The Guild of Agricultural Journalists

Why not form a Guild?

In mid 1961 the editor of the Irish Farmers Journal, Paddy O'Keeffe, attended an agricultural show in Brussels and met up with some members of the executive committee of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.
They discussed that Ireland didn’t have any kind of association parallel to those of France, Germany, the U.K. and other European countries, which had emerged since the Second World War and had subsequently federated. It was agreed that the then President of IFAJ would visit Ireland and see what could be done.

Over dinner in Dublin with a small group of the practitioners of the day he raised a debate about why we should form a guild. The deciding question was why should we not form one? It would serve as a useful meeting point and by joining the IFAJ, would open up a valuable range of international contacts.

It was also agreed that, to give some weight of numbers to the guild, we should establish it on an all-Ireland basis.
Thus the first meeting was arranged for Dundalk, an approximate mid-point between Dublin and Belfast. It was attended by the above mentioned Paddy O’Keeffe, freelance writer and broadcaster Michael Dillon, Con Murphy, public relations manager of the Irish Sugar Co. and Larry Sheedy, then deputy editor of the Farmers Journal, all travelling in one car from Dublin. The fact is it would have been very hard to fill a second car, such was the state of development of agricultural communications in Ireland in 1961.

They were met by William Morrow, agricultural correspondent of the Belfast Telegraph, accompanied by two prominent Northern Ireland public relations men, William Carter and Arthur Campbell.
Dundalk continued to be a convenient and comfortable location for the Guild’s monthly meetings and numbers grew steadily through the Sixties. Then came the disruption of the serious sectarian strife in Northern Ireland in 1969. Dundalk lost its comfort as a meeting point but the success of the Irish Guild was too significant to be just abandoned.
It was decided that the Guild would continue its good work in two sections, northern and southern, separated for ordinary meetings but coming together under an all-Ireland Committee, comprised of the officers of both sections and with alternating Presidents and Secretaries.

That formula has worked very smoothly up to the present day.

Damien O’Reilly, Chairman
Damien O'Reilly joined the Agricultural Department in RTE Radio in 1998 where he has worked as a broadcaster covering agricultural and farming events for a variety of programmes on RTE Radio one.
He is a two-time award winner of the Guild of Agricultural Journalists media awards. Before joining RTE, Damien worked with Shannonside Northern Sound Radio bases in Cavan and Longford. There he worked in a number of different areas including sport and in 1997 he was the winner of the McNamee National Radio award for coverage of gaelic games.
In 2003, Damien succeeded Paul O'Grady to become the youngest ever chairman of the Guild of Agricultural Journalists of Ireland.

Colm Cronin, Secretary
Colm has worked in Public Relations for over 35 years as Managing Director of Pembroke Communications. He was secretary of the guild from 2002 to 2009, in that time Colm had responsibility for co-ordinating the judging of the guild awards for the past eight years.
He is currently a consultant to Pembroke Communications and secretary of the guild since May 2011.

Roz O’Shaughnessy, Treasurer
Roz O’Shaughnessy is the corporate communications manager for Bord Bia.
From a farming background in Co. Wexford, Roz has worked in communications since 2004 and joined Bord Bia in February 2007. She has a degree in Business Studies with French and a post graduate diploma in PR and Communications. Roz joined the Guild committee for the first time in March 2009. 

Margaret Donnelly
Margaret Donnelly is the editior of the Irish Farmers Monthly. Before that she worked as an agricultural journalist for the Farming Independent and a sub-editor for the Irish Independent.
She comes from a beef and tillage farm in the midlands and studied journalism at college before joining the Farming Independent.
She has been a member of the committee for three years and during that time represented the Guild in the US while on a travel bursary.

Niall Madigan
Niall Madigan is the National Press Officer for the Irish Farmers Association. He joined the Guild in 2005 when he took up his role with IFA. From a farming background in Co Limerick, he worked as a broadcast journalist and current affairs presenter with Radio Kerry from 1997 to 2005. He is a BA graduate from UCD where he studied Politics and Economics.

Darragh McCullough
Darragh is Deputy Editor of the Farming Independent and presents RTE's long running rural affairs programme, Ear to the Ground. He also farms in Co Meath and operates a Mobile Farm Unit in conjunction with Agri Aware. He studied agriculture at Greenmount College, Antrim and UCD and has a Masters in Development Studies.

Joanne Fox
Joanne Fox is a journalist with the Irish Farmers Journal. While she is originally from Dublin her parents own a farm and she studied Agricultural Science in UCD before joining the Farmers Journal.
She has specialised in writing about the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS) and she joined the committee in 2007.

Pat O’Keeffe
Pat O’Keeffe is news editor of the Irish Farmers Journal.
From a dairy and beef farming background in Cork, he has worked in the Journal since graduating from UCD with a Masters degree in Animal Science in 1997.
He joined the Guild committee in 2003. He is a strong supporter of the Guild, both from a professional development point of view and as a means to encourage and facilitate social interaction between those working in the sector.

Liam Lavelle
Liam Lavelle the Head of Production of independent television company AGTEL.
He is responsible for the enduring success of 'Ear to the Ground' – a rural current affairs programme which is one of the longest running and most acclaimed series on RTE.
He has a keen interest in educational television and has written, produced and directed many training films on health and safety, food and agriculture, environment and development.  He sits on the Screen Producers Ireland Broadcasting Committee, the representative body for the Irish film and television industry.