Tipperary Star’s first female editor looks back on 42-year career with the paper

Anne O'Grady who retired as editor of the Tipperary Star and Noel Dundon who has been appointed as Managing Editor. Photos courtesy of Tipperary Star.

Tributes are being paid to Tipperary Star Editor Anne O’Grady who has retired after 42 years with the paper.

She joined the Star in 1979 and became the first female editor of the Thurles based publication in 2011.

Noel Dundon has been appointed as the new Managing Editor, having spent 27 years with the Tipperary Star.

On Tipp Today earlier he recalled his first time covering a court case.

“I hadn’t a notion what was going on in the court, I’d never been inside a courthouse before.

“I remember coming back to the office and my father saying to me ‘How did you get on?’ and I said I hadn’t a clue and he said ‘Would you be able to write anything about it?’and I said, not really, I just didn’t know what was going on.

“And he said to me at the time ‘Well, if you watch the way Anne O’Grady structures a story, you’ll never go wrong’ and it was great advice you know.”

Having spent over four decades with the Tipperary Star its editor Anne O’Grady says the pandemic helped make up her mind to retire from the post.

Speaking on Tipp Today earlier Anne said she was looking forward to her retirement which she said probably came sooner than many expected.

“I play a little bit of golf, not very well, but hopefully I’ll have more time to practice now.

“It was always in my head that I’d like to go a little bit early and I think the pandemic brought a lot of people’s lives into perspective.

“You know when you’re working six or seven days a week, people kind of change their attitudes in terms of the pandemic and I made the decision when I saw us coming out of it, that I would go.

“So, I think it came as a little bit of a surprise to the company, but I made that decision at the end of May and finished up at the end of August.”