The ''Mayo Echo'' was a controversial, free, weekly tabloid newspaper circulated in

County Mayo County Mayo (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, County Mayo, Mayo, now ge ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

during the 2000s. The paper was first published in 2004 and closed in April 2009.

Circulation

The newspaper claimed to have one of the largest distributions of the 'five county' newspapers, "eventually reaching more than 24,000 copies every week." (from page 2 of the last online edition - edition 221, 15 April 2009). The paper was delivered door-to-door in Ballina,

Castlebar Castlebar () is the county town of County Mayo, Ireland. Developing around a 13th-century castle of the de Barry family, from which the town got its name, the town now acts as a social and economic focal point for the surrounding hinterland. Wi ...

, Westport and

Claremorris Claremorris (; ) is a town in County Mayo in the west of Ireland, at the junction of the N17 and the N60 national routes. As of the 2017, it was the fastest growing town in the county, having seen a 31% increase in population between 2006 and ...

and was also published online every week in

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

format.

Style

The newspaper formed a reputation for tackling controversial subjects using blunt language, and publishing articles criticising what it considered to be examples of corruption or malpractice in local government and other local organisations - in fact, the last online issue had an apology on the front cover relating to an earlier story (dated 30 April 2008) alleging that a local councillor acted improperly when handling planning matters relating to business premises. As might have been expected, the relationship between the ''Mayo Echo'' and the local

Mayo County Council Mayo County Council () is the local government in the Republic of Ireland, local authority of County Mayo, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. As a county council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. The council is responsible for housin ...

was not amicable, and, in the last online edition,

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

Tony Geraghty stated that there had been a three-year boycott of the paper by the Council. It is understood that the ''Mayo Echo'' was not available in the Mayo County Library and the Council operated an advertising boycott. A ''Mayo Echo'' piece which claimed that hundreds of people would be relocated from troubled housing estates in Limerick to Mayo was described as "off the wall".

Lough Lannagh article, May 2008

In May 2008, the ''Mayo Echo'' published an article about alleged

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

activity at a local beauty spot in the town of

. The article sparked hot debate in the local and national press, on national radio and online forums - mainly over its association of the word "

pervert Perversion is a form of human behavior which is far from what is considered to be orthodox or normal. Although the term ''perversion'' can refer to a variety of forms of ''deviation'', it is most often used to describe sexual behaviors that are ...

" with homosexuality, and the fact that photographs were printed of one person allegedly involved, with their vehicle number plate clearly visible. Tony Geraghty, editor of the ''Mayo Echo'', objected to some comments about the original article published on the regional bulletin board at http://www.castlebar.ie/. He contacted the website requesting that the comments be removed and that an apology be published. An apology was published and the comments were removed, but new comments appeared, including one allegedly threatening to burn the ''Mayo Echo''s offices into the ground. Geraghty then issued a threat of legal action against the website and, as a result, the entire site was removed by the site managers and replaced with a commentary on the events. Geraghty then demanded a list of the names of all the site moderators and contributors, but the site managers refused this request. In quick succession, a campaign website was set up (savecastlebarie.org - no longer online), and groups were formed on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

and

Myspace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

. Eventually, Geraghty dropped his threat of legal action and the full website at http://www.castlebar.ie/ returned shortly afterwards.

References

External links

''Mayo Echo''
— ''website of the newspaper''
Castlebar.ie web site
(shut down as of 3 June 2008, reopen as of April 2009)
Facebook group relating to the shut down of castlebar.ie

MySpace group relating to the shut down of castlebar.ie

RTE (Ireland's national radio broadcaster) podcast covering a broadcast about the controversial article published in the ''Mayo Echo'' in May 2008 (MP3) References to Web site shut down at 33:45 and 41:00
{{Newspapers in the Republic of Ireland 2004 establishments in Ireland 2009 disestablishments in Ireland Defunct newspapers published in Ireland LGBTQ history in Ireland Mass media in Castlebar Newspapers published in the Republic of Ireland Newspapers established in 2004 Organisations based in Castlebar Newspapers disestablished in 2009 Weekly newspapers published in Ireland