The University Times (est. 2009) is Ireland’s best and largest student newspaper, with over 60 staff members and over 400 Staff and Contributing Writers.
In 2026, it won Best Publication in Ireland at the Student Publication Awards and Best Student Media Outlet of the Year at the AIB Impact Awards. It also won Best Website in the UK & Ireland at the Student Publication Awards and Best Design at the Smedias. The University Times has also won Newspaper of the Year at the Smedias in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2024. Further, the University Times was named Best All-Around Non-Daily Student Newspaper in the World by the Society of Professional Journalists in 2017.
Originally, the University Times was the official newspaper of the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union. However, in 2015, it broke off from the Union and has since maintained a mutually agreed-upon policy of editorial independence. Since then, the University Times has fiercely reported on all aspects of college life, consistently defending its mandate for independent journalism, holding itself accountable to its readers above all else.
Our journalism is far-reaching, too. Online, we have an average monthly unique readership of over 150,000 on our website and over 600,000 on social media. Every three weeks, we distribute our print newspaper to all of Trinity’s campus buildings and locations in Dublin’s city centre.
The University Times, owing to its coverage of national student issues, developments in the higher education sector, and a wide reach among academics in all disciplines, can truly be called Ireland’s national, daily online university newspaper – one with a discerning and attentive readership.
When news breaks, we report it online immediately, and maintain year-round coverage of the important issues.
Aside from the University Times’s main “broadsheet” sections – its news, features, opinion and sport pages – we also publish Radius, the University Times’s Trinity and Dublin-focused publication that aims to cover everything event-based within a certain Radius of Trinity. Sections include Art & Design, Fashion, Film & TV, Food & Drink, Literature, Music, Theatre, and Societies.
Founded in 2009 by Robert Donohoe, the University Times was created to allow the unhindered exchange of ideas between its peers. Before the University Times, the students’ union published the University Record, which existed from 1998-2009. Before the Record, the students’ union published a magazine called “Aontas” from 1985-1998. The University Times aims to be the place that our readers can come to be informed about the issues that matter, and the issues that may not matter so much, but are of interest to them.
By doing this, the University Times ends up becoming a publication at the centre of a community – at the intersection of student life in Trinity, of the academic life of its teachers, where debate about student issues, higher education issues and the things that are happening converge.
Ever since then, the University Times has viewed itself as the newspaper that holds those within its remit to account, whether it is when Trinity students decide to go on a rampage on a ski trip, when the College decides to spend €100,000 on a new logo, or whether it’s when the Provost treats Board members with great disrespect.
Since 2015, the University Times, which is financially supported by Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union, has had an Editor that is independent of the Communications Officer of the union. The union’s constitution states that “The University Times shall be guaranteed editorial independence from the Union”. As such, the University Times often scrutinises the union, and views holding the union to account as much its role as it does holding the College to account.
The current Editor is Harper Alderson.
