We're 100 years old today. Here's a short history.
Started in 1914, our first story was all about The Great War and distributed about Belfast free of Charge written on the back of cigarette cartons. Due to the prohibitive cost of printing, our first article was:
"War: Europe at War. More Next Week".
In Norn Iron News tradition, we didn't print another article until June 1916 when 18 year old founder, editor and writer David McNorn accidentally volunteered for the 36th Ulster Division and was sent to war. He convinced the powers that be that he was a proper journalist so managed to avoid any actual fighting and observed The Battle Of The Somme from the side lines, writing up reports for the top brass and sending them back. Some of his work was printed in the press at home for morale purposes and he always considered these to be official Norn Iron News publications (they were not). The bloodiest battle of the great war, The Somme lasted until November and thinking he'd managed to get out unscathed, McNorn was captured by the Germans.
He was released in September 1939 (a paper work snafu saw him classified as German so he was held as a traitor long after he should have been released in 1918) but promptly recaptured while realising his long held boyhood dream of visiting Poland before he came home.
He finally arrived back in Belfast in 1945 and bought some premises to start his new paper, The Norn Iron News.
He sadly died before launching the first proper issue of The Norn Iron News. No autopsy was ever carried out however unconfirmed reports suggest he fell into what was to be the Norn Iron News printing press. (This is thought to be the origin of the 'what's black and white and read/red all over' joke).
In 2009 the Norn Iron News editor found the printing press at an auction, pulled McNorns remains out of the workings and relaunched the Norn Iron News. It flopped spectacularly and was too expensive so he just stuck it online instead. And here we are. 100 years later*. Happy Birthday To Us.
*100 posts
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