Daily Ireland
Daily Ireland is a daily newspaper launched in January
2005 throughout the island of
Ireland to cover news stories from an
Irish republican viewpoint. It is linked to the
Belfast local newspaper, the
Andersonstown News.
Its supporters regard the paper as the first mass market Irish republican newspaper. Critics have accused it of being overly supportive of the politics of
Sinn Féin, the biggest nationalist party in
Northern Ireland. Some supporters and opponents have compared it to the defunct
Irish Press newspaper, which was strongly associated with, and supportive of,
Fianna Fáil, Ireland's largest party.
A comment by the Republic's
Minister for Justice,
Michael McDowell on
RTÉ's
Questions and Answers live television debate programme, in which he claimed the newspaper was backed by the
Provisional IRA and compared it to the
Nazi party newspaper the
Völkischer Beobachter, led to a threat of legal action for libel by the publishers of the papers. The publishers denied his allegation and demanded its withdrawal. As some Sinn Féin supporters have been killed or threatened by
loyalists, staff at Daily Ireland contend that McDowell's comments put them in danger. A member of the paper's management was later told by the
Police Service of Northern Ireland that he was at risk of attack by
loyalist paramilitaries. McDowell to date has refused to withdraw his comments, and told Daily Ireland he would see them in court. When they brought a suit against him in
Belfast, his defence team declared that as Minister of Justice, McDowell has
sovereign immunity. The case continues.
In May 2005 the management of the paper denied media reports that
Daily Ireland was experiencing poor circulation and was about to lay off many of its staff. This was confirmed by the paper on
14 May 2005 when it claimed that poor advertising revenue was being caused by the decision of the
British government not to place advertisements in it (as it is obliged to do with papers that have reached a certain circulation), and that 30 jobs were in danger as a result. Government policy at the time was not to advertise in publications for which audited circulation figures were not available and as a new publication, these figures were yet to be published for the Daily Ireland._papernumbers|image=
|cir=10,474|read= - |time=Feb-April 2005|source=Audit Bureau of Circulations}}When the figures were published by the
Audit Bureau of Circulations, the paper had an average
circulation of 10,474 for February, March and April 2005, considerably below expectations (most
county newspapers have higher sales) and well below break-even level. In contrast the
Irish Independent had a circulation of approximately 160,000 and
the Irish Times a circulation of 117,000. They are not universally available in Northern Ireland and so have their principal market in the
Republic of Ireland, unlike
Daily Ireland which was intended to be an all-Ireland newspaper.
The Irish News, which is largely restricted to Northern Ireland, has a circulation of over 50,000. Though new newspapers regularly start at a low base and lose money for their first couple of years, no Irish national newspaper in recent years which started at such a low base has survived, with newspapers such as the
Stars on Sunday,
Daily News and
Dublin Daily, attracting higher initial base circulations in smaller markets (the former two in the Republic, the latter in
Dublin) before folding. With such a small readership the longterm survival prospects of
Daily Ireland remains a matter of speculation within the advertising and newspaper industries.
*
Daily Ireland Online —
the newspaper's website*
Paper to sue over minister's IRA claim —
The Guardian article on the libel controversy
