Sky News Ireland

Infobox TV channel
name= Sky News Ireland
logofile=
logoalt= Sky News Ireland logo
launch= 24 May, 2004
closed date= 2 November, 2006
share=
share as of=
share source=
owner= British Sky Broadcasting
former names=
web= [http://www.skynews.com www.skynews.com]
sat serv 1= Sky Digital
sat chan 1= channel 501 (ROI)
sat serv 2= Astra 2B
sat chan 2= 12207 V
cable serv 1 = NTL Ireland
cable chan 1 = channel 202 & VHF analogue
cable serv 2 = Chorus
cable chan 2 = channel 9 & VHF analogue

Sky News Ireland was a television news channel broadcast in the Republic of Ireland by British Sky Broadcasting. It was carried on Sky Digital, and the Liberty Global Europe owned cable companies Chorus Communications and NTL Ireland.

Launching in May 2004, the channel broadcast the same programming as the main Sky News (UK), except for two thirty-minute weekday evening, at 19:00 (later 18:30) and 22:00, presented by Gráinne Seoige. The channel also broadcast adverts and programme trailers aimed to the Republic of Ireland.

Others presenters, who stayed with the service until its demise were Ray Kennedy and Brian Daly. The bulletin was also available to UK viewers via the Sky News Active service. (Technically Sky News Ireland in its entirety was available to UK Sky Digital viewers, as a non-EPG service, requiring the user to manually tune their satellite receiver to its frequency). The channel was available to anyone with a DVB-S satellite receiver across Europe.

Reporters for the service included Gráinne Seoige, Ray Kennedy, Brian Daly, Jonathan Healy, Alison O'Reilly, Orla Chennnaoui, David Blevins, Eibhlín Ní Chonghaile, Geraldine Lynagh, Amanda Cassidy, Jerome Hughes, John Sherwin and Tadhg Enright. Weather on Sky News Ireland was usually presented, from London, by Lisa Burke.

Sky News Ireland was relaunched along with its parent service on 24 October 2005, this included a new logo and graphics package for the service, and the move of its 19:00 bulletin to 18:30 (placing it in direct competition with and . This relaunch meant that Sky News Ireland was the first Irish news service to be broadcast in widescreen, beating plans by RTÉ News and TV3 News to go widescreen in the near future. TV3 later dropped its News at 18:30 in favour of an Entertainment programme leaving RTÉ with the only news programme airing at this time.

On 27 December 2005 it was announced that Sky News Ireland's 18:30 bulletin was to be simulcast on Sky One Ireland from 9 January 2006. This, however, came with criticism due to a corresponding loss of the programming scheduled at that time (usually Malcolm in the Middle on weekdays). The main point of criticism is that all platforms which carried Sky One in Ireland, also carried Sky News Ireland anyway.

On 31 October 2006 it was announced, by way of a Press Release to newsrooms in Ireland hours before some of its own staff that the Irish bulletins would cease at the end of November [http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/1031/news1pm.html] . However, from 3 November 2006 no further Sky News Ireland bulletins were broadcast, with the scheduled programmes Sportsline and Sky News at Ten replacing the 18:30 and 22:00 bulletins respectively. Staff who were dealing with a very badly organised sacking from Sky News felt they could not carry on acting like "the real thing" when they knew the end was nigh and they were being bombarded with questions from fellow members of the media when they attended news events.

Although the Irish-specific programming has now ended, the Irish version of Sky News still carries advertising and trailers specific to the Republic. Coverage of Irish events however is now much less than before.