Louthlive is a news website populated by content from the Dundalk Democrat newspaper, a weekly local paper serving the town of Dundalk, County Louth in the Republic of Ireland. The Democrat was established by Joseph Cartan as The Dundalk Democrat and People's Journal in 1849 from the Cartan family's hotel in Dundalk. Louthlive was launched in 2022, with staff calling it a 'new chapter in the paper's 173-year history'. Louthlive runs stories appearing in the Dundalk Democrat, 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 15,000 across print and digital.

The decision to move the Dundalk Democrat under the Louthlive 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 include 'live' at the end of their URLs. News content appearing on Louthlive is free to access. However, access to the Dundalk Democrat's 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 Louthlive is curated. Louthlive 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, 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 Louthlive'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 Dundalk Democrat was purchased from Johnstown Press by Iconic Newspapers in a 2014 acquisition. Iconic 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.