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TheDitch.ie is a free-to-access online news outlet which concentrates on stories relating to the actions of Irish political figures and state institutions. Its stories are often based on careful scrutiny of public registers of interests of politicians or individuals and highlighting discrepancies between these and the actual interests of such individuals. It has broken a number of high profile stories since its establishment in 2021 which have led to the resignations of two Ministers of State and, indirectly, to the jailing of the romanIrish State’s official Planning Board.


TheDitch.ie is a small outlet. It appears that just two individuals, Roman Shortall and Eoghan McNeill (both shareholders in Ditch Media Limited), initially researched and wrote all of the content. As of 2023, a third journalist, Paulie Doyle has joined Shortall and McNeill. In an interview prior to Doyle’s arrival, McNeill has described those associated with TheDitch.ie as politically leaning to the left. McNeill and Shortall were also co-founders alongside the now departed Chay Bowes.


In April 2023, the Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and leader of the Fianna Fail Party, Michael Martin referred to The Ditch as a “political organisation attacking Government” suggesting that it was not “an independent media platform”. He was subsequently criticised by the Irish Branch of the National Union of Journalists for using parliamentary privilege to attack a news organisation. TheDitch.ie subsequently established “The Michael Martin Press Freedom Bursary” seeking pitches for stories about “how power operates in Ireland”.
The establishment of TheDitch appears to have been at least partially motivated by the frustration of one of its original shareholders, Chay Bowes and that of the individual who appears to be the main source of its funding, Paddy Cosgrave, with the clientalist nature of the Irish political sphere.


As of 2023, Ditch Media Limited has not filed a financial statement with the Companies Records Office so its funding and expenditure is not entirely clear. TheDitch.ie website does invite direct support from its readers but it does not operate any kind of paywall. According to Roman Shortall, a series of stories relating to the state planning board generated donations from “the corporate world, lawyers and accountants”. In interview on RTE Radio in April 2023, Eoghan McNeill, one of the shareholders and journalists with TheDitch acknowledged that TheDitch was largely funded by the Web Summit (Paddy Cosgrave’s organisation) and expected to receive a further €1m approximately from the same source in the five years up to 2028.


On November 7 2023 the Web Summit announced that it was withdrawing all funding from Ditch Media Limited with immediate effect and that the Web Summit. The press release stated that the Web Summit's legal counsel, Adam Connon had disposed of his 33.3% shareholding in Ditch Media Limited at some stage in October 2023. (However, this transfer had yet to be notified to the Companies Registration Office, thus he is continued to be identifed as a shareholder). The Web Summit decision was clearly motivated by concern to distance itself from any kind of language that was critical of Israeli actions in Gaza and which had certainly been a feature of TheDitch.ie’s editorial line. In a press release announcing the cutting of ties, the Web Summit stressed that TheDitch.ie was “a separate organisation with its own editorial control and its views do not represent those of Web Summit.” Where this leaves OnTheDitch.com’s finances is not yet clear.


TheDitch.ie association with Chay Bowes was complicated by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. In January 2022, as threat of invasion loomed, Bowes contributed a piece on Ukraine-Russian relations to “Cassandra Voices”, an online Irish journal for alternative voices and perspectives. Whilst not legitimating a putative Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Bowes cited evidence that ethnic Russians inside Ukraine had been subject to violence at the hands of the Ukrainian Armed Forces suggesting that it was naive to imagine that Russia would simply abandon ethnic Russians to an “increasingly nationalist Ukraine”.


Since the actual outbreak of war, Bowes has been an active commentator on the conflict, generally adopting a critical stance towards western support for the Ukrainian war effect and drawing attention to alleged military atrocities committed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. On his blog The Islander, which is largely dedicated to writings on the invasion of Ukraine, he self-styles as a “journalist and geopolitical analyst”. (Bowes completed the online MA in Strategic Studies at UCC in 2015.)


In his April 2023 parliamentary comments, Michael Martin drew attention to Bowes’ connections with Russia, noting that Bowes had been quoted by Russia Today (the Russian state controlled news network) and had been praised by the Russian Ambassador to Ireland for the manner in which Bowes has written about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Bowes clearly is regarded favourably by the Russian administration: he has appeared on RT India captioned as an “RT Commentator and in July 2023 was invited by Russia to address the UN Security Council on the subject of the war in Ukraine.


Martin used Bowes’ association with TheDitch.ie to cast doubt on the objectivity of their output and to suggest that their editorial content was driven by unacknowledged ulterior motives.


In point of fact, however, it appears that Bowes had effectively resigned as a Director of Ditch Media Limited in June 2022 and in February 2023, a new filing with the Companies Records Office stated that Bowes’ 33.3% shareholding had been transferred to Adam Connon. Interviewed on RTE Radio, Eoghan McNeill that it was precisely Mr Bowes’ views on the conflict in the Ukraine that had become a “bone of contention” between the founding shareholders and which had led to Bowes withdrawal from the company. McNeill has been at pains to stress that TheDitch.ie has no links with the Russian government.

Key Facts

Audience ShareMissing Data
Ownership TypePrivate
Geographic CoverageNational
Content TypeFree
Data Publicly Available
ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc.

Ownership

Ownership StructureTheDitch.ie is owned by Ditch Media Limited. Ownership of Ditch Media Limited is split three ways: Roman Shortall (33.3%), Eoghan McNeill (33.3%) and Clonard Consulere Gentium Limited (33.3%). Clonard Consulere Gentium Limited is 100% owned by Adam James Connon.
Individual Owner

Media Companies / Groups

Facts

Founding Year2021
Founder
  • Roman Shortall
    Editor-in-Chief, Co-Founder and 33% owner of The Ditch.
  • Eoghan McNeill
    Editor-in-Chief, Co-Founder and 33% owner of The Ditch.
  • Chay Bowes

    was born in 1971. He joined the Irish Army Medical Corps as a paramedic on leaving school. He moved into mainstream medicine, working as a phlebotomist in mainstream hospitals. He then took a career break to offer phlebotomy services in domestic settings removing the need for some patients to physically attend hospital for blood tests.

    He sought to commercialise the provision of healthcare in domestic settings through the establishment of Tara Healthcare which briefly secured a contract from the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) to operate a “Healthcare in the Home” service. This contract ended in April 2008 as the financial crisis deepened. Bowe has stated that the very success of Tara Healthcare informed the HSE decision to cease its funding on the grounds that it would create pressure to expand the service and thus find additional funding for it. In the interim the state-owned health insurer VHI bought out Tara Healthcare, rebranding the new subsidiary as VHI Hospital@Home and appointing Bowes as its Chief Executive Officer, a position he remained in until 2011.

    In 2017 Bowes re-entered the healthcare sphere seeking to promote Community Hospital Ireland, an initiative similar to Tara Healthcare. He sought the support of the National Association of General Practitioners for the initiative which brought him into contact with Maitiu O’Tuathail, the president of the organisation.
    O’Tuathail asserted that he was socially connected to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and could get Bowes’ proposal in front of him. O’Tuathail was able to demonstrate his level of access to senior political figures to Bowes by referring to his possession of a draft copy of pay agreement between the government and the Irish Medical Organisation, a rival medical representative body. For Bowes this appeared to confirm that decisions on medical policy were informed by informal political influence.
    Encouraged by Paddy Cosgrave, he brought the story of O’Tuathail’s political connections to The Village Magazine. This in turn led to Mr Varadkar being referred to the Standards in Public Office (SIPO) body. (SIPO announced in December 2022 that they had decided not to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the communication of the contract to Dr O’Tuathail by Mr Varadkar.)

    In the wake of The Village story, Bowes appears to have concluded, along with Paddy Cosgrave, that there was a need for a more investigative voice in Irish journalism and in June 2021 he confirmed that he was involved in the establishment of a “current affairs website”, namely The Ditch. He disposed of his shareholding in TheDitch.ie in June 2022.

Editor-In-Chief
  • Roman Shortall
    Editor-in-Chief, Co-Founder and 33% owner of The Ditch.
  • Eoghan McNeill
    Editor-in-Chief, Co-Founder and 33% owner of The Ditch.
Other Important People
  • Paddy Cosgrave

    In April 2003, in an interview with RTÉ, Eoghan McNeill stated that Cosgrave's Web Summit Organisation would provide 1 Million € in funding to the newswebsite over the course of the next 5 years.

    Cosgrave as born in 1982 and grew up on a farm in County Wicklow. He studied Business, Economics and Social Studies at Trinity College where he also edited The Piranha, a satirical magazine. He graduated in 2006 and was a key figure in the 2007 Rock The Vote campaign to encourage young people to vote in the 2007 General Election.

    In 2009 he co-founded the Web Summit with Daire Hickey and David Kelly. The Web Summit brought together figures from internet technology, emerging technologies and venture capitalism and meshed well with the increasing prevalence of Tech firms locating their European headquarters in Dublin.
    By 2015, Wired Magazine’s UK edition listed Cosgrave in the top 50 most influential figures in the wider (i.e. non-US) wired world. By 2014, the Web Summit was attracting over 22,000 attendees from around the globe to its three-day run. However, technical issues relating to wifi connectivity were highlighted by attendees and in September 2015, the Web Summit announced that the November event would be its last in Dublin following a decision to move to Lisbon.

    In October 2015, Paddy Cosgrave published email correspondence between the Summit and the Department of the Taoiseach which detailed requests to address what were characterised as Dublin’s infrastructural deficiencies for events such as the Summit: poor traffic management, exploitative hotel pricing and wifi issues. Cosgrave characterised the state response as inadequate and cited this as forcing the Summit to move to another city outside Ireland. (The Web Summit has never been hosted in Ireland since.)

    Since then Cosgrave has been highly critical of the Irish state and on Twitter has described “most” Irish journalists as “sycophantic, bootlicking propagandist[s] for the crony class”. In 2020, this frustration with state and media found expression in Cosgrave’s facilitation of a meeting between healthcare entrepreneur Chay Bowes and Michael Smith, the editor of The Village magazine. This led directly to the publication of a story in the Village in which it was revealed that the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had provided a technically still confidential document relating to the negotiation of a pay contract with the Irish Medical Organisation to an acquaintance who led a rival medical representative organisation. (In July The Director of Public Prosecutions announced that Varadkar would not face criminal charges in relation to this.)

    However, in October 2023, Paddy Cosgrave was effectively forced to step down as Web Summit CEO when his comments on the Israeli response to the October 7th attacks on Israel by Hamas, prompted a number of leading tech firms to announce that they would not be attending the organisation’s November 2023 event in Lisbon. Cosgrave’s stepping back had knock-on consequences for TheDitch.ie’s funding.

    On November 7 2023 the Web Summit announced that it was withdrawing all funding from Ditch Media Limited with immediate effect and that the Web Summit legal counsel, Adam Connon had disposed of his 33.3% share in the company (although this is not yet reflected in any filing to the Companies Registration Office). The Web Summit decision was clearly motivated by concern to distance itself from any kind of language that was critical of Israeli actions in Gaza and which had certainly been a feature of TheDitch.ie’s editorial line. In a press release announcing the cutting of ties, the Web Summit stressed that TheDitch.ie was “a separate organisation with its own editorial control and its views do not represent those of Web Summit.”

Contact71 Lower Baggot St
Dublin 2
www.ontheditch.com
RevenueMissing Data
Operating ProfitMissing Data
Advertising (in % of total funding)Missing Data
Market ShareMissing Data
Meta Data

There is currently no standard audience measurement available for print and online news titles in Ireland. Individual titles publish data on readership or users but measurement parameters and sources vary between organisations, therefore it is not possible to report an accurate audience share for the purposes of this project.

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