Sunday World

The Sunday World was Ireland's first tabloid newspaper. Hugh McLaughlin and Gerry McGuinness launched it in 1973. It broke new ground in terms of layout, content, agenda, columnists, and use of sexual imagery.

In 1976 and 1982 was the only newspaper in the country published on St. Stephen's Day.

In 2012, a voluntary redundancy scheme was put in place, which was oversubscribed.[6] In early 2013, it was announced that the Irish Daily Star and the Sunday World would start to share some functions.[7]

In 2014, another redundancy scheme was announced. The redundancy scheme was due to the sharing of functions with the Evening Herald.[8]

In March 2017, it was announced that INM are merging the Sunday World and The Herald (Ireland) newsrooms.[9] Later in 2017, INM announced that they were closing the Sunday World website.[10]

In 2001, a journalist working for the paper in Northern Ireland, Martin O'Hagan, was killed by Loyalist paramilitaries in Lurgan, Co Armagh. O'Hagan was the first journalist to draw attention to the activities of Billy Wright. Wright lived only a few miles from O'Hagan in north Armagh, and had attempted to have the journalist murdered in 1992. The threat was sufficient to cause O'Hagan to temporarily move to the Sunday World office in Dublin, and then to Cork. He continued working for the newspaper, returning to his family in Lurgan in the late 1990s. When killed, O'Hagan became the first reporter covering the Northern Ireland conflict to be killed by paramilitaries.[11][12]

On 1 May 2005 it alleged double standards by a prominent member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). It claimed that the unionist politician, Paul Berry had been caught in a sting operation by the newspaper when he met a male masseur in a room booked under a false name in a Belfast hotel. According to the paper, Berry asked the man upon meeting him: "I hope you're a Prod?" Berry denied the allegations, claiming that he was seeking treatment for a sports injury, and is considering legal action. In the 2005 general election five days later Berry was the DUP candidate for Newry and Armagh but was one of the few DUP candidates to experience a fall in their share of the vote in favour of the Ulster Unionist Party while everywhere else in the province the DUP gained at the expense of its main rival. The DUP were to the forefront in the campaign of the 1970s and 1980s to stop the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland. On 4 July 2005 it was announced that Berry had been suspended from the DUP following an internal disciplinary panel meeting.

The paper has been noted in its hard-hitting coverage of crime in the Republic of Ireland compared to other papers. It has been to the forefront of exposing the emergence and growth of organised crime in Ireland throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. In the 1990s it broke the story about the secret life being led by controversial priest Fr Michael Cleary, revealing that he had a secret family with his housekeeper Phyllis Hamilton. Along with the Bishop Eamon Casey story and revelations about clerical child abuse, the Cleary story is viewed as one of the defining moments in the decline of the authority of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

In 2008 the paper was the first to expose the controversial fundraising activities of the House of Prayer run by self-proclaimed visionary Christina Gallagher in Achill, Co Mayo. It also revealed the lavish lifestyle Gallagher was leading. The House of Prayer made over 100 individual complaints to the press ombudsman about the investigation, all of which were dismissed.

In 2005 the paper was sued by a well known Dublin criminal figure Martin "the Viper" Foley after it reported that he was a leading figure in gang related crime and had links with the IRA elements. Foley argued that the report placed his life in jeopardy and sought to gag the paper. The attempt failed as the High Court rejected his allegations and refused to prevent further reporting.[13]

In 2010 the paper won a landmark legal ruling when a privacy and defamation case taken by Ruth Hickey was dismissed by the President of the High Court Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns. The ruling copperfastened the importance of freedom of expression in Irish law and stated that it can only be outweighed by the right to privacy in limited circumstances. Mr Justice Kearns also defended the right of the newspaper to publish information that was clearly in the public domain on the internet (in this case the infamous 'Zip Up Your Mickey' phone rant by Twink whose husband had left her for Ms Hickey).

On 19 March 2006, Sunday World reporter Hugh Jordan tracked down former Sinn Féin official and British Forces informant Denis Donaldson at a remote, rustic cottage in County Donegal.[14][15] Sixteen days later, Donaldson was murdered there, and the paper was heavily criticised for identifying and showing a photo of the location. In 2009 the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing.[16]

On 1 November 2009, Northern Editor Jim McDowell attracted complaints to the Press Complaints Commission after the paper published on the front page the photograph of a man hanging from a bridge, having killed himself under the headline "Halloween Horror".[17] McDowell claimed on the Stephen Nolan's BBC Radio Ulster show on 2 November that it was meant to dissuade individuals thinking about suicide but the decision to publish was condemned by suicide awareness and support groups.[18]

It is noted for its strong Irish coverage in a newspaper market awash with 'Irish editions' of the main British newspapers such as the Sunday Mirror and Mail on Sunday. Among its Irish sports writers are Pat Spillane, Paul McGrath, Kevin Moran, Charlie Nicholas, John Aldridge, Denis Irwin and Mick Galwey. Columnists include Amanda Brunker, Paddy Murray, Fr Brian Darcy and Daniel O'Donnell.

In 2008, the newspaper won the prize for the Newspaper of the Year (Sunday) at the annual Chartered Institute of Public Relations Press and Broadcast Awards for Northern Ireland.[19] The Sunday World Investigations Editor Nicola Tallant was named the Crime Reporter of the Year by the National Newspapers of Ireland, the first time the award was presented. Investigative journalist Paula Mackin won Journalist of the Year in 2013.

In 2019, Independent News & Media exited the ABC auditing process.[2] Hence, no circulation figures are available after 2018.

• Scotsman: Brave journalism reveals Northern Ireland's underbelly