The Irish Press

The Irish Press was a national daily newspaper founded by Éamon de Valera from money collected during a series of fundraising drives to finance the first Dáil. The drives were terminated following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The trustee of the funds, Stephen O'Mara (1884-1959) considered himself as the exchequer to the Irish Free State and refused to hand over the funds to the pro-Treaty administration, which resulted in his imprisonment in 1922-1923. The bulk of the money was left in various banks in New York and remained untouched until 1927, when a court in New York ordered that money outstanding to bond holders must be paid back. Having anticipated such a ruling, de Valera’s legal team invited bond holders to sign over their bonds, for which they were paid 58 cents to the dollar. The funds thus accumulated were used as capital to launch the Irish Press, with Frank Gallagher as its first editor. The paper remained under the control of de Valera and his family and as a consequence its views followed closely those of the FIanna Fáil party. At its peak, the paper had 200,000 subscribers. The paper was wound down in 1995, following several years of financial difficulties.