It’s important — and easy — to let your fellow Hibernians know what the members of your
division, county or state board, are doing to live the motto of our Order. Whether you are
marching proudly in a St. Patrick’s Parade, playing in a fundraising golf outing, presenting a
scholarship check to your local Catholic school, participating in a pro-life event or loading
trucks with collected food for a Hibernian Hunger project, spread the good news with your
brothers throughout the country by submitting an article and photo to your Hibernian Digest.
Division- and county-level articles should be no more than 150 words. State articles can be as
many as 300 words.
Articles should be concise: say only what’s required and say it only once.
Every article should serve two purposes: promulgate the news of actions your division, county
or state has taken, and inspire Hibernians in the rest of the Order to take similar action in their
own areas.
An action photo (or more than one) should accompany the article. Articles with clear photos
are more likely to be read than articles without them. Readers find photos of Hibernians doing
something much more interesting than a lineup of officers staring at the lens. The check
presentation “grip-and-grin” picture is fine, but an additional photo of Division members doing
whatever it was to raise the contributions is even better.
Cellphone photos are great for social media, but usually reproduce poorly when ink hits paper
in a printed publication. So get a brother with any kind of real camera — set to high resolution
JPG-format, and the highest image quality — to take the pictures. Submitted photos should
be at least 1 megabyte (MB) big. Again, Hibernians taking action are preferred.
Each picture should have a caption that, without adjectives, quickly tells readers the Who,
What, Where and When of what’s going on in the picture. A bad caption of three people
attending an FFAI event in the state capital would be: “Hibernian FFAI leaders.” A good
caption would be: “At the State Legislature in Albany on June 7, Hibernians Mike O’Malley,
left, Jerry Corrigan and Patrick Ryan helped to lobby senators to adopt the McGuinness
Principles.”
When taking pictures, get close, fill the frame with the subject(s). At a division dinner, no one
needs to see 30 feet of floor and all the chandeliers, we just want to see Hibernians. Make
sure the subjects are in bright light.
Submitted photos become the property of the AOH and may be used for other Hibernian
purposes.
Photo credits will be given, if provided. If you want your by-line on the article, say so.
Sometimes the name of the person submitting the article will be placed at the end of the
article, at the discretion of the editor.
DEADLINES:
- January-February-March issue: Deadline January 1.
- April-May issue: Deadline April 1.
- June-July issue: Deadline June 1.
- August-September issue: Deadline August 1.
- October-November-December issue: Deadline October 1.
Submissions received after the deadlines will not be edited or included. If you miss the
deadline, resubmit just before the next deadline.
Submissions should be emailed. The email address to send the articles and photos to is
EditorHibernianDigest@yahoo.com. There is no other email address of AOH articles and
photos. The subject line of the email must include the state and the words “Digest
submission.” The headline or first sentence of the article should reveal state, county and
division. It’s hard to know what to do with a submission that says, “Division 9 raised money for
Project St. Patrick.” Division 9 where?
Make sure your article is in Word or txt format. It should be an attachment to your email.
Same with photos: All photos should be JPG-formatted attachments. Do not embed photos
into Word documents, attach them to the same email as your article.
All submissions must include the name, city, state, division and phone number of who to
contact if the editor has questions.
Email John O’Connell, the Digest editor, with any questions about articles or photos to
EditorHibernianDigest@yahoo.com.