On this day in 1704, the first regular newspaper in the United States, The Boston News Letter, went into publication.
First issue of the Boston Newsletter. Even the layout was "super-exciting"
It’s a shame that an earlier newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick only lasted for one issue in 1690, because it was a much better name for a newspaper and would have been more fun to look back at. It’s opening sentence was to let the readers know that it would be published monthly or “if any Glut of Occurrences, oftener”. Unfortunately, the paper was shut down by the government who were mighty displeased that no one had asked them permission to publish it and that it had printed things that they didn’t agree with.
The Boston News Letter was government approved and must have been a really great read for all the colonists, containing, as it did, lots of news about London, the British Parliament, the royal family, wars in Europe and all sorts of stuff that didn’t matter a damn to people living thousands of miles away. The first issue concentrated heavily on Papist threats to England, Scotland and Ireland and had lots of warnings about the “bloody designs of the Papists and Jacobites”. There was also some mention from a Dublin newspaper of November 27th (yep, not only was the news all about stuff they weren’t interested it was months out of date to boot!) about bad Catholics “beginning to form themselves into bodies, and to plunder the Protestants of their arms and money.”
To be fair there was one whole column dedicated to “local news”, like which ships had arrived, how some judge had got appointed as Judge of the Admiralty and a report on the “excellent” sermon of Rev. Mr Ebenezer Pemberton of Old South Church, Boston. He’d taken 1 Thessalonians 4:11 “And do your own business” as his lesson. Nothing about real local issues, like whether or not Mistress Goheavily was indeed stepping out with Master Snoresum, or if in fact, as Mistress Breams suggested, the lady’s troth was already pledged to Midshipman Crozier. Ships, appointments and a dull sermon that most of the readers had probably already slept through the previous Sunday. With so much stimulation now on hand, it’s a wonder the good people of Boston didn’t all just fall into a coma through sheer excitement.
It took about fourteen years for there to be something vaguely worth reading in the paper, but an account of how Blackbeard was
Ebenezer sending everyone to sleep with his shit sermons
killed in hand-to-hand combat on his own ship must have almost been worth waiting for. From 1722, the paper was under new ownership and gave more space to local events, but given that it was all a bit prissy in Boston, it was many years before there were thrilling accounts of naughty behaviour and illicit goings on. I am left wondering what exactly the Rev. Mr Ebenezer Pemberton had to say about doing your own business. Try as I might I can’t figure out how I could do somebody else’s business without the sort of efforts that I’m pretty sure are physically impossible. Maybe that first issue wasn’t so boring after all!
Today’s shared birthday is a rum one. A chap called Enda Kenny was born in 1951 and another one called Eamon Gilmore was born in 1955. The names will mean something to my Irish readers, but little to anyone else. Well Enda is the Taoiseach of Ireland and Eamon is the Tánaiste, in English, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland.
Look at me, I'm the Taoiseach!
This strange coincidence makes me wonder if there wasn’t a conspiracy to only have men with the same birthday in power, but rather than go through the whole Irish cabinet to see if it was true, knowing full well that all I’d find was a variety of birthdays, I decided to leave it at these two and just make “hmm” type noises with a knowing look on my face.
I doubt either man is having much fun at the moment, what with Ireland being broke and all, but Enda has had a visit with Barack Obama in which he (Enda) looks like just the sort of man I would trust only as far as I could throw him (I throw very badly and he’s a fair-sized man). Eamon looks a bit more trustworthy, but who can tell. I’ve seen no photos of him with the American President.
So this pair of likely lads are from Mayo (Enda) and Galway (Eamon) and now they run Ireland.
Eamon's a great man for the cake
I shall wish them both a happy birthday, because if they have miserable ones they’ll only make sure the rest of Ireland suffers, probably, and I shall rely on one of my cousins to comment here and tell us whether or not I’ve got it right about either of this pair.
Almaniacal 