The Sligo Champion

The Sligo Champion is a weekly regional paper printed in Sligo town in the West of Ireland. The paper was founded in 1836 by Edward Howard Verdon, a politician and former editor of the Ballina Impartial. It is the fifth-oldest provincial newspaper in the country. 

After Verdon’s death in February 1858, the paper was taken over by another journalist, John Gaynor who retained control until 1885 when Tadhg Kilgannon briefly took over before relinquishing control to P.A.(Patrick Aloysius) McHugh in the same year. McHugh would later serve as an Irish Parliamentary Party MP (for North Leitrim from 1895 to 1906 and  North Sligo from 1906 to 1909). Like Verdon, he also served as Mayor of Sligo (on five occasions) and was the first Chair of Sligo County Council when it was established in 1899. He was also imprisoned on a number of occasions for allowing his newspaper to be used to advocate for the Land League and boycott campaigns. When McHugh died in 1909 aged 51, his son Alfred took over the running of the paper. 

In 1932, in anticipation of a move abroad, Alfred McHugh sold the Champion to Champion Publications Limited, a consortium headed by William F. Townsend and Senator John McLoughlin. Townsend was succeeded by his son Charles, who remained Chairman of the company until his death in 1991. He was followed in turn by his son, Niall McLoughlin. 

In 2008, in one of the last gasps of the Celtic Tiger era, the Champion was purchased by Independent News and Media. In 2019, INM’s holdings were purchased by Mediahuis NV, and the Irish subsidiary was re-branded as Mediahuis Ireland. Mediahuis NV owns news titles throughout the EU, including the entire Euractive media network. Mediahuis NV’s largest individual shareholders are the Baert Family, the van Puijenbroek Family, and Thomas Leysen.

The Champion is printed on Wednesdays and has a circulation of approximately 10,000. The paper has no website of its own but provides content for the Regionals section of the Irish Independent website.