Kilkenny is a news website populated by content from The Kilkenny People newspaper, a weekly local paper serving Kilkenny City, County Kilkenny in the Republic of Ireland. The People was established in 1893 by Edward Thomas Keane and P.J. O’Keefe. Kilkennylive was launched in 2022 and runs stories appearing in The Kilkenny People newspaper, as well as other Iconic-owned news outlets. Information about page visits for the site itself is not publicly available, though the Digital Content Lead, Christopher Dunne, shared on his LinkedIn account that the website received more than 24 million views in 2025. The ‘advertising’ section of the Kilkennylive claims an ‘audience’ of 42,000 across print and digital.
The decision to move The Kilkenny People under the Kilkennylive website was made by the paper's owner, Iconic Newspapers, which is owned by Media Concierge Holdings. Iconic obtained a number of Irish newspapers in the 2010s and immediately set about modernising and digitising those operations. All Iconic news websites now include 'live' at the end of their URLs. News content appearing on Kilkennylive is free to access. However, access to The Kilkenny People e-paper requires a subscription.
Iconic's push for centralised news sites aligns with broader 'digital first' trends in the Irish news industry. Newspaper owners are increasingly reducing staff numbers through voluntary redundancies and layoffs in Ireland. Some owners (such as Mediahuis) are planning to phase out print publications altogether due to declining print circulation and increasing costs. The collection of local news sites under a single banner also represents another layer of de-localisation in the Irish news industry. Irish newspaper ownership has become increasingly concentrated in the 21st century, and Iconic (Media Concierge) is now Ireland's largest holder of local and regional papers, with 18 titles. The impact of the combined concentration in ownership and web presence is that traditionally hyper-local titles now share regional and national content.
It is important to note that there is a degree of opacity concerning how content on Kilkennylive is curated. The news site is only served by one paper, which means that editorial decisions are more easily traced than in the case of Iconic's 'Live' news sites that are served by multiple newspapers (e.g., Donegallive). However, there does not appear to be a dedicated editorial staff for the website itself, though a ‘Digital Content Lead’, Christopher Dunne, is named. Information on website content decisions, such as how articles are chosen for the website, is not provided. This lack of editorial transparency becomes more problematic when considering that the broader network of Iconic newspapers supplies a significant volume of Kilkennylive’s content; it also raises the question of whether Ireland's growing online news ecosystem will adhere to the same level of editorial transparency as traditional print publications.
The Kilkenny People was purchased from Johnstown Press by Iconic Newspapers in a 2014 acquisition. Iconic Newspapers is owned by Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited, which, in turn, is owned by The Denmark Family, with UK businessman Malcolm Denmark as the controlling shareholder.
Key Facts
| Audience Share | Missing Data |
|---|---|
| Ownership Type | Private |
| Geographic Coverage | Local |
| Content Type | Mixed |
| Data Publicly Available | ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc. |
| Operating Company | Form Press Publishing Identifier: Limited Liability Company, Companies Registration Office (CRO) Company Number: IE538870 |
Ownership
| Ownership Structure | Kilkenny People is published by Formpress Publishing Limited, which is owned by Iconic Newspapers Limited. The parent organisation of Iconic Newspapers Limited is Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited (previously Mediaforce (Holdings) Limited). The Denmark Family is the sole owner of the media group. Malcolm Denmark, who owns 75% of shares, is identified as the controlling shareholder in accounts filed with Companies House in the UK for Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited. The remaining company shares are owned by C.N. Denmark (15%), T.C. Denmark (9%), and V.M. Denmark (0.76%). |
|---|---|
| Voting Rights | Malcolm (M.C.) Denmark is identified as the controlling shareholder in accounts filed with Companies House in the UK for Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited. |
| Individual Owner |
Operating Company
Facts
| Founding Year | 2022 |
|---|---|
| Founder |
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| CEO |
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| Editor-In-Chief |
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| Other Important People |
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| Contact | 34 Highstreet Kilkenny +353 (0)56-7721015 www.kilkennypeople.ie |
| Revenue | Missing Data |
|---|---|
| Operating Profit | Missing Data |
| Advertising (in % of total funding) | Missing Data |
| Market Share | Missing Data |
| Headlines | ||
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| Meta Data | Historical Information about the Kilkenny People was obtained from the paper’s website, as well as from sources such as Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE. Information about the Editor, Sam Matthews, and Digital Content Lead, Christopher Dunne, was obtained from their LinkedIn profiles. Accurate estimation of outlet market share was not possible because reporting on income levels in Ireland is typically done at the group level rather than the individual title level. Additionally, overall revenue details for the market as a whole are not available. Accurate estimation of audience share of news sites is not possible. Although Kantar collects publicly available figures on readership for national print titles, parallel figures are not available for regional and local newspapers and their websites. Furthermore, the ‘advertise with use’ sections of Iconic’s ‘Live’ websites do not provide information on page visits and only present consolidated readership numbers across print, website and social media. | |
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| Documents (PDF) |