Who really owns the Irish media?
Published 06/Sept/2026 By Ross McGann
While researching something the other night I came across an article on breakingnews.ie. At the end of the webpage there was an address for the company and it was Irish times DAC.
Over the years I have seen articles from Breakingnews and never knew that it was owned by the Irish times, this lead me to question, who really owns the media outlets in Ireland.
RTE
Outlets include: RTE1, RTE2, RTE News, RTE Radio 1, RTE 2FM, RTE Lyric FM, RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.
The State broadcaster who has come under scrutiny in the last number of years. Funded by the Irish TV License, ad revenue and tax money from ”the exchequer”. After a number of high profile scandals relating to payments to presenters as well as reckless spending, there has been a sharp decrease in the number of people paying the TV License .
This has led RTE to submit multiple bail out requests to the Irish Government
Irish Times Trust:
Outlets include: The Irish Times, The Examiner , breakingnews.ie, The Echo and a number of other regional papers across the country .
They are set up as a Trust or DAC meaning they are a non profit organisation, a structure set up to safeguard editorial independence and keep the Irish times status as “A newspaper of record”.
Mediahuis Ireland
Outlets include: The Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Sunday World, The Herald, and multiple regional papers such as The Kerryman, The Corkman, The Sligo Champion and others.
Owned by Belgian media group Mediahuis, who had a reported net profit in 2025 of €156.7 Million euro up from €65.4 Million in 2024. The sharp rise arbitrated to the selling off of company assets such as their 49% stake in an online vehicle market place.
Bauer Media Audio Ireland
Outlets include: Newstalk, Today FM, Spin 1038, Spin South West, Iradio and Dublin’s FM104
5th Generation Bauer family headquartered in Germany, claims to have over 200 million readers across its global media empire. Global annual revenue said to be stable at €2.2/€2.3 Billion.
Virgin Media Television
Outlets include: Virgin media 1, 2, 3, 4
Owned by parent company Liberty Global PLC, the multinational media empire owned by Billionaire John Malone.
News Corp
Outlets include: The Sun, The Sunday Times
Owned by the Billionaire Murdoch family, who also own The wall street Journal and other media outlets across the globe.
Reach plc
Outlets include: Irish Daily Mirror, Irish Sunday Mirror, and Irish Daily, Dublin live and Belfast live
Owned by UK Publishers who manage over 120 print and online outlets making it one of the largest publishers across the UK and Ireland.
The Journal.ie
Owned by Brothers Brian and Eamon Fallon, founders of Daft.ie
The Ditch
Owned by Journalists Roman Shorthall and Eoghan McNeill, originally received funding from Paddy Cosgrave, Co founder of Web Sumit
Gript.ie
Owned 50/50 by between anti-abortion and conservative activists Niamh Uí Bhriain and Evelyn, launched with funding from the anti choice group The Life Institute.
Remark.ie
Owned by me, Ross McGann, founded with me own money.
Conclusion:
Outside of a few online independent outlets, there are very few news outlets operating in Ireland that are not part of some kind of group or international corporation.
The Question remains as to what kind of impact this might have on information suppression and censoring?
