Everything about Sunday World totally explained
» For the 19th century Irish newspaper with the same name, see Sunday World (old newspaper)
The
Sunday World is an
Irish newspaper published by Sunday Newspapers Limited, a division of
Independent News and Media. It is the largest selling "popular" newspaper in
Ireland and is also sold in
Northern Ireland (where a modified edition is produced, with more stories relevant to the region).
Origins
The
Sunday World was Ireland's first
tabloid newspaper. It was launched in
1973 by
Hugh McLaughlin and Gerry McGuinness. It broke new ground in terms of layout, content, agenda, use of sexual imagery, and use of columnists.
Investigative journalism
As well as titillation, the paper is known for its investigative journalism and the controversies the investigations produces. The
Sunday World was the first newspaper to name
Gerry Adams and
Martin McGuinness as members of the Army Council of the
Provisional Irish Republican Army for which legal action was never pursued. It named individuals which assisted in laundering £22m from the
Northern Bank robbery and those it believed killed
Robert McCartney.
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Following an August 2005
Sunday World article that poked fun at the gambling losses of one of its leaders, the
Ulster Defence Association "banned" the sale of the Sunday World newspaper from shops in areas it controls. Shops that defy the ban have suffered arson attacks, and at least one newsagent was threatened with death. The
Police Service of Northern Ireland have recently begun accompanying the paper's delivery vans.
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In 2001, a journalist working for the paper in
Northern Ireland,
Martin O'Hagan, was brutally murdered by
Loyalist paramilitaries in
Lurgan, Co Armagh. O'Hagan was the first journalist to draw attention to the activities of a man called
Billy Wright, one of the worst loyalist sectarian assassins to emerge in the troubles. Wright lived only a few miles from O'Hagan in north Armagh, and had attempted to have the journalist murdered in 1992. The threat was sufficient to cause O'Hagan to temporarily move to the Sunday World office in
Dublin, and then to
Cork. He continued working for the newspaper, returning to his family in Lurgan in the late 1990s. When killed, O'Hagan became the first reporter covering the Northern Ireland conflict to be killed by
paramilitaries.
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On
May 1 2005 it alleged double standards by a prominent member of the
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). It claimed that the
unionist politician,
Paul Berry had been caught in a
sting operation by the newspaper when he met a male masseur in a room booked under a false name in a
Belfast hotel. According to the paper, Berry asked the man upon meeting him: "I hope you're a
Prod?" Berry denied the allegations, claiming that he was seeking treatment for a sports injury, and is considering legal action. In the
2005 general election five days later Berry was the DUP candidate for
Newry and Armagh but was one of the few DUP candidates to experience a fall in their share of the vote in favour of the
Ulster Unionist Party while everywhere else in the province the DUP gained at the expense of its main rival. The DUP were to the forefront in the campaign of the
1970s and
1980s to stop the decriminalisation of
homosexuality in Northern Ireland. On
July 4 2005 it was announced that Berry had been suspended from the DUP following an internal disciplinary panel meeting.
The paper has also been prominent in its exposure of criminals in the Republic. As a result of his controversial exposés, its Crime Correspondent,
Paul Williams, has received death threats and on occasion needed
Garda Siochána (Irish Police) protection.
Often Williams' stories contain quotations from "Garda sources" or other unattributable figures that can't be verified. In January 2007 he described the corrupt Garda activities detailed in the report of the
Morris Tribunal as "the work of a few rogues" on the
Late Late Show and lamented the fact that the Garda Síochána doesn't have a free hand in criminal investigations. He has referred to the
Police Service of Northern Ireland as the weakest police force in Europe because of the oversight of the
Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan and decries attempts to establish a similar system in the Republic of Ireland.
In 2005 the paper was sued by a well known Dublin criminal figure
Martin "the Viper" Foley after it reported that he was a leading figure in gang related crime and had links with the IRA elements. Foley argued that the report placed his life in jeopardy and sought to gag the paper.The attempt failed as the High Court rejected his allegations and refused to prevent further reporting.
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