Inhabitants: 5.1 million (2021)
Households: 1.96 million (2021)
Religions: Roman Catholic (841 TP3T), other Christian religions (5.2 TP3T), Muslim (1.71 TP3T)
Largest city: Dublin
Form of government: parliamentary republic
Head of State: President Michael D. Higgins (since 2011)
Head of the government: Prime Minister Leo Varadkar (since 2022)
EU-member since: 1973
Unemployment rate: 6,3% (2021)
State indebtedness: 58.8% of GDP (2021); 124 % of GDP (2013)

Advertisement costs total: 1.8 billion euros (2022)
Television viewing time per inhabitant: 160 minutes (2022)
Large media and communication companies: RTÉ, Mediahuis Ireland, Irish Times Ltd.
Broadcasting fees: 160 euros per year (2022)

Historical Foundations

In 1659, Ireland's first regularly published newspaper, "An Account of the Chief Occurrences in Ireland," appeared. However, the Irish media system, as it exists today, had its origins in 1922/23, when the country was re-establishing itself as a "New State" after the Civil War. Even during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), newspapers were subject to the dictates of the British censorship authorities. While there were individual revolutionary media outlets, such as the propaganda mouthpiece "Irish Bulletin," published by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the majority of the press market was dominated by conservative voices that continued to advocate for the British idea of "Home Rule."

However, the civil war between advocates of maintaining strong ties to the British Empire and diverging republican forces subsequently led to a polarization of the media landscape along ideological lines. Directly or indirectly government-sponsored papers such as "An Saorstat" and "The United Irishman" and radical republican, partly underground newspapers such as "The Fenian," "Eire," and "Poblacht" competed for readership. The new government was aware of the role of newspapers in shaping political opinion and immediately introduced censorship measures that were, in some cases, equally severe to those previously implemented by the British. Publishers and journalists were instructed never to refer to "anti-Treaty" forces—advocates of severing all ties to the kingdom—as "republicans" in their articles. The same applied to IRA fighters, who were under no circumstances to be referred to as an "army" or "troops." On several occasions, editors were instructed by the government not to report on the actions of the so-called "Irregulars" under any circumstances, in order to undermine their significance. On the other hand, republican forces used their paramilitary power to intimidate newspaper editors. At best, this led to more nuanced reporting, but at worst to a forced, uncritical takeover by the "anti-Treaty" forces. In 1922, for example, the editorial office of the pro-government "Freeman's Journal" was stormed, the printing works destroyed, and a large portion of the newspaper's already printed copies burned.

However, the government initially neglected radio as a medium. While the BBC began broadcasting in England in 1922, political leaders in the neighboring country hesitated, considering the costs too high for a country still struggling with the consequences of the civil war. It wasn't until New Year's Day 1926 that a genuinely Irish program was broadcast for the first time, with a speech by future President Douglas Hyde on the newly founded Dublin Broadcasting Station (two years earlier, the BBC had begun broadcasting its programs in Ireland). But the radio sector never achieved the same importance for political discourse as the Irish newspaper landscape, whose ideological fragmentation was further fueled by the founding of "The Irish Press" in 1931. "Irish Press" was close to the conservative Fianna Fáil party, which had split from the Sinn Féín movement in 1926. It wasn't until World War II that Irish politicians discovered the potential of shortwave radio to reach Irish emigrants scattered around the world and to address the situation in Northern Ireland. Alongside commercial and state radio stations, pirate radio stations began to play a significant role as so-called alternative media until the 1980s.

At the end of the 1950s, television gradually found its way into Irish households. However, the medium's popularization occurred primarily in Northern Ireland, triggered by the launch of BBC Northern Ireland (1953) and its commercial alternative, Ulster Television (1959), both of which could also be received in the Irish Republic. Ireland followed suit in 1961 with the establishment of the license-funded television corporation Radio Éireann Authority, which was renamed Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) in 1966. It also included a public radio program. Curiously, an American, Edward Roth, became RTÉ's first Director General, which initially meant that a large part of the programming consisted of Western films. This changed during the 1960s, when more and more genuinely Irish formats found their way into the program, such as "The Late Late Show" and "7-Days". In addition to entertainment programs, it was particularly the news programs and political formats that frequently questioned the government's status quo. Despite these fundamentally progressive qualities, Irish television was not immune to censorship. When violence erupted in Northern Ireland in 1969, the broadcast of sensitive material was prohibited in its coverage – a directive that was not finally repealed until 1994.

The 1980s and 1990s finally sparked a sustained discussion about media power and its regulation. In particular, the role of two newspaper publishers, "The Independent" and "The Press," and their diversification strategies, became central to media policy debates. In the wake of the "Celtic Tiger" economic boom, numerous new titles were published, and Ireland simultaneously attracted the attention of British publishers. Critics argued that the Irish press landscape had since become too closely aligned with English tabloid culture. Following the demise of the once largest and most opinionated newspaper, the "Irish Press," in 1995, and ignoring the influence of global media corporations, the main media policy debates since then have been limited to the role and influence of "Independent News & Media," Ireland's by far largest and most influential media group.

The largest media groups in Ireland

Mediahuis Ireland
With annual sales of €322 million in 2013, the then Independent News and Media plc (INM) was once Ireland's largest media group. INM traces its roots back to the journalist William Martin Murphy, who founded the "Irish Independent" in 1905, Ireland's most-read daily newspaper to this day and the flagship of Mediahuis Ireland. The "Independent" was part of the publishing house of the same name, which was bought by Tony O'Reilly in 1973 and gradually transformed into an internationally operating media group. Until the 2010s, in addition to its operations in Ireland, the group had holdings in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and South Africa. Until 2013, INM was South Africa's second-largest newspaper publisher with 14 titles and held a fifth of the shares in Dainik Jagran, one of India's largest and most-read newspapers.

The company achieved glorious economic success for years and operated with corresponding confidence in the Irish media market. Between 1997 and 2010, the group even owned the renowned London-based "Independent," which, however, was sold to the Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev after consistently incurring millions in losses. In Ireland, today's Mediahuis Ireland operates three leading daily newspapers (in addition to the "Irish Independent," these are "The Herald" and "Sunday World"). In 2020, the sale of its 50 percent stake in the Irish tabloid "Irish Daily Star" to the British company Reach plc was announced. In the wake of this loss-making business, the company attempted, with more or less success, to establish various marketing web portals in the 2010s.

Despite the slump in print media revenue and the termination of many international holdings, Mediahuis Ireland at least remains omnipresent in the Northern Irish media market. In addition to the "Belfast Telegraph," Northern Ireland's leading daily newspaper, it also owns the Sunday title "Sunday Life." However, massive revenue slumps in the 2010s necessitated a radical restructuring of the company. In 2019, the company was fully integrated into the Belgian Mediahuis, whose name the company now bears, thus becoming "Mediahuis Ireland." In 2018, the year before the integration and renaming, annual revenue was still €191 million – the former Irish media giant had thus long since been dethroned, with revenues having more than halved in the previous 10 years.

RTÉ
Radio Éireann began in 1926 as a department of the Ministry of Telegraphs (as 2RN or Radio Éirean). RTÉ in its current form was founded in 1960, with Eamonn Andrews, a prominent British broadcaster, as its first chairman. A distinctive feature of RTÉ was the prohibition imposed by the Broadcasting Act of 1960 on reporting on any activities or statements by violent groups. This, of course, was primarily aimed at the IRA and its political mouthpiece, Sinn Féin, and led to repeated (self-)censorship of news programs between the 1960s and 1990s.

With the collapse of Independent News and Media plc, now Mediahuis Ireland, RTÉ is now the largest media group in the country. The corporation generated total revenue of approximately €344 million in 2021, with just over half of its revenue coming from annual license fees of approximately €196 million (2021). The remainder of its revenue is supported by advertising revenue (approximately €148 million). Even without the additional advertising revenue, which accounts for almost half of total revenue, RTÉ has now overtaken Mediahuis Ireland.

RTÉ One and RTÉ 2 are RTÉ's two flagship channels and are broadcast on Saorview (Ireland's digital television system) along with RTÉ News Now, RTÉjr, and the timeshift services (RTÉ One +1 and RTÉ 2 +1). RTÉ Television also offers two other services: RTÉ Live, where viewers can watch RTÉ live online using programs from RTÉ One and RTÉ2, and RTÉ Player, an on-demand video service. Both services are available nationally and internationally. With over 25 percent of the market, RTÉ One is Ireland's most-watched television channel, well ahead of the second-placed private broadcaster, Virgin Media One, part of the Virgin Media Ireland group.

The broadcaster broadcasts four analog and five digital channels nationwide via RTÉ Radio. The most well-known Irish radio station is RTÉ Radio 1 – it evolved directly from the Dublin radio station 2RN, which began regular broadcasts on January 1, 1926. Radio continues to enjoy great popularity in Ireland. 91 percent of Irish people listen to the radio weekly, and around 78 percent even listen daily. These figures are largely due to the success of RTÉ Radio.

Irish Times Limited
The Irish Times publishing house has evolved into a multimedia company in recent years. Its flagship is the eponymous daily newspaper, "Irish Times," founded in 1859 as a Protestant nationalist newspaper. Despite the newspaper's Protestant nationalist origins, within two decades and under new ownership, it became the voice of trade unions in Ireland, a movement known as "Unionism." The newspaper can no longer be described as union-friendly; rather, it presents itself as politically liberal and progressive, and on economic issues, it even leans toward the bourgeois-right.

Likewise, Landmark Media Investments, a media holding company founded in February 2013 and owned by Tom Crosbie and his father Ted Crosbie, was once an independent media group. The Landmark investor group has acquired stakes in various newspapers, radio stations, and digital media outlets in Ireland. In July 2018, it sold all of its media holdings to The Irish Times Limited, which thus further increased its influence on the Irish media market and currently generates revenues of around €100 million per year.

Fig. I: TV market shares of Ireland's ten largest TV channels in 2021

Source: medialive.ie

Digital media in Ireland

With the advent of the internet, the media landscape in Ireland has changed dramatically. Various media corporations began investing in digital media and opening their own portals there – some with greater, some with lesser success. With internet coverage of 94 percent and a user base of 92 percent of the population (2022), digital news portals are particularly popular. The Reuters Institute published statistics on how many Irish internet users access the country's news portals weekly. Ireland's public broadcaster, RTÉ News online, is particularly successful in this regard, with a weekly user reach of 39 percent, followed by Ireland's most successful online newspaper, "The Journal," with 34 percent. Ireland's largest daily newspaper, the "Irish Independent," is also strongly represented with 31 percent.

Fig: II: The most popular online news services by weekly user numbers in Ireland 2022

Source: Reuters Institute 2022

Not surprisingly, following RTÉ (5th place), the two popular online news sites, the online newspaper "The Journal" (8th place) and its online counterpart, the "Irish Independent" (9th place), are also among Ireland's ten most popular websites. Apart from these, the ranking is dominated by the usual US media companies. These include Google (1st place) and YouTube (2nd place) from the US company Alphabet Inc., as well as the social network Facebook from the US company Meta Platforms, Inc. A notable feature is the high popularity of Reddit from Advance Publications Inc. (7th place), which ranks ahead of Instagram, which is not even represented in the top 10 (11th place in 2022).

Table II: The ten most visited websites in Ireland in 2022

Rank	Webpage:	Description	Parent company
1.	Google.com	Search engine	Alphabet Inc.
2.	YouTube.com	Video portal	Alphabet Inc.
3.	Facebook.com	Social network	Meta Platforms, Inc.
4.	Twitter.com	Social network	Twitter Inc.
5.	RTÉ.ie	Broadcasting	RTÉ
6.	Google.ie	Search engine	Alphabet Inc.
7.	Reddit.com	Social network	Advance Publications, Inc.
8.	TheJournal.ie	News	Journal Media
9.	Independent.ie	News	Mediahuis Ireland
10.	Wikipedia.org	Encyclopedia	Wikimedia Foundation

Source: Similarweb.com

Regulations

Irish press regulation is guided by the principle of defending press freedom while also "protecting" the public, or rather individual citizens, from the press. Although Ireland was relatively late in developing appropriate structures and institutions by international standards, Irish media oversight has since become a model for the UK and other regions in Europe. In the 1980s, Irish trade unions, in particular, advocated for institutionalized oversight, believing that stronger press oversight would lead to more favorable reporting on various labor disputes.

For newspaper companies and publishers, it was a long learning process to become willing to at least subject their reporting to self-regulatory mechanisms. However, political parties and politicians also resisted becoming active in media policy for a long time. The relationship between politics and the media was never the best, and politicians did not want to further strain the complicated relationship with strict media laws. It was not until 1996 that the Newspaper Publishers Association decided to introduce an ombudsman. However, it was not finally institutionalized until 2007, when publishers and the Ministry of Justice joined forces to explore forms of self-regulation. The discussions ultimately resulted in the establishment of a press council (Press Council of Ireland), the strengthening of the ombudsman through the creation of a corresponding authority (Office of the Press Ombudsman), and the adoption of a new defamation law that regulated how and in what form newspapers could report on public figures in the future.

Critics claim that Irish regulators are toothless tigers, only able to influence press reporting retroactively and not impose fines. Nevertheless, recent years have shown that the Irish press's self-imposed Code of Practice is largely followed. In particular, the requirement to print a rebuttal to successful complaints has prompted newsrooms to work more diligently. This form of self-regulation has since been exported to Great Britain: the recommendations Lord Justice Leveson made regarding a restructuring of press regulation following the wiretapping scandal at Rupert Murdoch's tabloid "News of the World" in 2012 were largely based on the Irish model.

The regulation of the Irish TV sector has always been undertaken with a view to competition from British broadcasters, which could also be received. The development of a commercial TV industry was therefore generally welcomed in order to curb the influence of British programs. This initially included limiting the advertising revenue of the public broadcaster RTÉ. However, this was lifted in 1993 in order to strengthen RTÉ's position as an ambassador for Irish culture. In 2009, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) was established as the successor institution to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) under the Broadcasting Act. Its responsibilities include, in particular, the licensing of frequencies, program monitoring, and the protection of children and young people. The work of the BAI is accompanied and supplemented by the Commission for Communications Regulation, which was established in 2002 as the successor authority to the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR). In addition to cable and terrestrial television, ComReg is primarily responsible for internet and telecommunications matters.

Sources/Literature

• Alvin Jackson, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2014), 268-291.
• Core: Irish Media Consumption report 2022, January 12, 2023.
• John Horgan, Irish Media: A Critical History since 1922. New York: Routledge (2001).
• John Lee, Media History Made in Ireland. Huffington Post, 10/25/2010.
• Medialive: Television Channel Share of Viewing 2021, January 13, 2023.
• Reuters Institute: Digital News Report 2022, January 12, 2023.
• RTÉ: Annual Report 2021, January 13, 2023.
• RTÉ: Media landscape in Ireland 2022, January 12, 2023.
• Similarweb: Most Visited Websites in Ireland 2022, January 13, 2023.
• The Irish Times: Top 1000. Our Guide to Irish Business, January 12, 2023.