Michael Kelly Long-serving Editor of The Irish Catholic Michael Kelly has announced that he will step down from the position early in 2024, after more than 12 years in the Editor’s chair.
Mr Kelly, a native of Co. Tyrone, served as the paper’s Rome Correspondent before joining the Dublin office in 2005. He was appointed Deputy Editor in 2008, and succeeded Garry O’Sullivan as Editor in 2012.
As Editor, Mr Kelly has been a respected and trusted commentator and broadcaster on religious and social affairs, both at home and abroad. He has also frequently been a guest speaker at Church gatherings, clergy conferences and parish missions and novenas.
“It has been the great honour of my life to serve as Editor of The Irish Catholic,” Mr Kelly said of his coming departure. “Over the past 135 years, The Irish Catholic has told the story of Irish Catholics in good times and bad, and always sought to be a voice for Catholics both within the Church and in the wider society.
“When I was appointed Editor in 2012, I said then that I wanted everyone for whom the words ‘Irish’ and ‘Catholic’ resonate with to see something of themselves within the paper, with the help of great colleagues I think we achieved that,” Mr Kelly said.
“I move on with mixed emotions, but you have to know when you have given as much as you can give to one thing, and it is time to move on – and sometimes a desk in Dublin can be a very dangerous place for a journalist from which to view the world,” he said.
Publisher Garry O’Sullivan said that he wished Michael well in this new chapter in his life and thanked him for the extraordinary editorial judgement that he brought to the job. “Michael is not replaceable, there is no one that I’ve met that would match him for his judgement and encyclopaedic knowledge of the Church, its rules and laws, its customs and traditions, its history and politics.
“But most of all, Michael is and was a great friend to all who work here and his humour and sense of fun will be sorely missed,” Mr O’Sullivan said.