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Village Dies
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Who can be surprised by the announcement - reported in today’s Irish times - that Village Magazine is to cease publication?
Village went intro terminal decline pretty quickly. From the start the mag made losses that were as impressive as its copy was unimpressive. True there were a handful of strong journos at times - Justine McCarthy and Browne himself (though personally I find much of his output in recent years has been tedious, incoherent, lightweight given his stature, and often irritating). Early last year when McCarthy’s exit was announced and when the magazine switched from weekly to monthly, it became only a matter of time, and I personally marvelled that Browne had continued to publish it. Incidentally McCarthy moved to the Tribune where, she was “offered a real journalists Salary as well as regular working hours”, jibbed Phoenix.
Even after becoming monthly, the mag struggled to fill pages, and it was always padded out with inane items like the boring two page ’state of the world’ map that became a regular filler. Then it added items on science and nature (this was Ireland’s political monthly remember).
Occasionally there was a reasonable splash on the government and the coverage of Bertie’s finances was thorough and convincing. But overall the Village remained little more than a vehicle for Browne to vent his own spleen against his usual bugbears - the last puff of which was his rant on Lisbon.
I stopped buying buying Village quite a while back. It just became so empty ( it should be added that it’s product values weren’t exactly a pull either, with chunky graphics, a very early 90s feel to layout, and bewildering mixes of colour ) If there is anything to lament about the death of Village it is that Ireland seems incapable of sustaining anything like a real political magazine that can retain talented journalists, conduct in depth investigations of political life, and present us with more penetrating analysis than can be provided by the Newspaper.
“…Ireland seems incapable of sustaining anything like a real political magazine that can retain talented journalists, conduct in depth investigations of political life, and present us with more penetrating analysis than can be provided by the Newspaper.”
Wot, like Irish Election?
Ireland may well have the market for this type of magazine but it would seem that Vincent is not the person to do it. He has been here before. Look at the Phoenix though its proof that small magazines can do well here.
Not to mention the quality of our political cartoonists. The best form of analysis needs no words after all.
I rather liked Village. Mind, it’s not as though it had much competition. The problem was that it never really seemed like an essential purchase. When they changed the publication schedule, it often seemed like reports were well and truly out of date. Their presence online would probably have had more of an impact if they’d taken down the pay wall.
Whatever Village’s faults, it says a lot about Ireland that while Village dies, the Sindo lives.
People in ireland don’t care to much for Irish politics. Certainly not enough to make a market outside the newspapers. Save magil which is a total mystery.
Magill is particularly seasonal at this point, it’s production values are higher than the Village was but some of its content is even worse that the Village.