[Broadsheet.ie](https://Broadsheet.ie) will be closing for good this weekend.

They blamed the lack of contributors, the lack of income to pay for hosting and legal costs, and a light reference to the, er, *interesting* posts in recent times.

The site was highly popular a number of years ago, but some would believe that it went off the boil and started to give airtime to fringe conspiracy theories and COVID-19 deniers.

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John Ryan, the publisher, and founder of the website, who posts under ‘Bodger’, was previously with The Sunday Times, Irish Independent, and was an Editor of Magill. He later went on to create VIP Magazine.

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[https://www.broadsheet.ie/2022/06/08/closing-time-5/](https://www.broadsheet.ie/2022/06/08/closing-time-5/)

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>As you may have noticed, we are experiencing some ‘difficulties’ with the frequency of our posts.
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>We’re very sorry.
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>Thank you so much for your patience.
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>The simple fact is we have barely anyone left on the site to ‘help out’.
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>Those remaining are shells of their former selves.
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>Their deeply unfashionable take on recent world events alienated everyone on *Broadsheet* but a few and proved to be ‘box office poison’.
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>With no income of any kind, we are unable to replenish the workforce, pay the hosting fee in a timely fashion or defend ourselves in legal actions taken against the site in any meaningful way.
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>This has been the situation for some time. The responsible thing for all concerned would be to call it a day.
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>We hope to finish up this weekend and will keep posting until Sunday.
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>Thank you for staying with us this long.

22 comments

  2. I used to really like it at the start. It was an irreverent mix of current affairs and culture with some amusing posts.

    It started to change when it got behind GOD in her case against Martin Callinan and the Irish Indo. It slowly became more and more conservative and conspiratorial but it really took off in that direction with the pandemic. The postings from liberal/centrist contributers became fewer – the comments section became really toxic with falsehoods being posted frequently. It’s like watching a parent become more and more right-wing and there’s not much you can do.

    I’ll always be fond of it for the early years and the frequent digs at Dennis O’Brien.

  3. Never frequently went on it but was linked to it a few times. One I remember is the one about the Communications Clinic and the girl who was badly treated.

  4. I used to find Broadsheet great maybe 7 or 8 years ago but it was on a gradual decline for quite some time.

  5. It was a fun site a few years ago but went downhill after Trump got elected and then went full kit conspiracy nutjobs when the pandemic started.

  6. How did the owner let the contributors air “Their deeply unfashionable take on recent world events” ? They’re right though, whoever was at the helm over the last few years completely fucked it.

    I’ll always respect their willingness to take on the media sweethearts The Communications Clinic and that smarmy bitch Terry Prone.

  7. Fucking hell was a great site. Became a shell of itself in last few years, but fought many good fights in it’s heyday. I just don’t understand the reasoning behind pumping out conspiracy theories on repeat for the last 2 years. I will miss it alot.

  9. I remember it being really popular when I was in college (2010’s) but maybe it’s success was tied with Facebook a bit too. A lot of their hits I imagine came with shares and when that generation stopped using FB as much + the younger generation don’t use FB. They were left with the remaining bunch, that probably does include a lot of conspiracy shit. (Anyone got an example of the kind of stuff that was being posted? Super hard to find anything on that site)

    I haven’t used or even thought to open it in years though, I thought their format is probably really dated now with how they lay out posts. Then I opened it up and it’s exactly the same.

  10. Sorry to see. I used to visit every day 5 years ago. Then I found reddit, and forgot about it.

    Is that to be the fate of this forum also.

  12. I stopped reading Broatsheet 10 years ago because I found out they were taking a lot of stories from a thing called reddit and in particular, the r/ireland subhole. Decided to skip to the source and here we are.

  13. 5-10 years ago this site was essential reading. The investigation into Kate Fitzgerald’s death took some massive balls. Never liked Anton Savage since then. The whole thing kinda exposed Irish news media being totally in bed with PR/spin firms.

  14. Meh, reddit crowd sourcing its “we got on the Internet 10 minutes before you did” business model was always going to put a fierce shelf life on it, clowns or no.

  16. I’m still checking it out, every day. I occasionally found some good music there (“You may like this”), and I’ve really been enjoying the columns by Derek Mooney and Eamon Kelly. The rest of the articles held no interest to me, and the comments section made The Journal sound reasonable and intelligent. So, I’m largely indifferent about Broadsheet going. I’ll have to bookmark Mooney’s page and occasionally check for new articles, but I still have to find the correct Kelly for his articles.

  17. Used to be ok, a bit left leaning but then went anti vaxx and started having a sympathetic ear to the likes of ben gilroy, completely put me off

  19. I was very surprised how many established brands stuck with them despite the very outlandish COVID stuff. Golden Discs has their regular weekly giveaway.

    Sure, we cannot expect (nor should we) for a brand to align exactly or closely to a publication’s output in terms of belief, but this was a mad one.

  21. Like others I used to check in on it most days but stopped when they went full conspiracy nuts during the pandemic. When that happened Id only visit it once a week on a Sunday to see the newspaper headlines. The comments section became toxic with the same 3 or 4 posters constantly at each others throats, Im not sure why John Ryan allowed them at it becasue it was just unreadable scutter most of the time whereas in previous years there was some quite witty commenters.

    It was an excellent site back in its day and they dd some great work on the Maurice McCabe and Kate Fitzgerald stories. So it sad to see it denigrate into what its become.

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