Liffey Champion

The "Liffey Champion" is a local newspaper for north Kildare and the Lucan area of west Dublin. It is based in Leixlip.

The first edition of the Liffey Champion was printed on 17th May 1991 and has, over the past 17 years, established an important presence in the north Kildare and Lucan community. Its editor, as of August 2008, is Vincent Sutton – a position he has held since the third edition of the paper in June 1991. The Sports Editor is John Ryan, and News Editor is Aideen Sutton.

Published weekly, the paper has a respectable circulation. It is in a tabloid format, and varies in length, averaging about 72 pages long, with approximately half of its pages being printed in full colour. It is printed by Topic Newspapers in Mullingar, and it is owned by that group's owners through a separate company.

The paper is currently priced at €1.90 but also carries lots of advertising. It often presents advertising features that look vaguely like an article, including bylines for their regular authors, but which are paid adverts, although they do place the words "Advertising Feature" across the top of the page.

Its journalists cover local authority meetings - South Dublin County Council and Kildare County Council, courts and various meetings in the local communities as well as major happenings, both news and sport. Also stories of human interest dominate its pages.

The Champion (as it is called in its area) has been accused of being a right-wing paper by left wingers, and left-wing by right wingers, and so enjoys a a relatively benign political attitude. Its editor refutes any allegations of political leanings in any direction, a fact supported by its diverse content.

The paper has seen a lot of competition come and go over the last 17 years as the Dublin West/Kildare North area bloomed in Ireland's Tiger economy, and its publishers don't seem to react to competition in any obvious manner (it does little or no marketing and has undergone just one notable redesign since it began publishing).

One of its regular features is the popular 'Nitebytes' page, which featured for several years the nightclub scene photographs of Morgan Treacy and in more recent times the excellent pics of Peter Shaughnessy.

The 'vox-pop' page, which was first written by Petrina Vousden and later years by Eithne Dunne, Jean Crampton and Aisling O'Donnell, a 21 year old trainee journalist from Leixlip, is another regular feature. This section has proven to be popular with readers. The Vox Pop consists of a contemporary issue put to locals of the town.

The newspaper is not a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations Irish division, and as such, no official circulation figures exist. The publisher supplies figures of 7,500 [http://www.medialive2.com/press/regional-press/liffey-champion.html] (free registration required). None of the other newspapers in its circulation area are members of the ABC either, so comparisons are impossible to make. It does not have an online presence.