The Anglo-Celt

The Anglo-Celt or ‘the Celt’ is a weekly regional paper published in Cavan, County Cavan, which is near the border with Northern Ireland. The Anglo-Celt was founded in 1846 by Sir John Young as a vehicle to influence Irish MPs in British Parliament. In 1865, the paper was taken over by John F. O'Hanlon, a reporter at the Dublin Evening Post, who introduced a more nationalist angle.

The paper remained in the O’Hanlon family for more than a century before being purchased by the Scottish Dunfermline Press in 2004 for €15m. Dunfermlines operations in Ireland operated under the Celtic Media Group (CMNL in Ireland).

In 2012, the Irish management of CNML bought out Dunfermline’s Irish titles after Dunfermline Press entered receivership. Thus, in addition to The Anglo-Celt in Cavan, the group now owns the Meath Chronicle in Navan, Westmeath Examiner in Mullingar, the Westmeath Independent in Athlone/Roscommon, and The Offaly Independent, which is a free newspaper.

The Celt changed from broadsheet to tabloid format in 2015. Independently audited circulation figures are increasingly rare in the Irish newspaper market. Given this the most recent audited figure for the Anglo-Celt - from the JNRS 2013 survey - was 11,692 per week. The same source suggested that this translated into a readership of 39,000 weekly readers.

Key Facts

Audience Share	Missing Data
Ownership Type	Private
Geographic Coverage	Local
Content Type	Paid
Data Publicly Available	ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc.

Ownership

Ownership Structure	The Anglo-Celt is owned by Celtic Media Group (CMNL). CMNL is owned by shareholders of whom, Frank Mulrennan, Frank Long and Jonathan Wood own the largest shares (>10%) in these local news outlets through their company CMNL Ltd. Frank Mulrennan led the management team buyout from Dunfermline in 2012 when the company went into receivership. The three majority owners are Frank Mulrennan 37.9%, Frank Long 27.4% and Jonathan Wood 13.7%. The balance of equity is owned by editors and sales managers for the individual titles, each owning less than a 3% share.
Voting Rights	Missing Data
Individual Owner	Jonathan Wood 13.7 Frank Long 27.4 Frank Mulrennan 37.9

Media Companies / Groups

Celtic Media Group Limited (CMNL)

Facts

Founding Year	1846
Founder	Sir John Young Sir John Young was born into an Anglo-Irish family in 1807 in Bombay, India. From 1831-1855, he served as a conservative member of British Parliament for County Cavan. He was also a senior figure in the British diplomatic service serving as Chief Secretary of Ireland from 1853 to 1855 and Governor General of Canada from 1969 to 1872. In 1870 he was raised to the peerage and awarded the title 1st Baron Lisgar. He died at his family home, Bailieborough Castle, in 1876.
CEO	Frank Mulrennan Chief Executive Officer - joined Celtic Media in 2005 as Managing Director and led the management buyout of the company from Dunfermline in 2012. He is also an executive member of Local Ireland, an industry group representing local news outlets in Ireland.
Editor-In-Chief	Linda O’Reilly Linda O’Reilly has served as managing editor of the Anglo-Celt since 2009 when she replaced long-time editor Johnny O’Hanlon. O’Reilly previously worked for the Westmeath Examiner and the Offaly Independent (also CNML papers). Though born in County Longford, O’Reilly has lived in Cavan for nearly 20 years.
Contact	Kilmore Business Park Dublin Road Cavan Co. Cavan Ireland linda.oreilly@anglocelt.ie +353 (0) 49 433 1100 www.anglocelt.ie

Revenue	Missing Data
Operating Profit	Missing Data
Advertising (in % of total funding)	Missing Data
Market Share	Missing Data

Headlines	Scottish group buys Anglo-Celt for 15m (2004), The Anglo-Celt, Accessed 27 October 2025 Historic week for the celt looking to the future while respecting the past (2015), The Anglo-Celt, Accessed 27 October 2025 New Editor Appointed (2009), The Anglo-Celt, Accessed 27 October 2025
Meta Data	Historical information about The Anglo-Celt was obtained from historical articles on the paper’s website. Contact information was obtained from the CMNL website. Irish company law provides an exemption for small companies from including revenue figures in their annual filings. According to the Companies Records Office, “Small Companies” are defined as companies which meet at least two of three following criteria: Their balance sheet does not exceed €7.5m Their revenues do not exceed €15m They have fewer than 50 employees. CMNL appears to meet these criteria, which may explain why revenue and profit data for the company are not publicly available. Information regarding editor Linda O’Reilly was sourced from The Anglo-Celt Website. Market share for this outlet could not be calculated due to two data limitations: Irish financial reporting requirements typically disclose revenue at the group level rather than for individual titles, and comprehensive market-wide revenue data for Irish media are not publicly available. Accurate estimation of audience share is not possible. Although Kantar collects publicly available figures on readership for national titles, parallel figures are not available for regional and local newspapers.
Sources	Ireland Companies Online Registration Office Environment (CORE) (2023), Form B1C, CMNL, Accessed 27 October 2025 Local history sources: Check out Cavan’s newspapers (2025), The Anglo-Celt, Accessed 27 October 2025 2013 circulation and readership figures, Medialive.ie, accessed 27 October 2025 Young, Sir John (2009), Dictionary of Irish Biography, Accessed 27 October 2025
Documents (PDF)	Financial Statement CNMNL (2023) Link File