The Northern Standard ceases publication!
THE Northern Standard, a regional weekly newspaper in Monaghan, ceased publication on 18th December 2025, after 186 years.
THE weekly publication struggled to sustain its long-term viability in the face of what it called the “steady decline in readership and advertising in recent years”, the publisher stated.
Adding that, as news consumption shifted to online media, “print newspapers have struggled to compete with digital platforms and social media outlets” and that the “regrettable decision” had been made to cease publication.
The Northern Standard was founded by Arthur Wellington Holmes, and the first issue was published on 10th January, 1839.
The ‘Standard’ has been described as an “historic newspaper”: it certainly earned that title! Below is a brief account of its history by the late Hugh Oram.
The Monaghan Paper
“WHEN the first issue of the Northern Standard, Monaghan, was rolling off the press in March 1839, the list of prisoners awaiting trial in the town’s jail at the Spring Assizes read as follows:
Murder, 13; Rape 5; Lifting arms by might, 5; Robbery, 16; Base coin, 6; Forgery, 2; Assault, 2; Exposing child, 3; Picking Pockets, 3; Stealing Rosin, 2; Possession of stolen goods, 1; Vagrant, 1; Wounding, 1; Misdemeanour, 1; Pig Stealing, 1.
For a fleeting moment, just after the paper was founded, Charles Gavan Duffy was its Editor, on the way to great editorial achievement with the Nation.
Gavan Duffy, a native of Monaghan, already had much newspaper experience behind him. He arrived in Dublin as an eighteen-year-old and promptly secured a job as a reporter on the Morning Register, the Catholic newspaper founded in 1824. His starting pay was £1 a week.
Gavan Duffy soon began his rapid climb upwards, moving from the reporters’ desk to the sub-editor’s desk. He survived a monumental row with Daniel O’Connell—who had accused him of attributing a speech to him that he had not made. Gavan Duffy stuck to his guns and insisted that his report was entirely accurate.
At the next meeting of the Precursor Society in Dublin, O’Connell attacked both the Morning Register and its reporters. Gavan Duffy was in high dudgeon; he swept up his papers, grabbed the top hat customarily worn by reporters in those days and stalked out of the room. Three other reporters followed Duffy’s example.
Later, O’Connell became reconciled to the Morning Register and, as his autobiography so delicately phrased it, “ceased abusing reporters”.
“Just after the launch of the Northern Standard, the Editor, Arthur Wellington Holmes was struck down by a fever. He was tortured by the impossibility of bringing out the paper, but Gavan Duffy arrived, had all the proofs revised and selected the current news.
His arrival mitigated the local bitterness against the new Conservative newspaper and later, when Gavan Duffy and the Nation were in the dock charged with sedition, the Northern Standard remained silent amid the general uproar of the Tory press.
Fifty years later—by which time Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, living in Melbourne had been made Premier of Victoria—was on a visit home to Monaghan, when he was reminded cordially of his brief Editorship all those years before.
“Gavan Duffy went on from the Northern Standard to become Editor of the Belfast Vindicator. He recalled the day in 1841 when O’Connell came to Belfast— managing to evade the mobs who were roaming the city in search of him. The Orange gangs did not find O’Connell; as a substitute, they broke every pane of glass in the Vindicator office.
“An incident shortly afterwords was to lead eventually to Gavan Duffy’s part in founding the Nation, that seminal influence on nineteenth century journalism and politics. A man called Hughes was sentenced to death at Armagh Assizes, despite the fact that vital evidence was invalidated by several witnesses greatly respected for their integrity. During the period of Hughes’ appeal, it was assumed he would be merely confined to prison. Instead, he was hung.
“In the Belfast Vindicator, Gavan Duffy assailed the judges for this legal assassination; in turn, the Attorney-General prosecuted the paper. The case was tried at the Four Courts, Dublin, and, to answer his case, Gavan Duffy came to Dublin.
One day in that Summer of 1842 he was walking through the Phoenix Park with Thomas Davis and John Dillion when the three men had a sudden notion to bring out a new national paper—The Nation!” (see The Newspaper Book, A History of Newspapers in Ireland, 1649-1983, by Hugh Oram: MO Books, Dublin,1983).
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Thomas Davis by Charles Gavan Duffy. Reprint of classic biography of 1890; With extract from Duffy’s autobiography. Introduction by B. Clifford. 268 p.p. Index. ISBN 1 903497 01 9. AHS, 2000. €25, £20.
Irish Political Review 