The Irish Times
Encyclopedia
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan
Kevin O'Sullivan (journalist)
Kevin O'Sullivan is the editor of The Irish Times newspaper. He is the 13th editor of the paper and succeeded Geraldine Kennedy on 23 June 2011 upon her retirement....

 who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy
Geraldine Kennedy
Geraldine Kennedy is an Irish journalist, former politician, and former editor of The Irish Times newspaper.She became the first female editor of The Irish Times upon the departure of Conor Brady in 2002. Kennedy had held several senior positions at the paper; at the time of her appointment to the...

 in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record
Newspaper of record
Newspaper of record is a term that may refer either to any publicly available newspaper that has been authorized by a government to publish public or legal notices , or any major newspaper that has a large circulation and whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered professional and...

, and is published every day except Sundays. It employs 420 people.

Though formed as a Protestant Nationalist
Protestant Nationalist
Irish nationalism has been chiefly associated with Roman Catholics. However, historically this is not an entirely accurate picture. Protestant nationalists were also influential supporters of the political independence the island of Ireland from the island of Great Britain and leaders of national...

 paper, within two decades and under new owners it had become the voice of Irish Unionism. Today it is no longer considered a Unionist paper; it is generally perceived as being politically liberal and progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

, as well as being right-wing on economic issues.

The paper's most prominent columnists include writer and arts commentator Fintan O'Toole
Fintan O'Toole
Fintan O'Toole is a columnist, assistant editor and drama critic for The Irish Times. He has written for The Irish Times since 1988 and was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001. He is a literary critic, historical writer and political commentator, with generally left-wing views...

 and the satirist Miriam Lord
Miriam Lord
Miriam Lord is an Irish journalist and political sketch writer employed by The Irish Times newspaper. She previously worked for rival broadsheet, the Irish Independent....

. Former Taoiseach
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...

, Garret FitzGerald
Garret FitzGerald
Garret FitzGerald was an Irish politician who was twice Taoiseach of Ireland, serving in office from July 1981 to February 1982 and again from December 1982 to March 1987. FitzGerald was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1965 and was subsequently elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD in 1969. He...

 was also a columnist. Senior international figures, including Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

, Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 and others have written for its op-ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...

 page. Its most prominent columns have included Drapier (an anonymous column produced weekly by a politician, giving the 'insider' view of politics); Rite and Reason, a weekly religious column, edited by Patsy McGarry
Patsy McGarry
Patsy McGarry is Religious Affairs correspondent with The Irish Times. He succeeded Andy Pollak as editor in the mid-1990s. He also is the commissioning editor for articles which are published in the paper's Rite and Reason column every Monday. McGarry also writes occasionally on social issues for...

, Religious Affairs Editor; and the long-running "An Irishman's Diary", previously penned by Patrick Campbell
Patrick Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy
Patrick Gordon Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy , known as Patrick Campbell, was an Irish journalist, humorist and television personality....

 in the forties (under the pseudonym 'Quidnunc'), Seamus Kelly from 1949-1979 (also writing as 'Quidnunc'), and more recently by Kevin Myers
Kevin Myers
Kevin Myers is an Irish journalist and writer. He writes for the Irish Independent and is a former contributor to The Irish Times, where he wrote the "An Irishman's Diary" opinion column several times weekly...

. Since the latter's move to the rival Irish Independent
Irish Independent
The Irish Independent is Ireland's largest-selling daily newspaper that is published in both compact and broadsheet formats. It is the flagship publication of Independent News & Media.-History:...

, "An Irishman's Diary" is now usually the work of Frank McNally. On the sports pages, Tom Humphries
Tom Humphries
Tom Humphries is a sportswriter and columnist who writes for The Irish Times. He lives in Dublin with Mary and his two children, Molly and Caitlín....

' Locker Room column features, as do Philip Reid's golf articles. He is the golf correspondent of The Irish Times.

One of its most famous columns was the biting and humorous Cruiskeen Lawn satire column written by Myles na gCopaleen, the pen name of Brian O'Nolan (Brian Ó Nualláin) who also wrote books using the name Flann O'Brien
Flann O'Brien
Brian O'Nolan was an Irish novelist, playwright and satirist regarded as a key figure in postmodern literature. Best known for novels such as At Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman and An Béal Bocht and many satirical columns in The Irish Times Brian O'Nolan (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966) was...

. Cruiskeen Lawn is an anglicized spelling of the Irish words cruiscín lán, meaning 'the full little jug'. Cruiskeen Lawn first appeared in October 1940 and appeared with varying regularity until O'Nolan's death in 1966.

The Irish Times is also the Irish newspaper with the most bureaux abroad; it has had full-time correspondents in Washington, Paris, Berlin, Beijing, Brussels, London, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and other parts of the world. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a daily circulation
Newspaper circulation
A newspaper's circulation is the number of copies it distributes on an average day. Circulation is one of the principal factors used to set advertising rates. Circulation is not always the same as copies sold, often called paid circulation, since some newspapers are distributed without cost to the...

 of 100,951 during the first six months of 2011.

In May 2011 the Irish Times was losing one million euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

 a month and estimates of how long the current reserves can sustain it are between one and two years.

Origins

The first appearance of a newspaper using the name The Irish Times occurred in 1823 but it closed in 1825. The title was revived as a thrice weekly publication by Major Lawrence E. Knox
Lawrence E. Knox
Major Lawrence Edward Knox was a British Army officer and founder of The Irish Times. He was born in the Kemp Town area of Brighton in East Sussex, England...

, with the first edition being published on 29 March 1859. It was originally founded as a moderate Protestant Nationalist
Protestant Nationalist
Irish nationalism has been chiefly associated with Roman Catholics. However, historically this is not an entirely accurate picture. Protestant nationalists were also influential supporters of the political independence the island of Ireland from the island of Great Britain and leaders of national...

 newspaper, reflecting the politics of Knox, who stood unsuccessfully as a parliamentary candidate for Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt Q.C. M.P. was an Irish barrister, politician, Member of Parliament , and the founder and first leader of a number of Irish nationalist parties and organisations, including the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870 and in 1873 the Home...

's Home Rule League
Home Rule League
The Home Rule League, sometimes called the Home Rule Party, was a political party which campaigned for home rule for the country of Ireland from 1873 to 1882, when it was replaced by the Irish Parliamentary Party.-Origins:...

. Its headquarters were at 4 Lower Abbey Street in Dublin. In its early days, its main competitor was the Dublin Daily Express
Daily Express (Dublin)
The Daily Express of Dublin was an Irish newspaper published from 1851 until June 1921, and then continued for registration purposes until 1960.It was a unionist newspaper. From 1917, its title was the Daily Express and Irish Daily Mail...

.

The Arnotts

After Knox's death in 1873 the paper was sold to the widow of Sir John Arnott, MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

, a former Lord Mayor of Cork
Lord Mayor of Cork
The Lord Mayor of Cork is the honorific title of the Chairman of Cork City Council which is the local government body for the city of Cork in Ireland. The incumbent is Terry Shannon of Fianna Fáil. The office holder is elected annually by the members of the Council.-History of office:In 1199 there...

 and owner of Arnotts
Arnotts (Ireland)
Arnotts is the oldest and largest department store in Dublin, Ireland. The company has two stores in Dublin. Its flagship store is located on Henry Street on the northside of the city centre, and there is a smaller store selling mainly shoes in an outlet in Stillorgan Shopping Centre in south...

, one of Dublin's major Department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

s. The sale, for £35000, led to two major changes. Its headquarters was shifted to 31 Westmoreland Street and it remained in buildings on or near that site until 2005. Its politics also shifted dramatically, becoming predominantly Protestant and Unionist. The paper along with the Irish Independent and various regional papers called for the execution of the leaders of the failed 1916 Easter Rising
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...

.

Though the paper became a publicly listed company in 1900, the family continued to hold a majority shareholding until the 1960s (even after the family lost control, the great-grandson of the original purchaser was the paper's London editor). The last member of the Arnott family to sit on the paper's board was Sir Lauriston Arnott, who died in 1958.

The editor during the 1930s, R. M. Smyllie
R. M. Smyllie
Robert Maire "Bertie" Smyllie , was editor of The Irish Times from 1934 until his death in 1954.Short-sighted, massively overweight, given to wearing a poncho and sombrero, and cycling to work with his typewriter slung over the bars of his bicycle and a half bottle of Scotch sticking out of his...

, had strong anti-fascist views: he angered the Irish Catholic hierarchy by opposing General Franco during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

. Later the Irish Times like other national newspapers had problems with Irish Government censorship during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The Times was largely pro-Allied and was opposed to the Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...

 government's policy of neutrality
Neutrality (international relations)
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...

.

The Irish Times Trust

In 1974, ownership was transferred to a charitable trust, The Irish Times Trust. The former owner, Major Thomas McDowell, was made "president for life" of the trust which runs the paper and was paid a large dividend. However several years later the articles of the Trust were adjusted, giving Major McDowell 10 preference shares and one more vote than the combined votes of all the other directors should any move be made to remove him. Major McDowell died in 2009.

Recent history

In 1969, the longest-serving editor of the Irish Times, Douglas Gageby, was labelled a "white nigger" by the company Chairman (a former British army officer), because of the newspaper's coverage of Northern Ireland at the outset of the troubles, which was upsetting Whitehall
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...

.

The paper established its first bureau in Asia when foreign correspondent Conor O'Clery
Conor O'Clery
Conor O'Clery is an Irish journalist and writer. He was born in Belfast and educated at Queen's University Belfast. He worked for The Irish Times for over 30 years in various positions, including news editor and foreign correspondent based in London, Moscow, Washington, D.C., Beijing and New York...

 moved to Beijing in 1996.

The Irish Times faced considerable financial difficulty in 2002 when a downturn in advertising revenue coincided with a decision to invest its reserves in the building of a new printing plant; none of its journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

s were laid off, but a large number availed of a voluntary redundancy package, when the paper underwent major restructuring. Some of its external bureaux were closed, while it also ceased publishing 'colour' pages specifically devoted to covering local Irish regions, with regional coverage now merged with news. Part of the Irish Times' problems stemmed from the bitter internal strife which led to Major McDowells's daughter Karen Erwin failing to be given the job of Chief Executive. The reorganisation had the desired effect; after posting losses of almost €3 million in 2002, the paper returned to profit in 2003.

John Waters, the only columnist to speak out about the issue of the perceived vast salaries of the editor, managing director and deputy editor, was sacked and then re-hired a week later in November 2003. Former editor Geraldine Kennedy
Geraldine Kennedy
Geraldine Kennedy is an Irish journalist, former politician, and former editor of The Irish Times newspaper.She became the first female editor of The Irish Times upon the departure of Conor Brady in 2002. Kennedy had held several senior positions at the paper; at the time of her appointment to the...

 was paid more than the editor of the UK's top non-tabloid newspaper The Daily Telegraph, which has a circulation of about nine times that of The Irish Times. Later columnist Fintan O'Toole
Fintan O'Toole
Fintan O'Toole is a columnist, assistant editor and drama critic for The Irish Times. He has written for The Irish Times since 1988 and was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001. He is a literary critic, historical writer and political commentator, with generally left-wing views...

 told the Sunday Independent
Sunday Independent
The Sunday Independent is a broadsheet Sunday newspaper published in Ireland by Independent News and Media plc. The newspaper is edited by Aengus Fanning, and is the biggest selling Irish Sunday newspaper by a large margin ; average circulation of 291,323 between June 2004 and January 2005,...

: "We as a paper are not shy of preaching about corporate pay and fat cats but with this there is a sense of excess. Some of the sums mentioned are disturbing. This is not an attack on Ms. Kennedy, it is an attack on the executive level of pay. There is double-standard of seeking more job cuts while paying these vast salaries.

In January 2005, the paper was due to run a front-page story on the Provisional IRA's denial of involvement in the Northern Bank Robbery
Northern Bank robbery
The Northern Bank robbery was a large robbery of cash from the Donegall Square West headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Carried out by a large, proficient group on 20 December 2004, the gang seized the equivalent of £26.5 million in pounds sterling and small amounts of...

, one of Europe's largest ever, and a column by Kevin Myers
Kevin Myers
Kevin Myers is an Irish journalist and writer. He writes for the Irish Independent and is a former contributor to The Irish Times, where he wrote the "An Irishman's Diary" opinion column several times weekly...

, which said that the Provisional IRA were responsible. Myers asked for clarification of the decision from the editor, and later left the paper.

The following May, the paper launched a new international edition, which is available in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and southeast England at the same time as other daily newspapers (previously, copies of the Irish edition were flown from Dublin to major cities in Britain on passenger flights, arriving around lunchtime). The new edition is printed at the Newsfax plant in Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....

, and uses the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

 distribution network.

The Central Bank of Ireland in 2008 fined the Irish Times after it admitted breaking market abuse rules.

In 2009, the Supreme Court ordered the paper to pay €600,000 in costs, despite winning its case about the importance of protecting journalistic sources, and called its actions "reprehensible conduct" by deliberating destroying evidence.

The newspaper has been criticized for its perceived support towards the British Army. An article in the Phoenix Magazine
The Phoenix (magazine)
The Phoenix is Ireland's best selling political and current affairs magazine. Inspired by the British magazine Private Eye, and a source of investigative journalism in Ireland...

 examined an article in the Irish Times published in August 2010 on Irish nationals serving in the British Army. According to the Phoenix the article romanticized the war in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 and was little more than a recruitment advert for the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

. The magazine accused the editor Geraldine Kennedy
Geraldine Kennedy
Geraldine Kennedy is an Irish journalist, former politician, and former editor of The Irish Times newspaper.She became the first female editor of The Irish Times upon the departure of Conor Brady in 2002. Kennedy had held several senior positions at the paper; at the time of her appointment to the...

 and the Irish Times board of violating the Defense Act which prohibits any kind of advertising for recruitment for a foreign army and article 15.6.1 of the Constitution of Ireland
Constitution of Ireland
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of the Irish state. The constitution falls broadly within the liberal democratic tradition. It establishes an independent state based on a system of representative democracy and guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected...

 which states “The right to raise and maintain military or armed forces is vested exclusively in the Oireachtas"".

Diversification

The company has diversified out of its original Irish Times title as a source of revenue. This process has seen the company, Irish Times Ltd., take a majority share in the Gazette Group Newspapers a local newspaper group publishing three local newspapers in West Dublin for €5m, and acquire a property website MyHome.ie, the second-largest property internet portal in Ireland, for €50m, seen as an "insurance policy" against the loss of traditional classified property advertising revenues. In June 2009, journalists called on the board and trust to review "the flawed investment and diversification strategy of the company" and passed a motion saying that "ongoing investment in loss-making projects poses a serious threat to employment" at the newspaper. Four months later the company announced a loss of €37 million and that 90 staff would be made redundant. The director, Maeve Donovan, who instigated the "investment and diversification" strategy subsequently retired. She dismissed suggestions that she would receive a significant "golden handshake", saying that her package would be "nothing out of the ordinary at all". She was given a €1m "ex-gratia" payment by the newspaper "relating to a commutation of pension rights agreed with her".

The managing director in 2009 said that mobile phone applications would be a key investment for newspapers and the Irish Times now has an application for the iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

.

In June 2010 Gazette group newspapers' managing director claimed the company's affairs are being conducted oppressively by its majority shareholder, the Irish Times.

Offices

In 1895, the paper moved from its original offices on Middle Abbey Street (the street that was until late 2004 the home of the Irish Independent) to D'Olier Street
D'Olier Street
D'Olier Street is a street in the southern city-centre of Dublin, the capital of Ireland. It and Westmoreland Street are two broad streets whose northern ends meet at the southern end of O'Connell Bridge over the River Liffey...

 in the south city centre. "D'Olier Street" became a synonym for "The Irish Times", which in turn is personified as "The Old Lady of D'Olier Street". In October 2006, the paper relocated from its historical home of D'Olier Street in Dublin city centre to a new building in Tara Street, only two hundred metres away.

Online

In 1994, the Irish Times established an Internet presence at Irish-times.ie; it was the first newspaper in Ireland or Britain and one of the first 30 newspapers in the world to do so. The company acquired the domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....

 Ireland.com in 1997, and from 1999 to 2008 used it to publish its online edition. Initially free, charges and registration for access to most of the content were introduced in 2002. A number of blogs were added in April 2007 written by Irish Times writers Jim Carroll, Shane Hegarty and Conor Pope. On 30 June 2008, the company relaunched Ireland.com as a separate lifestyle portal and the online edition of the newspaper is now published at irishtimes.com. It is supplied free of charge, but its archives require a subscription to view older parts in digitised form.

Format and content

The paper follows the same standard layout every day. The front page contains one main picture and three main news stories, with the left-hand column, News Digest, providing a 'teaser' of some of the stories inside the Home News, World News, Sport and Business Today sections as well as other information such as lottery numbers and weather forecasts. Inside, it usually contains eight to twelve pages of Irish news, called Home News, which covers the whole island of Ireland (i.e. the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). It regularly devotes several pages to important stories such as the publication of government reports, the Budget, major courts cases, etc.

World News contains some pages of world news from its correspondents abroad and also from the wires and news services such as Reuters, the Guardian Service and the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post service. The Irish Times has staff correspondents in London, Paris, Brussels and Washington.

The Irish Times publishes its residential property supplement every Thursday, this being one of the printed residential property listing for the Dublin area. That section can also be found online. Motoring and employment supplements are published on Wednesday and Friday respectively, and can be found online also.

On Fridays, The Irish Times publishes a Business supplement and an entertainment supplement, The Ticket, with movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, theatre reviews, interviews, articles, and media listings. It features cinema writer Donald Clarke
Donald Clarke
Donald Clarke may refer to:* Donald Clarke , writer on music* Don Clarke, New Zealand rugby union player* Donald C. Clarke, US law professor...

 and music writers Jim Carroll, Brian Boyd, Tony Clayton-Lea and others. Michael Dwyer
Michael Dwyer
Michael Dwyer was a Society of the United Irishmen leader in the 1798 rebellion. He later fought a guerilla campaign against the British Army in the Wicklow Mountains from 1798-1803.-Early life:...

, the distinguished film critic and recipient of the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, wrote for the supplement until his death in 2010.

On Saturdays it publishes a Weekend section, featuring news features, arts profiles, TV and radio columns and book reviews of a limited range of mainly literary and biographical works, with occasional reviews in the technology sector. Its Saturday edition also include the Magazine (consumer and lifestyle features on food, wine, gardening etc.), a travel supplement and a sports supplement.

Daily puzzles are the Irish Times cryptic crossword
Cryptic crossword
Cryptic crosswords are crossword puzzles in which each clue is a word puzzle in and of itself. Cryptic crosswords are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they originated, Ireland, the Netherlands, and in several Commonwealth nations, including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta,...

, formerly compiled by "Crosaire
Crosaire
John Derek Crozier , under the pseudonym "Crosaire", was the compiler of the "Irish Times crossword" from its inception in 1943 until his death. Since he has been the sole compiler, the crossword is often called "the Crosaire" by metonymy. It is a cryptic crossword, in contrast to the "Simplex...

"; the "Simplex" crossword; and three Sudoku
Sudoku
is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9...

 puzzles.

The Letters' page from readers serves as a forum for reader debate on current topics.

The Irish Times features the political cartoons of Martyn Turner
Martyn Turner
Martyn Turner is an English political cartoonist, caricaturist and writer. His cartoons appear daily in The Irish Times parodying current events....

., and the American cartoon strip Doonesbury
Doonesbury
Doonesbury is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau, that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed from a college...

. The business section has a satirical illustration by David Rooney every Friday. Tom Mathews contributes an arts-inspired cartoon (called "Artoon") to the Arts Section on Saturday.

The editorial line of the Irish Times tended to support the Lisbon Treaty. However they have printed a number of articles of opposing views, including articles written by Declan Ganley
Declan Ganley
Declan James Ganley is a British-born Irish citizen, entrepreneur, businessman and political activist. He is founder and chairman of a political party, Libertas with pan-European ambitions...

 of Libertas, and other anti-Lisbon campaigners.

Columns

Regular columns include:
  • An Irishman's Diary
  • Another Life is the weekly natural history column, which Michael Viney
    Michael Viney
    Michael Viney is an Irish artist, author, broadcaster, and journalist. He was born in Brighton.In the 1960s he wrote for The Irish Times about social issues such as the fate of people in institutional care. His articles were later incorporated into the Ryan Report on institutional abuse of...

     has written and illustrated since 1977.
  • Rite and Reason is the weekly religious column. The column is edited by The Irish Times religious editor, Patsy McGarry
    Patsy McGarry
    Patsy McGarry is Religious Affairs correspondent with The Irish Times. He succeeded Andy Pollak as editor in the mid-1990s. He also is the commissioning editor for articles which are published in the paper's Rite and Reason column every Monday. McGarry also writes occasionally on social issues for...

    . Many prominent Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland
    Church of Ireland
    The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...

     bishops, Irish Jewish leaders, theologians from all faiths and journalists, among others, have written the column, which is published on the Op-Ed (Opinion-Editorial) page every Monday.
  • Social and Personal
    Social and Personal
    Social and Personal is one of the longest running columns in The Irish Times. Previously called Court and Personal it originally published the Court Circulars of the British Royal Family, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and details of which members of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy were available in...


Editors

  1. Dr. George Ferdinand Shaw (1859)
  2. Rev. George Bomford Wheeler (1859–77)
  3. James Scott (1877–99)
  4. William Algernon Locker (1901–7)
  5. John Edward Healy (1907–34)
  6. Robert Maire "Bertie" Smyllie
    R. M. Smyllie
    Robert Maire "Bertie" Smyllie , was editor of The Irish Times from 1934 until his death in 1954.Short-sighted, massively overweight, given to wearing a poncho and sombrero, and cycling to work with his typewriter slung over the bars of his bicycle and a half bottle of Scotch sticking out of his...

     (1934–54)
  7. Alec Newman (1954–61)
  8. Alan Montgomery (1961–63)
  9. Douglas Gageby
    Douglas Gageby
    Douglas Gageby was the pre-eminent Irish newspaper editor of his generation. His life is well documented and a book of essays about him, written by many of his colleagues who had attained fame for their literary achievements, was published in 2006 [Bright Brilliant Days: Douglas Gageby and the...

     (1963–74 and 1977–86)
  10. Fergus Pyle
    Fergus Pyle
    Fergus Pyle was an Irish journalist, and editor of The Irish Times from 1974–1977.He was born in Dublin and educated at Campbell College, Belfast and Trinity College, Dublin, where he read Latin and French. He went on a scholarship to the University of Freiburg, and spent a year as a stagière to...

     (1974–77)
  11. Conor Brady
    Conor Brady
    Conor Brady was the editor of The Irish Times for 16 years, between 1986 and 2002, having previously edited the Sunday Tribune.-Life:Brady was educated at Cistercian College, Roscrea, Co...

     (1986–2002)
  12. Geraldine Kennedy
    Geraldine Kennedy
    Geraldine Kennedy is an Irish journalist, former politician, and former editor of The Irish Times newspaper.She became the first female editor of The Irish Times upon the departure of Conor Brady in 2002. Kennedy had held several senior positions at the paper; at the time of her appointment to the...

     (2002–11)
  13. Kevin O'Sullivan
    Kevin O'Sullivan (journalist)
    Kevin O'Sullivan is the editor of The Irish Times newspaper. He is the 13th editor of the paper and succeeded Geraldine Kennedy on 23 June 2011 upon her retirement....

     (2011–present)

Notable contributors (past and present)

  • Charles Acton
    Charles Acton (critic)
    Charles Acton was the music critic at The Irish Times for thirty one years until his retirement in 1987. He was one of only two critics based outside Great Britain to be a member of The Critics' Circle.-Early life:...

  • John Banville
    John Banville
    John Banville is an Irish novelist and screenwriter.Banville's breakthrough novel The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Guinness Peat Aviation award. His eighteenth novel, The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. He was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize in 2011...

  • Maeve Binchy
    Maeve Binchy
    Maeve Binchy is an Irish novelist, newspaper columnist and speaker. Educated at University College Dublin, she worked as a teacher then a journalist at The Irish Times and later became a writer of novels and short stories.Many of her novels are set in Ireland, dealing with the tensions between...

  • Vincent Browne
    Vincent Browne
    Vincent Browne is an Irish print and broadcast journalist. He is a columnist with The Irish Times and The Sunday Business Post and a part time barrister....

  • Joe Carroll
  • Myles na gCopaleen
  • Garret FitzGerald
    Garret FitzGerald
    Garret FitzGerald was an Irish politician who was twice Taoiseach of Ireland, serving in office from July 1981 to February 1982 and again from December 1982 to March 1987. FitzGerald was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1965 and was subsequently elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD in 1969. He...

  • Donal Foley
    Donal Foley
    Donal Foley was a journalist and newspaper editor. He worked as London editor for The Irish Pressbefore employment with The Irish Times...

  • Paul Gillespie
    Paul Gillespie (columnist)
    Paul Gillespie is a foreign editor and columnist for the newspaper The Irish Times. Gillespie writes a regular World View column on Saturdays focusing on international news, monetary economics and geopolitics.-References:...

  • John Healy
    John Healy (Irish journalist)
    John Healy was an Irish journalist from Charlestown, County Mayo, who wrote for Western People and The Irish Times.-Career:...

  • Mary Holland
    Mary Holland
    Mary Holland was an Irish journalist who specialised in writing about Ireland, and in particular Northern Ireland. Born in Dover but raised in Ireland, she married a British diplomat, Ronald Higgins; they lived in Indonesia, but the marriage was eventually annulled.Originally working in fashion...

  • Tom Humphries
    Tom Humphries
    Tom Humphries is a sportswriter and columnist who writes for The Irish Times. He lives in Dublin with Mary and his two children, Molly and Caitlín....

  • Lara Marlowe
    Lara Marlowe
    Lara Marlowe is a United States journalist and author, who is currently US correspondent for The Irish Times, after having spent many years as the paper's Paris correspondent. Marlowe also spend 15 years as a journalist for Time.-Career:...

  • Seamus Martin
    Seamus Martin
    Seamus Martin is the retired international editor of The Irish Times and is the brother and only sibling of Diarmuid Martin the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin....

  • Kevin Myers
    Kevin Myers
    Kevin Myers is an Irish journalist and writer. He writes for the Irish Independent and is a former contributor to The Irish Times, where he wrote the "An Irishman's Diary" opinion column several times weekly...

  • Breda O'Brien
    Breda O'Brien
    Breda O'Brien is an Irish teacher, journalist and a critic of aspects of feminism. She writes usually for The Irish Times. She was also the founder of Feminists for Life of Ireland, in 1992, and as been a leading name in the pro-life movement....

  • Conor O'Clery
    Conor O'Clery
    Conor O'Clery is an Irish journalist and writer. He was born in Belfast and educated at Queen's University Belfast. He worked for The Irish Times for over 30 years in various positions, including news editor and foreign correspondent based in London, Moscow, Washington, D.C., Beijing and New York...

  • Fintan O'Toole
    Fintan O'Toole
    Fintan O'Toole is a columnist, assistant editor and drama critic for The Irish Times. He has written for The Irish Times since 1988 and was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001. He is a literary critic, historical writer and political commentator, with generally left-wing views...

  • Fergus Pyle
    Fergus Pyle
    Fergus Pyle was an Irish journalist, and editor of The Irish Times from 1974–1977.He was born in Dublin and educated at Campbell College, Belfast and Trinity College, Dublin, where he read Latin and French. He went on a scholarship to the University of Freiburg, and spent a year as a stagière to...

  • Arthur Quinlan
    Arthur Quinlan
    Arthur Quinlan is a print journalist for The Irish Times, formerly based at Shannon Airport. Shannon is the most westerly airport in Europe and an important fuel stop for both eastward and westward traffic. As journalist there for over half a century, he has had a unique opportunity to meet and...

  • Martyn Turner
    Martyn Turner
    Martyn Turner is an English political cartoonist, caricaturist and writer. His cartoons appear daily in The Irish Times parodying current events....

  • John Waters
    John Waters (columnist)
    John Waters is a columnist with The Irish Times and a former editor of Magill magazine. His career began in 1981 with the Irish political-music magazine Hot Press. He went on to write for the Sunday Tribune and later edited In Dublin magazine and Magill...

  • Terence de Vere White
    Terence de Vere White
    Terence de Vere White was an Irish writer, lawyer and editor.Born in Dublin, he studied at Trinity College, Dublin where he qualified as a solicitor and became a partner in a leading Dublin law firm. He gave up law when he became the literary editor of The Irish Times from 1961 to 1977...

  • Maev-Ann Wren
    Maev-Ann Wren
    Maev-Ann Wren is an Irish economist, journalist, author and former economics editor of the Irish Times newspaper. She has written two books about the Irish health system and her writings have often been mentioned during Dáil and Seanad debates, and in parliamentary committee...



See also


External links

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