from their grandmother, typically while they are visiting her and they notice it upon her table or they may of course seize it from her lap as she sits nodding by the fire, and -- while they tend to put it aside for better quality reading as they grow up -- they often return to Ireland's Own as the years go on, the bones get stiffer and they are -- to their, initial, dismay, then, later, a gradual acceptance of the inevitable fate that awaits them -- growing down. Editor's description A former editor, Phil Murphy, on the occasion of its centenary, described it with the words: "Ireland's Own and contention are complete strangers to each other – and that would be a deliberate policy. It's not 'Dublin 4' and trendy 'liberalism' and that aspect of Ireland, which is pretty shallow and skin deep anyway. We're slightly old-fashioned in our ways, for which we make no apologies. We attract a lot of our readership from people who probably have a yearning for what they consider to be the 'good old days, when things were better' as they see them. We do not take a hard-faced attitude towards our journalism or our magazine. We accept the fact that people do have a yearning for the old days, and nostalgia is a significant part of the magazine." Examples of content Its Christmas 2003 edition contained a series of articles, both fact and fiction, on such topics as "Gathering the Holly", "Who is Father Christmas?", "The Christmas Fairy" and "Christmas Long Ago". Kitty the Hair first appaired in 1914. Contributions Ireland's Own accepts unsolicited contributions, both fiction and non-fiction. Copy may be submitted electronically. Payment is made for items accepted for publication, and contributors are sent a complimentary copy of the issue containing their item. In the past, certainly as recently as a couple of years ago, this payment was sent in the form of a cheque. Now, contributors whose material is accepted for publication are sent a form requesting their full bank details: account number, sort code, whether VAT registered and a number of other details. An inquiry as to whether payment by cheque were still an option for those who, for security reasons, preferred not to pass on this information received the reply that Ireland's Own no longer sends out cheques. It has no journalists and it has no staff riders.