Irish Independent

• 1. Introduction

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  The Irish Independent published its first issue on the 2nd of January 1905, marking it as "Vol. 14. No. 1" - a numbering that tells you something important right away. That count carried over from its direct predecessor, The Irish Daily Independent and Daily Nation, a pro-Parnellite paper from the 1890s. The man who launched it, William Martin Murphy, was a controversial Irish nationalist businessman who happened to be a fellow townsman of Timothy Michael Healy from Bantry - Charles Stewart Parnell's most bitter opponent. Murphy was staunchly anti-Parnellite, and in founding the Irish Independent, he was reshaping what that predecessor paper had stood for.

  Over the century that followed, the paper that readers came to call simply the Indo would side with employers against striking workers, condemn a rebellion that would reshape the country, survive an attack on its printing works by IRA men, and pass through the hands of a Heinz chairman and then a billionaire. The questions worth asking are how a newspaper shapes a nation's politics, what it means when a paper changes owners and allegiances, and how a daily broadsheet survives into the digital age. The story of the Irish Independent touches all of those questions.

• 2. Murphy's Paper

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  William Martin Murphy built the Irish Independent as a vehicle that reflected his own politics and business interests. During the 1913 Lockout - one of the most significant industrial disputes in Irish history - Murphy was the leading figure among the employers. The paper vigorously sided with its owner, publishing reports and opinion pieces hostile to the striking workers. It expressed confidence that the unions would be defeated and launched personal attacks on James Larkin, the workers' leader.

  Three years later, the paper took an even more incendiary stance. When the Easter Rising broke out in 1916, the Irish Independent described it as "insane and criminal" and called for the shooting of its leaders. The phrase became one of the most notorious lines in Irish newspaper history.

  December 1919 brought a violent response. During the Irish War of Independence, a group of twenty IRA men destroyed the printing works of the paper. They were angered by its criticism of the IRA's attacks on members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and British government officials. The paper's willingness to challenge republican armed groups would remain a defining characteristic for years.

• 3. Political Allegiances

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  For most of its early decades, the Irish Independent aligned itself clearly: nationalist, Catholic, anti-Communist, and loyal to Cumann na nGaedheal - the Pro-Treaty party - and later to its successor, Fine Gael. In 1924, the Freeman's Journal, a traditional nationalist newspaper, merged with the Irish Independent. The paper carried the words "incorporating the Freeman's Journal" on its masthead until October 1986.

  During the Spanish Civil War, the paper's coverage was strongly pro-Franco. It criticised the De Valera government for not intervening on behalf of the Spanish Nationalists - a position that illustrated just how far the paper sat from the Fianna Fail government of that era.

  In 1961, the harp became the symbol of the Irish Independent, first appearing in black and then changed to green in 1972. These years of relative political stability in the paper's identity would give way to a more dramatic shift when new ownership arrived in the 1970s.

• 4. The O'Reilly Era

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  Tony O'Reilly, formerly chairman of Heinz, took control of the Irish Independent in the 1970s. Under his stewardship the paper moved in a market liberal direction, becoming economically right-wing. By the mid-1990s, its longstanding allegiance to Fine Gael had ended.

  The 1997 general election produced a striking moment. The paper ran a front-page editorial endorsing Fianna Fail under the headline "It's Payback Time". The paper's explanation was that the election offered voters a chance to pay back politicians for their failings. Critics saw it differently. They argued the payback referred to the paper's resentment over the Rainbow Coalition government's refusal to award the company a mobile phone licence.

  In late 2004, Independent Newspapers left its traditional home in Middle Abbey Street, moving to Independent House in Talbot Street. The printing operation had already relocated to the Citywest business park near Tallaght. On the 27th of September 2005 - a fortnight after the paper published its centenary edition - editor Vinnie Doyle announced he would step down after 24 years in the role. His successor Gerry O'Regan had been editor of the paper's sister publication, the Evening Herald.

• 5. Format and New Ownership

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  The Irish Independent had long been a broadsheet, but 2004 brought an additional compact size for readers who wanted something smaller. Then in December 2012, following billionaire Denis O'Brien's takeover of INM - the parent company he had acquired a majority shareholding in during May 2012 - it was announced the paper would move to compact format only.

  Mediahuis, a Belgian media group, completed its takeover of INM in July 2019 after the Irish High Court approved the deal. The paper now operates as part of Mediahuis Ireland, a subsidiary of that group. From the 11th of February 2020, the independent.ie website moved its content behind a paywall - a shift that reflected the wider industry challenge of sustaining journalism online. Average print circulation had stood at approximately 165,000 copies per issue in 1999 but had dropped to approximately 100,000 by 2016.

• 6. Literary Legacy

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  New Irish Writing has been one of Irish literature's most enduring creative platforms. David Marcus originally established it in 1969 in the Irish Press. From 1988 to 2011 it appeared in the Sunday Tribune. Since 2011 it has been published in the Irish Independent, along with its associated Hennessy Award. The page is described as "the longest-running creative writing feature of its kind in any Irish or British newspaper".

  The paper also produces Exam Brief in partnership with the Institute of Education - a six-part yearly supplement aimed at students preparing for Leaving and Junior Certificate examinations, published across February, March, and April. For digital historians, the Irish Independent is archived on the Irish Newspaper Archives in black-and-white microfilm up to 2004 and in colour since 2005. A further archive running up to 2009 is held on the British Newspaper Archive website. These records mean that the paper's century-long record - from Murphy's 1905 launch edition onward - remains accessible to researchers today.