Irish Independent

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Article name is Irish Independent (for Wikipedia update)

The Irish Independent, which was established in Dublin in 1905, is Ireland’s biggest-selling national daily newspaper. and is published six days a week (Monday to Saturday) in print, digital and epaper versions. It presents itself politically as conservative populist and is owned by leading European media group Mediahuis. The editor, since October 2019, is Cormac Bourke.

Mediahuis, which operates in Belgium (where it is headquartered in Antwerp), the Netherlands and Luxembourg, acquired the Irish Independent with its purchase of Independent News & Media (INM) for €145.6 million in 2019. The company’s Irish operations are overseen from its Dublin headquarters, Independent House, by chief executive officer Marc Vangeel. The publisher is Peter Vandermeersch.

The Irish Independent, whose logo is a stylised rendering in moss green of the historical Brian Boru Harp (the heraldic and governmental symbol of Ireland), is one of Ireland’s most instantly recognisable and trusted media and business brands.

In print

The print version of the Irish Independent is published in compact format. The cover price, as of January 2022, is €2.40/£1.60 from Monday to Friday and €3.40/£2.00 on Saturday.

The newspaper is noted for its award-winning, agenda-setting journalism, and many of its section editors, reporters, commentators and analysts are household names in Ireland, thanks to their authoritative writing, regular appearances on TV and radio and published books.

In the news pages, these include Ireland editor Fionnán Sheahan; group head of news Kevin Doyle; political editor Philip Ryan; business editor Donal O’Donovan; political correspondent John Downing; education editor Katherine Donnelly; technology editor Adrian Weckler; personal finance editor Charlie Weston; legal affairs editor Shane Phelan; travel editor Pól Ó Conghaile; fashion editor Bairbre Power; farming editor Margaret Donnelly; showbusiness editor Melanie Finn; environment correspondent Caroline O’Doherty; health correspondent Eilish O’Regan; special correspondent Catherine Fegan; and special correspondent Paul Williams, who specialises in crime coverage.

In the sports pages, household names include Vincent Hogan, Colm Keys, Frank Roche, Donnchadh Boyle, Conor McKeon, Daniel McDonnell, Cian Tracey, Ruaidhri O’Connor, Aidan Fitzmaurice, Sinead Kissane, Michael Verney, David Kelly, Martin Breheny, Tony Ward, Nicolas Roche, John Mullane and Brian Keogh.

Popular columnists appearing regularly in the main body of the newspaper include Fionnán Sheahan, Lorraine Courtney, Stella O’Malley, John Downing, Billy Keane, Ian O’Doherty, Roslyn Dee, Sinead Ryan, Gerard O’Regan, Richard Curran, John Connell, Larissa Nolan, John Daly, Frank Coughlan, Mary Kenny, Miriam O’Callaghan, Mary McCarthy, Martina Devlin, Kathy Donaghy, Sarah Carey and Patricia Casey.

Staff-produced Irish news, courts and sports coverage is supplemented by freelance journalists throughout Ireland, and news, comment and analysis from Northern Ireland is provided by staff writers on the Belfast Telegraph, which is owned by Mediahuis.

The Irish Independent also publishes syndicated international news, features, comment and analysis from the Press Association, Reuters, The Associated Press (AP), The Telegraph (London), The Independent (London), The Washington Post and Bloomberg.

Group head of visuals David Conachy leads a team of staff photographers, videographers and picture editors and commissions images and video footage from freelancers and agencies throughout Ireland and worldwide.

Notable exclusives

Irish Independent news and sports journalists have ‘broken’ many stories of national and international interest. Notable examples in recent years include:

Regency Hotel attack

On the morning of February 5, 2016, Irish Independent reporters and photographers were present at the Regency Hotel (since renamed the Bonnington) in Whitehall, Dublin, for a weigh-in ahead of a boxing event. As the weigh-in proceeded, a gang of at least four armed attackers entered the hotel. Two were disguised as members of An Garda Síochána’s (the Irish police force) Emergency Response Unit and carried AK-47 assault rifles. An Garda Síochána believes the gang’s intended target was Daniel Kinahan, who had left the hotel shortly before the attack, during which Dubliner David Byrne, an associate of the Kinahan crime cartel, was shot dead. Exclusive photos of the two attackers disguised as Emergency Response Unit members were captured on an Irish Independent journalist’s mobile phone and were published worldwide.

Swing-gate

In May 2019, the Irish Independent exclusively reported that Maria Bailey, a Fine Gael TD (member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas/Irish parliament), was pursuing a personal injuries case against the Dean Hotel in Dublin arising from a fall from a swing-type seat in the hotel in 2015.

The Irish Independent’s revelations of Bailey’s personal injuries claim and her participation in a road race three weeks later became known as Swing-gate, and prompted senior figures in Fine Gael to urge her to drop her case against the hotel, which had become a major embarrassment for her and her party. She eventually withdrew her lawsuit, but in November 2019 the then Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar removed her from the party ticket before the February 2020 general election.

Vote-gate (Newsbrands award winner)

The ‘Vote-gate’ scandal made massive headlines and brought huge scrutiny into the work practices of our politicians. Cormac McQuinn and Fionnán Sheahan were recognised for their work in uncovering the issue of TDs having another TD vote the Dáil in their stead. The coverage prompted a change to the Leinster House rules.

Anglo Tapes

The Irish Independent exclusively published the Anglo Tapes in June 2013 – and they caused outrage across Ireland and in Europe. Taped conversations between senior Anglo Irish Bank executives heard them laughing and joking about their dealings with the Financial Regulator and the trouble Anglo was facing.

Vulture funds takeover

The Irish Independent has reported extensively on Ireland’s housing crisis.

In 2019, the editorial team identified the growing trend of investors buying up homes in an already skewed marketplace. While seeking to bring the issue into the public consciousness and onto the political agenda, the phase ‘Cuckoo Funds’ was coined as a way of explaining the phenomenon which the Government initially denied was a problem. More than two years later ministers admitted such funds were a real market disrupter and introduced legislation to regulate the practice.

Tracker mortgage scandal

At the end of 2015, Charlie Weston revealed how thousands of Irish mortgage customers were denied a tracker interest rate on their mortgage which they were entitled to, resulting in the Central Bank ordering 15 lenders to trawl through their mortgage books to seek out all those who had been overcharged.

Magazines and special publications

The Irish Independent publishes several free magazines and special publications.

Weekend

The most-read is the weekly lifestyle and TV listings magazine, Weekend, which is published with the newspaper on Saturdays and has been edited since August 2019 by Rachel Dugan. Regular columnists include restaurant critic Katy McGuinness, TV chef and cookbook author Donal Skehan, Aoife Carrigy (wine), Bairbre Power (fashion), TV gardener Diarmuid Gavin, broadcaster Louise McSharry (beauty), Dr Caroline West (sex and relationships), Pol O Conghaile (travel), Tanya Sweeney and Ellen Coyne.

Review

Also published with the newspaper on Saturday is the Review supplement, which includes news features, arts and entertainment. It has been edited since April 2020 by Jon Smith and its contributors include Kim Bielenberg, John Meagher (popular music), Tanya Sweeney (arts), Paul Whitington (film), RTÉ broadcaster George Hamilton (classical music), Chris Wasser (TV), Katy Hayes (theatre), poet and critic John Boland (books) and Adrian Weckler (technology).

Farming Independent

Edited since 2019 by Margaret Donnelly, the Farming Independent is published with the newspaper every Tuesday and is considered the ‘Bible’ of Ireland’s farming community.

Exam Brief The Irish Independent, in association with the Institute of Education, produces Exam Brief, a yearly six-part supplement dedicated to preparation for Leaving and Junior Certificate exams.

This supplement is edited by education editor Katherine Donnelly and is published in February, March and April each year.

Seachtain

Seachtain, which has been edited since November 2020 by Gearóid Ó Muilleoir, is Ireland’s only free Irish language newspaper section and is published with the Irish Independent every Wednesday.

Online - Independent.ie

The Irish Independent has rapidly moved in recent years to becoming a digital-first news operation. In February 2020, independent.ie introduced a paywall, with users being asked to pay for a subscription to access certain premium content.

As of January 2022, Independent.ie is Ireland’s most popular news website, with more than 10 million users every month and more than 45,000 subscribers to its premium service, which allows unrestricted access to all Irish Independent (and Sunday Independent) unique and exclusive content behind the paywall.

As well as readers and subscribers in Ireland, Independent.ie attracts a worldwide audience, especially among the Irish diaspora in the UK, United States, Canada and Australia.

Independent.ie is edited by Cormac Bourke.

ePaper version

The Irish Independent is available to subscribers in ePaper format, in which PDFs of the newspaper’s pages can be read, exactly as they appear in print, on computers and personal electronic devices.

Podcasts The Irish Independent produces several popular podcasts from its purpose-built studios. These include the Indo Daily, in which experts speak with reporters about the news behind the headlines; The Big Tech Show (in association with Sky Broadband) with technology editor Adrian Weckler, which examines the big issues and reviews the latest devices; The Floating Voter, a weekly look at what goes on in Dáil Éireann (the national parliament); Real Health (in association with Laya Healthcare) with Karl Henry, which focuses on healthier and happier living; Partners in Business (in association with the National College of Ireland), in which business editor Donal O’Donovan looks at winning working relationships; The Throw In, offering the best Gaelic games insight and analysis from an award-winning team of Irish Independent sports journalists and pundits; and The Left Wing, with Luke Fitzgerald, Will Slattery and guests offering rugby news, analysis and exclusive interviews.

History

Murphy and family (1905–1973)

The Irish Independent was established in 1905 as the direct successor to The Irish Daily Independent and Daily Nation, an 1890s pro-Parnellite newspaper, and was launched by William Martin Murphy, a controversial Irish nationalist businessman, staunch anti-Parnellite and fellow townsman of Parnell’s most venomous opponent, Bantry’s Timothy Michael Healy. The first issue of the Irish Independent, published on January 2, 1905, was marked as “Vol. 14. No. 1.” During the 1913 Lockout of workers, in which Murphy was the leading figure among the employers, the Irish Independent vigorously sided with its owner’s interests, publishing news reports and opinion pieces hostile to the strikers, expressing confidence in the unions’ defeat and launching personal attacks on the leader of the strikers, James Larkin. The Irish Independent described the 1916 Easter Rising as “insane and criminal” and famously called for the shooting of its leaders. In December 1919, during the Irish War of Independence, a group of twenty IRA men destroyed the printing works of the paper, angered by its criticism of the Irish Republican Army’s attacks on members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and British government officials. In 1924, the traditional nationalist newspaper, the Freeman’s Journal, merged with the Irish Independent. Until October 1986, the paper’s masthead over the editorial contained the words “incorporating the Freeman’s Journal”.

For most of its history, the Irish Independent (also called simply the Independent or, more colloquially, the Indo) was seen as a nationalist, Catholic, anti-Communist newspaper, which gave its political allegiance to the Pro-Treaty party Cumann na nGaedheal and later its successor, Fine Gael. During the Spanish Civil War, the Irish Independent’s coverage was strongly pro-Franco; the paper criticised the De Valera government for not intervening on behalf of the Spanish Nationalists. In 1961, the harp became a symbol of the Irish Independent. It originally appeared in black but was changed to green in 1972.

O’Reilly (1973–2012)

In the 1970s, former Heinz chairman Tony O’Reilly took over the Irish Independent. Under his leadership, it became a more populist, market liberal newspaper, populist on social issues but economically right-wing. By the mid-1990s, its allegiance to Fine Gael had ended. In the 1997 general election, it endorsed Fianna Fáil under a front-page editorial, entitled “It’s Payback Time”. While it suggested its headline referred to the fact that the election offered a chance to “pay back” politicians for their failings, its opponents suggested that the “payback” actually referred to its chance to get revenge for the refusal of the Rainbow Coalition to award the company a mobile phone licence.

In late 2004, Independent Newspapers moved from its traditional home in Middle Abbey Street to a new office, Independent House, in Talbot Street, with the printing facilities already relocated to the Citywest business park near Tallaght.

On September 27, 2005, a fortnight after the paper published its centenary edition, it was announced that editor Vinnie Doyle would step down after 24 years in the position. He was replaced by Gerry O’Regan, who had until then been editor of the Irish Independent’s sister paper, the Evening Herald. Stephen Rae, who was also formerly editor of the Evening Herald, was appointed editor of the Irish Independent in September 2012. Fionnán Sheahan succeeded Rae in January 2015, and Cormac Bourke was appointed editor in October 2019.

O’Brien (2012–2019)

Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien acquired a majority shareholding of the Irish Independent’s parent company, INM, in May 2012

Mediahuis (2019-Present)

In July 2019, the takeover of INM by Belgian media group Mediahuis was approved by the Irish High Court.[13]

From February 11, 2020, it was announced that Independent.ie content would go behind a partial paywall.

Digital archives

Back issues of the Irish Independent up to 2004 can be accessed online through the Irish Newspaper Archives website. Up to 2004 you will only find black-and-white microfilm pages, but since 2005 the pages of the Irish Independent online are in colour. Back issues of the Irish Independent up to 2009 can be accessed online through the British Newspaper Archive website.

References

This article "Irish Independent" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Irish Independent. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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