Irish newspaper history and the regional press

One of the most remarkable developments of the opening two decades of the twenty-first century has been the rapid advent of the internet age and the attendant emergence of social media. This has resulted in the internet becoming a significant conduit in both the social and work lives of a vast amount of people. The arrival of the internet age has led to an almost complete change in the manner in which news is disseminated and consumed, with the internet accounting for an unprecedented level of media proliferation. Whereas only a few decades ago television, radio, and the print media were almost the sole purveyors of news stories, they are now simply just one of the ways in which ordinary citizens may learn of developments in current affairs, business, sport, entertainment, culture, and lifestyle, amongst other topics. However, just over a century ago, the situation could hardly have been more different. In the early twentieth century, it was the print media, predominantly newspapers, on which people relied in order to learn of emerging news stories in the world in which they lived.

At that time newspapers had existed in most countries for at least a century or two, though their physical appearance, ‘type on a large sheet of paper that could be, and often was, folded to facilitate carrying or storing’, had changed little. The two main factors that accounted for the relatively unprecedented popularity of newspapers at the start of the twentieth century were the significant increases in the numbers of the people who could read plus the fact that newspapers had gradually become more affordable. This was a development that manifested itself in Ireland just as much as any other country and it coincided with one of the most critical periods in the nation's history. It was a period that ended with the attainment of self-government though the form of this long-sought autonomy proved both problematic and divisive. Consequently, the interrelationship between these two relatively simultaneous developments merits serious scrutiny.

This book concentrates very specifically on one key section of the print media in Ireland at this time, the provincial press. It outlines the background of most of Ireland's regional newspapers that were published during the years leading up to independence and it also describes the difficult environment in which such publications had to operate.