TheCurrency.ie

The Currency was founded by Tom Lyons and Ian Kehoe in September 2019 as a paywalled online news journal. Both Lyons and Kehoe had previously worked on the Business Post. When Business Post owners, Key Capital, put out feelers regarding the sale of the paper in 2017/18, Lyons and Kehoe contemplated a management buyout but were apparently unable to find a way to make the numbers work. Key Capital subsequently sold the paper to Kilcullen Capital’s Enda O’Coineen instead.

Clearly keen to take on the reins of their own news outlet and inspired by the example of digital native news outlets like The Information, The Athletic and Politico, the pair left the Business Post to establish The Currency.

The Currency currently employs 8 journalists and is largely - though not exclusively - oriented towards business, finance and economics-related stories, often adopting a long-form approach. The Currency is one of a handful of Irish-based, Irish-owned and Ireland-facing digital native media outlets in Ireland. It is included in the Top 30 digital newsbrands in Ireland listed in the Reuters Digital News Report Ireland 2023. The Currency reports having 6,000 subscribers. According to the 2023 Reuters Digital News Report , 1% of those surveyed had used it to access news in the previous week.

For a period from September to December 2019 until 2020, journalist staff on radio stations owned by Communicorp were instructed to avoid inviting any journalists from The Currency onto any Communicorp station shows. At the time, the then chairwoman of the Communicorp Group, Lucy Gaffney explained the decision on the grounds that the Group did not wish to allow journalists from a competing media outlet on their stations. (This prohibition did not extend to journalists from other competing media outlets with the specific exception of the Irish Times, journalists from which had been barred from Communicorp since 2017.) The ban prompted an investigation by the compliance committee of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland but the investigation was suspended in December 2019 when Communicorp wrote to the regulator to inform them that the ban had been lifted.

In March 2019, the owner of Communicorp, Denis O’Brien lost a defamation action taken against the Sunday Business Post for a 2015 article written by Tom Lyons about a number of businessmen including Mr O’Brien. The editor of the Sunday Business Post at the time was Ian Kehoe.

Key facts

Audience Share

MissingData

Ownership Type

Private

Geographic Coverage

National

Content Type

Paid content

Active Transparency

company/channel informs proactively and comprehensively about its ownership, data is constantly updated and easily verifiable

4 ♥

Media Companies / Groups

Currency Media Ltd.

Ownership

Ownership Structure

The Currency is effectively owned by the families of Tom Lyons and Ian Kehoe. Lyons and Kehoe directly own 25% each of Currency Media Limited. A further 25% is owned by Tlla Investments Limited which is jointly owned by Tom Lyons and his wife Lynne Andrews. The remaining 25% is owned by MGIK Limited which is jointly owned by Ian Kehoe and Miriam Galvin.

Individual Owner

Tom Lyons

37.5%

Ian Kehoe

37.5%

Media Companies / Groups

Currency Media Ltd.

Facts

General Information

Founding Year

2019

Affiliated Interests Founder

Tom Lyons and Ian Kehoe

See below

Affiliated Interests Ceo

Tom Lyons

has been a business journalist since 2002, commencing his full time employment with the Irish Independent. He moved to Newstalk 106 radio in 2006 before taking on a sequence of senior editorial roles with the Sunday Times (2007 - 2011), the Sunday Independent (2012 - 2013), the Irish Times (2013 - 15) and the Sunday Business Post (2015 - 19).

Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief

Ian Kehoe

studied journalism at Dublin City University between 1999 and 2003 followed immediately by a Masters in International Relations at the same university. He worked as a reporter and presenter on RTE’s flagship current affairs television programme “Prime Time: between 2010 and 2012. He moved to work as a business journalist at the Sunday Business Post before being appointed editor of the paper at the age of just 34 in 2014. He remained at the Business Post until 2018 when he left to establish the Currency. He has been a member of the board of RTE since 2018.

Affiliated Interests other important people

Michael McDowell

is a senator, a barrister and columnist with The Irish Times. Though not a shareholder in The Currency, his Register of Interests as a senator includes a loan note to The Currency for an undisclosed sum. As a barrister, McDowell defended an action taken by Denis O’Brien, the owner of what was then Communicorp (now Bauer Media Ireland) against the Sunday Business Post relating to an article written by Tom Lyons. Ian Kehoe was editor of the Sunday Business Post at the time. McDowell, was a TD for the Progressive Democrat party on a number of occasions between 1987 and 2007. He acted as Attorney-General from 1999 to 2002, as Minister for Justice from 2002 until 2007 and as leader of the Progressive Democrats from 2006 until 2007.