Longfordlive is a news website populated by content from the Longford Leader, a weekly local newspaper published in Longford, a town in County Longford in the Midlands region of Ireland. It was founded as a nationalist paper in 1897 by activists J.P. Farrell and Jasper Tully.
Longfordlive was launched in 2022, with the Leader calling it a 'new chapter in our 125 year history’. The website runs stories appearing in the Longford Leader, as well as other Iconic-owned news outlets. Information about page visits for the site itself is not publicly available, though the ‘advertising’ section of the website claims an ‘audience’ of 21,000 across print and digital.
The decision to move the Longford Leader under the Longfordlive website was made by the paper's owner, Iconic Newspapers. Iconic purchased 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 Longfordlive is free to access. However, access to the Leader 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 Longfordlive is curated. For example, there does not appear to be a dedicated editorial staff for the website itself, and information on website content decisions 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 Limericklive’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. At the same time, since the Longfordlive is only served by one paper, 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).
The Longford Leader has undergone several ownership changes in previous decades.
In February 2002, Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH) paid €9.1m to acquire the Leader, which was in turn acquired by Johnston Press in 2005 as part of their acquisition of SRH’s Irish titles. The paper was purchased from Johnstown Press by Iconic Media in a 2014 acquisition. Iconic Media is owned by Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited, which is in turn owned by The Denmark Family, with UK businessman Malcolm Denmark as the controlling shareholder.
(Last updated in May 2026)
Key Facts
| Audience Share | Missing Data |
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| Ownership Type | Private |
| Geographic Coverage | Local |
| Content Type | Free |
| 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 | Longfordlive is operated 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. Callum Denmark, who owns 75.1% of shares, is identified as the controlling shareholder in accounts filed with Companies House in the UK for Media Concierge Holdings Group Limited. The remaining company shares are owned by T.C. Denmark (24.1%), and V.M. Denmark (0.9%) and previous controlling shareholder Malcolm Denmark with a single share. |
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| Voting Rights | Callum Denmark is identified as the controlling shareholder in accounts filed with Companies House in the UK for Media Concierge Holdings Group Limited. |
| Individual Owner |
Operating Company
Facts
| Founding Year | 2022 Iconic Newspapers (owned by Media Concierge Holdings Ltd., previously known as Mediaforce) owns 18 newspaper titles throughout the Republic of Ireland. Iconic purchased 14 of these papers, including the Longford Leader, from Johnstown Press in a 2014 acquisition. |
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| Editor-In-Chief |
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| Contact | Market Square N39KN82 Longford Co. Longford news@longfordleader.ie +353 (0) 43 33 45 241 www.longfordleader.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 Longford Leader was obtained from the paper’s website (longfordlive.ie), as well as from the Irish Newspaper Archives, The Dictionary of Irish Biography, and Ireland’s Eye Magazine. Information about editor Alan Walsh was obtained via longfordlive.ie | |
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| Documents (PDF) |