A MANAGEMENT buy out of the country's largest provincial newspaper groups, The Nationalist and Leinster Times Limited, was announced yesterday. The group is based in Carlow town. Provincial, Publishers Limited, a company under the control of Mr Thomas F Geoghegan, managing director of The Nationalist and Leinster Times Ltd, has purchased a 100 per cent share holding in the Nationalist and its wholly owned subsidiary, Carlow News and, Printing Limited.

The Nationalist was founded in 1883. It prints three weekly editions - the Laois Nationalist, the Kildare Nationalist and the main Carlow edition, the Nationalist and Leinster Times.

The group has a combined circulation of 15,000 copies weekly and is sold primarily in Carlow, Laois and Kildare, as well as Kilkenny, Offaly, Wicklow and Wexford.

Mr Geoghegan, who joined the Carlow Newspaper in 1969, is director of Provincial Publishers.