The Irish Times

The Irish Times
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)
  • The Irish Times Trust GLG (The Trust)
  • The Irish Times DAC
EditorRuadhán Mac Cormaic
Founded29 March 1859; 165 years ago (1859-03-29)
Language
  • English
  • Irish
Headquarters24–28 Tara Street, Dublin, Ireland
CirculationCirculation no longer audited[1]
ISSN0791-5144
Websitewww.irishtimes.com Edit this at Wikidata

The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic.[2] It is published every day except Sundays.[3] The Irish Times is Ireland's leading newspaper.[4] It is considered a newspaper of record for Ireland.[5]

Though formed as a Protestant Irish nationalist paper, within two decades and under new owners, it became a supporter of unionism in Ireland.[6]

In the 21st century, it presents itself politically as "liberal and progressive", as well as being centre-right on economic issues.[7][8] The editorship of the newspaper from 1859 until 1986 was controlled by the Anglo-Irish Protestant minority, only gaining its first nominal Irish Catholic editor 127 years into its existence.

The paper's notable columnists have included writer and arts commentator Fintan O'Toole and satirist Miriam Lord. The late Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald was once a columnist. Michael O'Regan was the Leinster House correspondent for more than 30 years. Senior international figures, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, have written for its op-ed page.

Its most prominent columns have included the political column Backbencher, by John Healy; Drapier (an anonymous piece produced weekly by a politician, giving the 'insider' view of politics); Rite and Reason (a weekly religious column, edited by Patsy McGarry, the religious affairs editor); and the long-running An Irishman's Diary. An Irishman's Diary was written by Patrick Campbell in the forties (under the pseudonym "Quidnunc"); by Seamus Kelly from 1949 to 1979 (also writing as "Quidnunc"); and in the early 2000s by Kevin Myers. After Myers' move to the rival Irish Independent, An Irishman's Diary has usually been the work of Frank McNally. On the sports pages, Philip Reid is the paper's golf correspondent.

One of its most popular columns was the biting and humorous Cruiskeen Lawn satire column written, originally in Irish, later in English, by Myles na gCopaleen, the pen name of Brian O'Nolan (Brian Ó Nualláin) who also wrote books using the name Flann O'Brien. Cruiskeen Lawn is an anglicised spelling of the Irish words crúiscín lán, meaning "little full jug". Cruiskeen Lawn made its debut in October 1940, and appeared with varying regularity until O'Nolan's death in 1966.

  1. ^ "ABC Registrations". ilevel.ie. 12 June 2020.
  2. ^ Laura Slattery (18 October 2022). "Ruadhán Mac Cormaic appointed editor of The Irish Times". The Irish Times. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  3. ^ Flanagan, Peter (28 January 2011). "Irish Times seeking €2m in cost savings". Irish Independent. Retrieved 31 January 2011.
  4. ^ O'Clery, Conor (21 October 2014). "How an Irish passport opens doors". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 7 January 2024. Retrieved 7 January 2024. The Irish Times of Dublin, Ireland's leading newspaper
  5. ^ Dwan, David (April 2009). "The Irish Times, book review". The London Standard. Archived from the original on 27 May 2014. Retrieved 26 May 2014. Today, the Irish Times is one of Ireland's most authoritative journals – the newspaper of record for political and intellectual elites from Mayo to Monkstown. Mark O'Brien provides a detailed and colourful account of this transformation. His history of the Irish Times is also the story of modern Ireland: it tracks the newspaper's sceptical response to the emergence of the Free State in 1922 and the declaration of the Republic in 1949; it also examines its fractious relationship with the nation's governments and political figureheads from Eamon de Valera (whom the paper repeatedly compared to Hitler) to Bertie Ahern.
  6. ^ O'Brien, Mark (2008). The Irish Times: A History. Four Courts Press. ISBN 978-1-84682-123-3.
  7. ^ Brown, Terrance (2015). The Irish Times: 150 Years of Influence. Bloomsbury. p. 448. ISBN 9781472919069.
  8. ^ McCabe, Conor, Sins of the Father: Tracing the Decisions That Shaped the Irish Economy (Dublin, 2011), p. 179.