According to BBC News, concerning Ireland, there are 3 million internet users, comprising about 66 percent of the population. There are three major national newspapers, the Irish Times, the Irish Inedependent and the Irish Examiner which is based in Cork.
Two weeks ago the Irish Times pubished the headline asking if time was running out for Irish newspapers. It stated that sales and advertising will not recover proportionately even in the event of a sudden economic turnaround. This is a market in transition not between boom, bust and boom again but between a newsprint and a post-newsprint age.
It is not just that many younger people get their news elsewhere because that trend increasingly crosses the age groups. What with those fundamental changes in readership habits and the evolution of technology, surviving newspapers will have to figure out just how to remain vital to an Irish public that will still crave news but also how to do that in a world that no longer wants to receive it in inky paper.