The Leinster Leader

The Leinster Leader is a weekly local newspaper published in Naas, County Kildare, which is just outside Dublin. The Leader was founded in 1880 under the title, ‘The Leinster Leader and Central Counties Commercial and Agricultural Adviser’. The paper was established by Patrick Cahill, a well-known activist for Irish nationalism. At its founding, the Leader strongly supported the Home Rule and Land Reform movements, which resulted in Cahill, who also served as the paper’s first editor, being imprisoned under the Protection of Person and Property Act of 1881.

Ownership of the Leinster Leader appears to have gradually fallen into the hands of the Williams family. The 1922 company annual return lists 9 shareholders, holding 788 shares between them. Though the London-based Charles Gatty was the single largest shareholder (with 299 shares) the second largest holding lay with Theresa Williams, widow of Daniel Edward Williams who had died in 1921 and from whom she inherited her shares.

The Williams family were something of a midlands business dynasty. Daniel Edward Williams had acquired the Tullamore Distillery in the 19th century and developed both the Tullamore Dew and Irish Mist brands as well as developed a network of provincial grocery stores. His grandson, also named Daniel Edmund Williams (1928 - 2007), would develop the businesses, selling the Tullamore Dew brand to Powers Distillery in 1965 and rebranding the grocery business as the Five Star chain.

The Williams family involvement in the Leinster Leader developed apace. By the end of the 1950s, two of the four directors - John and Vincent Williams - were from the family, and 5956 (31%) of the total 18912 shares laid in the hands of seven shareholders from the Williams family. Other families, notably the Devlins’ and Collins’ also retained shareholdings over the first half of the 20th century, though much smaller. Desmond Collins was also a director in 1959.

The Williams empire gradually retrenched in the late 1970s and 1980s. The family sold off Five Star to Quinnsworth and the soft drinks and spirits divisions. By 1990, the Williams Group was reduced to a malting factory, ten farmer’s shops, a controlling interest of 55% in the Leinster Leader. Daniel Edmunds resigned as MD in 1992, and the Group as a whole was put up for sale.

The Leinster Leader was eventually spun off in a standalone private company, which between 1992 and 2005, gradually became owned by 30 shareholders. The Williams, Devlin and Collins families continued to be associated as shareholders, with Anthony Collins and Simon Williams also acting as directors. As a standalone company, the Leinster Leader was financially stable, returning net profits of £240,000 on revenues of £2.5m by 1995.

Increased profits were used to fund an aggressive acquisition strategy. In 1999, the Leinster Leader merged with the Leinster Express Group (including the Offally Express in the process). The new Leinster Leader holding company entity had a combined turnover of €4.2m. In 2000, the group spent a reported €2m to acquire the Dundalk Democrat. The Limerick Leader was acquired for €23m in 2002, and The Tallaght Echo completed the group when it was purchased for €5m in 2005.

In 2005, the company put itself on the market, instructing the corporate finance arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to prepare an information memorandum for buyers. The Leader Group’s holdings were purchased by UK-based Johnstown Press in 2005, and in 2014, were purchased by Iconic Media (operated by Form Press Publishing Ltd.). Iconic is owned by Media Concierge (Holdings) Limited. Media Concierge is wholly owned by The Denmark Family, with UK businessman Malcolm Denmark as the controlling shareholder.

Today, the Leinster Leader publishes a print edition on Tuesdays and operates leinsterlive.ie, which provides similar content to its print edition but is updated daily. The Leader has a print circulation of approximately 5,500.