First of all
sincere thanks to the hundreds and hundreds of people who called or texted or
tweeted their compliments and thanks for our coverage of the elections, and
those who pulled over in cars or tractors to talk to all the members of the
news team over the last day or two when we eventually squeezed in a walk to
clear our heads of all the figures!
1. OUR HOSTS
Our hosts for
the election counts who ensured we had everything we needed to be able to
broadcast live and for a long period of time...
County Registrar and Returning Officer in Leisureland Marian Chambers Higgins
and Susan McMahon of the courts service.
Returning Officer for the city council count Gary McMahon, and the staff at
Westside Community Centre, and also city CEO Brendan McGrath.
Returning Officer for the county council count Alan Farrell and Una Ní Eidhin,
along with Kathleen the manager of the Galway Lawn Tennis Club.
Returning Officer for the Midlands North West count Fintan Murphy and the staff
of the Royal in Castlebar.
And all the Gardai and security on duty in all these centres who were ready to
help in any way they could.
2. OUR TECHNICAL TEAM
First mention here needs to go to Donal O’ Sullivan, no task defeats this man and it almost seems like he has the ability to be in two places at the one time, he anticipates our every need and his resourcefulness knows no bounds, we’d be lost without him.
Also on our technical team Damian Burke, Mark Connolly, Gerry Murphy and Barry Cullinane who stepped in at the last minute when the city council count went on for what seemed like years. A special mention to our studio engineer Dylan Connolly who got very little sleep on Saturday and Sunday and did an amazing juggling job, especially when candidates were being elected in both city and county at the same time.
3. OUR REPORTING TEAM
Our experienced and tenacious journalists on site in the election centres Stella Meehan, Antoinette Giblin, David Nevin and John Mulligan who no matter whether it was day or night reported professionally and clearly and brought our listeners 85 live interviews between Saturday and Tuesday.
In order to ensure that we were delivering the best information possible we needed expertise and we got this in spades from our two political analysts John Cunningham and Frank Donohue. I am still in awe of the way these guys do a few taps on a calculator and can then clearly translate for us all the very complicated system that is PR. And in order for Frank and John to do this for us we need the expertise of the tally people and in Enda Felle, Enda Howley and Pat Flaherty we have the creme de la creme, and all done with a heart and a half.
Our team back at base Daniel Considine and Tom Gilmore. Tom is our Tom Brokaw, and he accepted our invitation to come out of retirement for this marathon broadcast and there was a massive reaction to him being back on air.
Thanks to all the staff of Galway Bay fm, all played a role in our election broadcasts and I’d like to thank Sean Walshe who managed while commentating on that pulsating Galway Wexford clash to allow us get in the election updates.
4. THE PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER BIT
My Deputy
Head of News Stella Meehan who as well as doing all her side of things thought
of anything I had forgotten, and kept me sane.
Our Head of Programming Jon Richards for pulling all the different strands together
and Keith Finnegan, as station CEO for making sure we had the resources we
needed to do such a major broadcast.
And finally to the candidates and their families, thank you for being gracious
to us in victory and defeat, and best of luck to the new councillors and MEPs.
Bernadette Prendergast
Head of News
