Irish Daily Mail

The Irish Daily Mail is published in tabloid format from Monday to Saturday and has a relatively conservative political outlook by the standards of the Irish market. As of mid 2025, Audit Bureau of Circulation figures suggest that the paper sold about 14,000 physical copies per day which, according to Kantar TGI, translated into a print readership of 101,000 readers. The paper features Irish news, current affairs and politics, extensive coverage of celebrity news, human interest and sport.

The newspaper’s editorial team is based in Dublin and operates independently of the English Daily Mail title based in London. While both editions take a conservative editorial approach with tendency towards a controversial tone, the Irish edition’s editorial line has been more moderate on issues such as the EU, immigration and social issues than the English edition. When it launched initially sales were not as high as expected and the paper ran at a loss for a time, arguably due to insufficient localisation of its editorial for the Irish market. Notably the Mail Online, globally the most successful online version of a print title, is exclusively UK-based website and there is no local version for Ireland.

The presence of the of the Irish Daily Mail in the Irish market stems from Associated Newspapers/Daily Mail and General Trust’s 20021 acquisition of the Irish Sunday title Ireland on Sunday in September 2001. Ireland on Sunday had originally launched as a sports weekly – The Title - in 1996 before relaunching in 1997 as broad-based Sunday national incorporating The Title as a sports supplement. In July 2000, journalists and original founders Liam Hayes and Cathal Dervan, sold the paper to Scottish Radio Holdings which in turn sold it to Associated Newspapers 12 months later for a reported £UK7.4m. 

Associated Newspapers invested heavily in the Irish operation, redesigning Ireland on Sunday to mirror Associated’s UK title The Mail on Sunday, with a view to targeting the readership of the Sunday Independent. This proved costly, with Associated’s Irish operation posting accumulated losses of €60m by 2006. 

While seeking to develop the Ireland on Sunday title, Associated continued to sell the UK edition of the Daily Mail in the Republic of Ireland where it achieved respectable sales - 5,000 copies a week in 2000 climbing to just over 9,000 by early 2006 – for a non-localised UK paper. However, in February 2006, Associated launched an Irish edition of the Daily Mail, as a stablemate to Ireland on Sunday (which itself rebranded as The Irish Mail on Sunday in September 2006). Further investment ensued in building up a team of Irish journalists  to work on the Irish Daily Mail (and the Irish freesheet Metro) bringing Associated’s total investment in Ireland to approximately €100m by 2006. The investment saw increased circulation – The Irish Daily Mail reached nearly 60,000 copies by its 2007 peak - but never approached that of main rival the Irish Independent.

DMG Media Ireland operates the Irish publications for parent company DMGT (based in the UK). It has acquired and operates a number of news, entertainment and lifestyle media brands including the Irish Mail on Sunday, other niche publications such as EVOKE, RollerCoaster.ie, Extra.ie, OneFabDay.com and  Nalac, the publishing firm owning Business Plus magazine and its online brand BizPlus. In 2025, Associated moved into the Irish radio market through the acquisition of local radio station WLR FM. Through its different publications DMG Media Ireland is active in sponsorship programmes for a variety of sports organisations in Ireland including horse racing, camogie, cricket and women’s soccer.

(Last updated in April 2026)