*Colm Kinsella. Photograph: Dermot Lynch.
COLM KINSELLA has left his role as Sports Editor with The Limerick Leader to become Clare County Council’s first-ever Digital Communications Officer.
A native of Lorrha, Colm spent twenty one years with The Limerick Leader before finishing at the end of March to cross the border to Co Clare. He was Sports Editor since August 2021 and prior to this was the paper’s rugby correspondent and deputy sports editor.
Living in Annacotty, Kinsella now joins the Council’s communications department which is headed up by former Clare People journalist Claire Gallagher and also includes Ruairí Henchy who doubles up as Irish Language Officer and Tomás Halligan.
He was in attendance for the April meeting of Clare County Council when taking notes in the public gallery.
Before joining The Limerick Leader, Kinsella worked for the Limerick and Cork editions of The Evening Echo along with The Nenagh Guardian.
A graduate of University of Galway, Colm holds an honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Politics as well as a Higher Diploma in Applied Communications. He also obtained a Higher Diploma in Digital Marketing from TUS Mid-West where he received first class honours.
A Grade V post, the current salary scale applicable to the post is from €51,722 to €61,865. Starting pay for new entrants to the public sector such as Kinsella is at the minimum of the scale. The working hours effective from July 1st 2022 provide for a five day, thirty-five hour working week.
In his new post, Colm will take a lead role in the production and publishing of high-quality content for digital and social media campaigns in addition to managing Clare County Council’s social media platforms.
He will be tasked with creating a social media calendar for the Council and scheduling across all platforms, souring content for use across its digitial media platforms plus social media monitoring, evaluating and reporting; preparing and presenting analytics reports on online engagement. He will also have to create online video content and graphics for the Council.
Alongside the communications team, he will be developing a social media strategy to promote the Council’s work and disseminate its strategic priorities and key messages. Colm will also have to project manage professionally produced communication videos for big Council events and will procure the videographer, assist with concept development, script writing, logistics management and oversee edits.
Members of the interview panel which recommended the appointment of Kinsella included Head of Communications Gallagher who is married to News Editor of The Limerick Leader, Jerome O’Connell, Communications Officer with the University of Limerick, Alan Owens who spent eleven years as a journalist with The Limerick Leader and UL Corporate Communications Officer, Andrew Carey who was a senior reporter with The Limerick Post for fifteen years.
Last year, Clare County Council had an operating budget of €192m. The local authority has “approximately 1000 employees,” Chief Executive Gordon Daly told The Clare Echo in an interview last September.
According to the Council, its communications office “is responsible for all areas of communications including media relations, internal communications, external communications, strategic communications, crisis communications and the Irish language”.
