The Irish Times has unveiled a new website and app in the most significant redesign of its digital platforms in a decade.
The new design across desktop, mobile website, as well as the iOS and Android phone apps, provides an enhanced experience for readers and subscribers with a minimalist, clean presentation, consistent across all platforms.
New and revised sections include Housing & Planning, Climate Crisis, Your Money, Dublin, Transport and History, reflecting content areas that we know are important to readers and subscribers.
A number of features have been introduced exclusively for subscribers, including a new interactive crossword available on desktop, mobile and in the app. The Crosswords & Puzzles section includes Sudoku and new and improved versions of the Simplex and Crosaire games.
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Users of the website and apps will be able to listen to an audio version of almost all stories that are published, including a selection read by our columnists and writers.
Users of The Irish Times app will be able to search for content from within the app for the first time, a service that was one of the most requested features by readers. The app also allows users to save articles to read for later and to select the push alerts that are most interesting to them.
The focus on new subscriber-only features reflects the rapid increase in the The Irish Times Group’s subscriber numbers.
On-site functionality allowing readers to comment on selected articles has been under review and will return in the near future for subscribers.
The changes, unveiled on Wednesday, are a culmination of a major project undertaken by The Irish Times in conjunction with digital publishing specialists Arc XP, a division of the Washington Post. As part of the project, The Irish Times has installed Arc’s content management system which is used to create, manage and promote Irish Times articles, videos, podcasts, photography and graphics across all of its platforms.
Irish Times Editor Paul O’Neill said the aim was to enhance the user experience, particularly the range of services provided to subscribers, and to better showcase the diversity of journalism – writing, audio and video – available to readers, especially on The Irish Times app. “This is the biggest single development and design project we have undertaken since The Irish Times expanded into digital publishing. It reflects our commitment to our digital audience and it will continue to evolve taking account of feedback from users,” he added.
Managing Director Paul Mulvaney said: “We are really proud of the enhanced user experience that is now available across all of our digital platforms. This is the culmination of lots of listening to customers and being innovative in meeting their need to access trusted news in audio, visual and written format on multiple platforms.”
The new Irish Times website and app - a guide
What’s different? Our website and mobile apps are very different to what you are used to, as they have been completely redesigned. On the desktop site, you will notice the site is much wider across the screen allowing greater visibility of more stories.
We have removed many of the different colours and some of the clutter from the site to give a cleaner experience that makes it easier to navigate and find the stories and features you want on whatever platform you choose.
Wherever you find The Irish Times, you will have the same experience as we have introduced consistent design on all our platforms with a presentation that is in tune with our traditional look-and-feel associated with The Irish Times’s reputation for journalism you can trust.
At the same time, our podcasts, videos, graphics and photography are easier to find and view or listen to. Wherever you see a play button under a story on a section page or a play button or headphones icon inside a story, you can press it to hear the podcast or an audio version of the article.
Navigation has been moved from the main screens and placed inside a “burger” navigation at the top left of your screen. Tap the three horizontal lines to reveal all the sections and press the chevron icon to expand a menu item.
What’s new? A range of new and revised sections reflect changing reader interest. These include a dedicated personal finance section called Your Money, a History section as well a dedicated home for Climate Crisis news, analysis and features. We also have a new section dedicated to Dublin. Other items long associated with The Irish Times - the Martyn Turner cartoon and Frank McNally’s renamed Irish Diary - are now more easily found from the new homepage.
Our podcasts have a new home on the redesigned site under irishtimes.com/podcasts, while a simple list of latest stories can be found by pressing the ‘Latest’ button in the push-out menu if you cannot find what you’re looking for on the homepage or another section page.
Listen An audio version of almost every article we publish will be available to subscribers on desktop, mobile or The Irish Times app. Press the headphones icon on a story page to hear the article read by one of our Irish-accented AI voices. A selection of articles are read by their authors and available for Irish Times subscribers.
Crosswords and Puzzles: We are introducing an improved Irish Times Crossword and Puzzles section. We’ve kept our Crosaire and Simplex crosswords, but we have added some new features and Sudoku to enhance your enjoyment. The Crosswords and Puzzles section is a subscriber-only feature available on our site and app.
What’s different on the app? The app now includes all of the content and features that are available on our website, as well as some new functionality, including audio versions of articles.
Save for Later, a subscriber feature, lets you bookmark an article to read again, or later on when it suits you.
You can now choose exactly the alerts you are most interested in across Business, Opinion, News, Sport and more. You will find the preference centre for alerts in the MyTimes section of the new app.
Most importantly, you told us you would like to be able to search in the app, and now you can.
The ePaper App, an exact digital replica of the newspaper, hasn’t changed, so you can continue to enjoy it by opening it as normal or by finding it in the App or Play Stores.
What do I need to do?
- Update your Irish Times News app on the Apple App store or on Google Play store
- Log in again using your password
- If you have forgotten your password – you can reset it here.
If you are having difficulties with logging in or have any questions, our Customer Care department will be glad to help you. You can contact us on
- Customer Support:+35316758000 Opening hours: Mon-Fri, 08:00 to 18:00 Sat & Sun, 08:00 to 14:00
- Help Centre
- Contact form
- @IrishTimesHelp
