Echo Boy meets Cork's newest Lord Mayor in what is fast becoming annual tradition

“The people of Cork have always been very kind to me, and it is my great pleasure and honour to come over here to City Hall to meet the lord mayor,” Echo Boy Dave Hogan said on Monday afternoon.

For the past 44 years, since he was a child of 10, Mr Hogan has sold The Echo for nine hours a day, six days a week, in all weather conditions.

The self-described “Last of the Echo Boys”, Mr Hogan has become the lone voice in Cork crying what was once known as “the song of the city”, sitting at his perch outside Oliver Plunkett Street’s General Post Office (GPO) offering The Echo and the Irish Examiner — and the Holly Bough, when it’s in season — to discerning readers.

For the third year in a row, in what has surely now become a Cork tradition, Mr Hogan has been welcomed to City Hall by the Lord Mayor of Cork Kieran McCarthy, where he signed the distinguished visitors’ book and shared some words of wisdom.

It began three years ago, when the then-lord mayor Colm Kelleher, introduced him to the US ambassador and an invite to City Hall followed.

Last year, Deirdre Forde repeated the invitation, and now Mr McCarthy has honoured the tradition, with the lord mayor’s driver, Finbarr Archer, dryly remarking as Mr Hogan arrived at Cork City Hall, “another year, another lord mayor”.

‘Lighthouse of safety’

Describing his guest as “a Cork legend”, Mr McCarthy said that when he was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, the Echo Boys were “everywhere” in the city.

“They were an important source of news, and I know Cork people like to know what’s going on in the city, and when you heard that shout, ‘Echo’, you’d know that news was nearby, the safety even of someone collecting that news,” Mr McCarthy said.

“I’m a big fan of The Echo, it is a community newspaper, the editorials that come out every day, there is a moral that is published every day, and it’s like a lighthouse of safety, and I think that David is one of those beacons — he’s a mini lighthouse.”

Mr Hogan said he was very grateful to the friends who helped him in his life and his career.

“I especially want to remember my great friend and mentor as an Echo Boy, the late Michael O’Regan,” he said.

Mr Hogan thanked his friends in Minihane’s Pharmacy, the Long Valley, and all in the GPO, especially John, Daniel and branch manager Damien Nagle.

Mr Hogan said that he has, in his time as an Echo Boy, been attacked on the street, and he singled out Sergeant Sean Minihane in Anglesea Street for all of his support.

‘Help the homeless’

Asked by the lord mayor for his thoughts as someone who sees life on Cork’s city streets every day, Mr Hogan had a blunt message for those in a position to help our most vulnerable citizens.

“The Government should be doing more to help the homeless.

“What I mean by that, there are some really, really bad cases, and I’m saying now to the likes of Micheál Martin and the Taoiseach to wake up and help the homeless,” Mr Hogan said.

Teased by The Echo reporter for wearing gear from its sister paper, the Irish Examiner, “to give them a much-needed boost”, Mr Hogan let rip with a cross-company roar of “Examiner, Holly Bough, Echo”.

As he left City Hall, Mr Hogan wished Mr McCarthy all the best for his year ahead. Asked by The Echo whether he would visit next year’s lord mayor, Mr Hogan grinned and said: “Sure you’d never know”.