election in response to a Redmondite attempt to purge his remaining followers; Herlihy was re-engaged to edit his campaign paper, the Cork Accent (1 January–10 June 1910), and in April 1910 became first editor of its successor, a daily evening paper, the Cork Free Press (first appeared 11 June).

Herlihy rapidly became embroiled in controversy with the paper's works manager, Thomas Cumming Magill, over Herlihy's choice of monotype rather than linotype machinery to typeset the paper. (Monotype, which set letters individually, was more usually employed in printing books; linotype, which set a whole line of type at once for easy handling and quick turnaround, was more commonly employed in newspapers.) The Cork Free Press became known for errors and misprints; Magill claimed Herlihy was overloading the paper with copy and the faults could have been prevented by using linotype, while Herlihy came to believe – and to claim openly – that Magill was deliberately sabotaging the paper in the interests of the Linotype Company. The directors sided with Magill and restricted Herlihy's authority over the technical side of the paper. Herlihy's continuing suspicion and resentment of Magill led to his resignation from the paper in late September/early October 1911. Herlihy later claimed that O'Brien had sent three messengers to London to try to persuade him to return, without success. Meanwhile, Magill brought a slander suit against Herlihy at the Cork assizes, whereupon in November 1911 Herlihy reiterated his accusations in a pamphlet, How to mismanage a paper, printed for private circulation amongst Cork Free Press shareholders. When the case came to trial in April 1912, Magill was awarded £5 damages instead of the £1,000 he claimed, leaving Herlihy to pay both sides' costs.

From this time Herlihy worked as a reporter on the parliamentary staff of the Press Association, while making freelance contributions to British newspapers and magazines. In the period after 1916 he developed strongly anti-partitionist and republican views; he published a pamphlet opposing partition and worked with P. J. Little (qv) on the clandestine paper Eire, 'writing very often at great personal risk' according to his Irish Press obituarist. In later life he was associated with the London branch of the Anti-Partition Council. These political activities help to explain why, after retiring from the Press Association in 1935, Herlihy was recruited as editor of the Irish Press in December 1935, a position that he could not have secured had he not been a supporter of Éamon de Valera (qv). He made little impact on the paper (whose younger journalists remembered him as an elderly London Irishman) and seems to have been a stopgap appointment reflecting the difficulties of the underfunded Irish Press after the departure to government employment of its first editor, Frank Gallagher (qv).

Herlihy retired in 1938 and returned to London, where he died 3 January 1941 after an operation in a London hospital; he is buried in Wandsworth cemetery. He was survived by his wife Mary Ann, a native of Co. Kerry (they married c.1896); a daughter, Maureen Joanna; and two sons, Martin and Gerard, both of whom were journalists: in 1940 Martin became general manager at Cairo for Reuter's; Gerard was Reuter's lobby correspondent and chairman of the parliamentary lobby journalists.