READERS can still buy the News Letter anniversary supplement, which celebrates the paper’s recent 275th birthday.
The 32-page pull-out includes congratulatory messages from the Queen, Prime Minister David Cameron and First Minister Peter Robinson.
Of all the daily newspapers in the world, the News Letter is the oldest. It was founded in Belfast in September 1737 by the printer Francis Joy.
The anniversary supplement includes a detailed history of the paper, with a particular emphasis on its first 100 years, a time when few other surviving papers were reporting.
The supplement reproduces the first surviving edition of the News Letter, which is dated October 3, 1738, a little over a year after it was founded.
All six of the paper’s living former editors contribute to the supplement, recalling their time in the chair.
John Trew writes about how the News Letter survived 1970s bomb attacks outside its Belfast offices.
His successor Sam Butler recounts how the sudden imposition of the Anglo Irish Agreement in 1985 enraged even moderate unionists, and undermined his attempts to promote a more liberal unionism.
“It destroyed liberal unionism and set the whole process back two decades.
“You are now seeing unionists going into the centre territory I was trying to promote as editor almost 30 years before.”
Mr Butler’s successor Geoff Martin writes about how he led the paper into its controversial support for the 1998 Belfast Agreement.
Three distinguished historians – Paul Bew, Jonathan Bardon and Eamon Phoenix – all write about the significance of early News Letters.
Lord Bew says it is the most important paper in the world in the 1790s because of its detailed reports on the French Revolution and its aftermath and its coverage of early America.
News of such events helped fuel the United Irishmen, one of whom was a grandson of Francis Joy – Henry Joy McCracken, who was hanged in 1798, close to the News Letter offices.
Our special 32-page souvenir supplement published with Saturday’s paper can be obtained by telephoning News Letter receptions in Carn, Portadown and Belfast on 028 3839 5577 or 028 9089 7700 on Monday to Friday (9am-5pm).