THE NEWS BROKE on Monday evening that the Metro Herald newspaper is unfortunately to cease publication at the end of this week.
After the announcement, many people’s thoughts turned to the people who distribute the paper, known officially as the Metro Herald Merchandisers. Come rain, hail, or shine, the cheery merchandisers were always seen on the capital’s streets in their distinctive yellow jackets, handing out thousands of copies of the paper.
The company would not say how many merchandisers were out of a job due to it closing down. Officially, it said 13 members of staff would be affected, as well as a number of “casually-employed merchandisers”.
The Metro Herald has 29 distribution points across the city centre, and 62 distribution points across the rail lines, Luas lines and Dublin bus lines. Not all of these points would have a member of staff there, but the majority of the 65,000 copies of Metro Herald were distributed by the “army” of merchandisers.
They were a familiar sight near rail and DART stations, and a spokesperson for Irish Rail told TheJournal.ie:
“The Metro Herald was a big part of our customers commute for the last number of years and we’ll be sorry to see both the newspaper go and the merchandisers certainly – all the feedback would show the merchandisers had very good relationship with the commuters. We wish them well in the future.”
People also took to Twitter to wish the merchandisers well:
Metro Herald was contacted to confirm the number of merchandisers affected but at the time of publishing had not supplied that information.
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