The Irish Times

The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Denis Staunton. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays. It employs 420 people.

Though formed as a Protestant nationalist 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, as well as being centre-right on economic issues.

The paper's most prominent columnists include writer and arts commentator Fintan O'Toole and the satirist Miriam Lord. Former Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald was also a columnist. Senior international figures, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, have written for its op-ed page. Its most prominent columns have included Drapier (an anonymous piece produced weekly by a politician, giving the 'insider' view of politics), Rite and Reason (a weekly religious column, edited by Patsy McGarry, the 'religious affairs' editor) and the long-running An Irishman's Diary. An Irishman's Diary was penned by Patrick Campbell in the forties (under the pseudonym 'Quidnunc'), by Seamus Kelly from 1949-1979 (also writing as 'Quidnunc'), and more recently by Kevin Myers. Since Myer's move to the rival Irish Independent, "An Irishman's Diary" is now usually the work of Frank McNally. On the sports pages, Philip Reid is the paper's golf correspondent.

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

The Irish Times has the most foreign bureaux of any Irish newspaper. It has had full-time correspondents in Washington, Paris, Berlin, Beijing, Brussels, London, Africa and other parts of the world. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a daily circulation of 100,951 during the first six months of 2011.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Ireland, the average daily circulation, of the Irish Times was down to 92,565 for the period January to June 2012. This represented a fall in circulation of 8% on a year-on-year basis, slightly less than the average newspaper decline of 9%.