There’s a time for everything, the Bible tells us. A time to be born and a time to die. (Eccles 3). That sad time has now come for The Word, this being its last issue. Born in Britain in 1936 and suspended during World War II, it was reborn as a pictorial and general-interest Catholic magazine in Ireland in 1953.

Its first issue that March had an article about Stalin, written five months earlier. Very conveniently, he died - we didn’t kill him! - on 5 March, the very week The Word was first published here. We printed 5,000 copies, which were all sold in a few days, making the Soviet dictator the first of many people to whom we are indebted.

Our circulation peaked at 260,000 in 1970: 170,000 in Ireland and Britain, 50,000 in the US, 30,000 in Australia and 10,000 elsewhere – but by 1998 it had decreased to 30,000 and in December 2007 it was down to about 17,000. One reason for this is that people who no longer go to Mass on Sundays are unlikely to buy Catholic magazines on Mondays. For many years we produced three separate editions, with some pages of local material, and these brought us most of our vocations in Ireland, Britain and Australia.

The Word is not the first Catholic magazine forced to cease publication and probably won’t be the last. The British Jesuit magazine, The Month, which began away back in 1864, before our order was even founded and 90 years before The Word appeared, ended seven years ago.

From its start The Word’s editorial policy followed the advice of St Arnold Janssen, founder of the Divine Word Missionaries (SVD), a magazine editor himself: “Firstly, it should be entertaining; secondly, impart general knowledge; and thirdly, be a source of spiritual instruction. It should be a non-mission magazine that will be able to bring the mission idea to circles which are not easy to reach.”

So The Word has always covered a very wide range of subjects, from the AA and Aberdeen to Zambia and zoos. It has regularly had articles on the world’s greatest artists, composers, poets, writers, sculptors, scientists, explorers, inventors and other historical figures.

In Ireland, Britain and Australia it was sold mostly by thousands of promoters, of whom we had some in every Irish town. One young Dublin man sold 600 copies a month for us. Another young promoter later became one of the most distinguished people in the country. President Mary McAleese recently reminded us that as a schoolgirl and promoter of The Word she “tramped the streets of West Belfast selling it”.

With so many Irish emigrants working overseas at that time, we also had readers in the most unlikely countries worldwide, even on remote islands, like St Helena and Samoa. Irish mothers had copies sent regularly to their sons and daughters in such faraway places.

Many readers were first attracted to The Word by its interesting pictures, about 60,000 of which, on a vast variety of topics, appeared in its pages in the last 55 years. Some were taken by the world’s greatest photographers, like Yousuf Karsh and Sebastiao Salgado, and by our own Heinz Helf, SVD. Until 2004, (before it shut down) our magazine was printed at our own Press in Holland, whose quality of printing was regarded by experts as unsurpassed anywhere.

Readers were also attracted by our various series of features, such as on Cities of Europe, which ran for about 14 years; on most Irish Towns; and on almost all the Third World Countries. One of our longest, lasting for about 20 years, was Saint of the Month, while nearly every issue for over 50 years had an article about the Bible and its place in our lives. For many years we published interviews with leaders in politics, industry, art, agriculture, trade unions, entertainment, sport, etc. We also carried monthly reports on our worldwide missionary work by countless SVD bishops, priests and brothers.

Yes, there’s a time for everything. Now it’s time to thank all our readers and, especially, our most generous and loyal promoters, our contributors and all those who helped us in various ways. And, sadly, it’s also time to say goodbye.

Paul Hurley, SVD
Editor, 1952-1992

Fr Vincent Twomey's farewell can be read in the section marked 'Editorial' while articles written by Patrick Kavanagh, Cardinal Suenens, Graham Greene and Micheál MacLiammóir, as well as an interview with Brian Friel can be read in the section marked 'This Month's Issue'.

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