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THE IRISH PUBLIC were fascinated by the local, European and general elections over the past year, if our view count is anything to go by.
The focus of the top five stories across 2024 is dominated by the elections held in Ireland, as well as the Family and Care referendums.
Also among our top ten stories was our coverage of Storm Isha in January, a tragedy at the Cliffs of Moher, and reaction to the scoping inquiry report into sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders.
Here’s a look at the top 20 most read stories on The Journal last year.
Close to 523,000 people checking to see which councillor had been elected in their local authority in the days following June’s local elections.
A similar article, from the general election, took second place, with over 344,000 people clicking on the piece in the days after the 29 November vote.
More politics in the top three, this time a liveblog following the comprehensive defeat of the Family and Care referendums.
The first day of counting was a slog, and by midnight, only 31 of the 174 TDs of the new Dáil had been elected. Like number 3, this article was also a liveblog.
Another election liveblog, something we’ll be seeing more of on this list. Come midnight on day one of the local election count, only 100 councillors had been elected and the EU election count was yet to come.
Last January, Storm Isha hit Ireland and our coverage was led by the sad death of a male motorist in Mayo whose car left the road during difficult travelling conditions.
Perhaps a surprise inclusion in the top ten were plans for a “universal companion pass” to allow people over 70 to bring a loved one or friend on public transport free of charge.
In May, there was a tragedy on the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare when a young woman lost her footing and fell to her death.
On 20 December, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said he “regrets” the €500 charge passengers had to pay the airline for one-way tickets from London to Dublin.
Rounding out the top ten was a database on The Journal which contained a list of the schools and the number of allegations and alleged abusers at each one.
This followed the scoping inquiry report into sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders, which identified 308 schools where alleged abuse took place.
Number 11 on our list is another election liveblog, this time as the counting at the general election started to wind down and recounts were being ordered due to some races coming down to the wire.
When we left the liveblog, a recount was looming in Tipperary North and Cork North Central, while no one was yet elected in Cavan-Monaghan despite two full days of counting.
In March, a 16-year-old girl died near the 3Arena in Dublin. She had been taken to the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
The only poll to make it into the top 20 most read stories was one asking our readers if they were happy with Bambie Thug being chosen to represent Ireland at last year’s Eurovision.
Bambie Thug went on to finish in sixth place in a Song Contest filled with controversy.
In July, 11-year-old Clodagh Phelan tragically died in Majorca, Spain after falling from a balcony at her hotel in Alcudia.
Taoiseach Simon Harris said he was saddened to hear of the “tragic loss”.
“So much promise and personality was snatched away in a terrible accident,” said Harris.
In February, a coastal community in Waterford was in “disbelief” following the discovery of the body of six-year-old Matthew Healy near a seaside cove.
Matthew’s body was found in a car at Dunmore East, Co Waterford shortly after midnight on 9 February, 2024.
This article, published in September, revealed that a cyclist who gave helmet camera footage to gardaí of drivers using their phones and parking illegally was issued with a fixed penalty notice himself after the footage showed the cyclist cycling through a red light.
The cyclist asked the garda member if the other drivers that appear to be committing traffic offences in the same video would be prosecuted.
He alleged that they were advised to submit their questions in writing.
The cyclist did so, however they received no response or acknowledgement.
Another election liveblog, but this time from the European elections in June. The big talking point at the time was the fact that a slide for Sinn Féin in opinion polls was borne out in the results.
Not all of the most read liveblogs focused on elections; this one from March documented the immediate aftermath of the resignation of former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
In a statement announcing the shock move, Varadkar said that after seven years in office, “I am no longer the best person for that job”.
Donald Trump will begin his second term as US president later this month.
The polling had it as a toss-up, but Trump went on to score a decisive victory over Kamala Harris.
The Republican Party also went on to take control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar wasn’t the only high-profile Fine Gael figure to step away from politics last year.
Indeed, more than half of the party’s TDs announced that they would not be contesting the 2024 general election.
This included Heather Humphreys, Richard Bruton, Charlie Flanagan, Ciaran Cannon, Simon Coveney, Michael Ring, Damien English, and Josepha Madigan.
This article was updated throughout the year as the resignations came rolling in.
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Colonial imperialist terrorists doing what they do!
@joe moody: Protecting people from terrorists that planted bombs in Shops , Pubs , Restaurants, Hotels . They didn’t care who they killed .
@Jack Moss: Balkymurphy massacre, Derry Bloody Sunday hasn’t really covered your comrades in arms in Glory. Don’t try to come here and claim some sort of moral high ground while defending British forces in Ireland or rest of world. Your national is currently supplying the means of genocide in Palestine.
@Jack Moss: how is that protecting people? It could’ve damaged the peace process and cost people their lives
@North Phone Bowe: Your hero McGuinness and his Derry brigade murdered 51 innocent from the Derry area . 28 of them Catholics . People like Catholic teen Kathleen Feeney shot through the head by the IRA . Spares us your crocodile tears for those killed on Bloody Sunday .
@Jack Moss: shankill butchers , loyalist collusion…etc etc.. U LOL crew only see one side always and it’s orange
@Pork Hunt: Nobody defends/ justifies the murders committed by loyalist terrorists though. It’s only Provo supporters who seem to forget that the Provos murdered more Catholics than the British Army during the Troubles. Revisionism is good business these days. I don’t forget the poll carried out at the end of the Troubles that showed both Catholics and Protestants in the high 80s% say there was no justification for the terrorism committed in their name.
@honey badger: it’s not surprising to see you in support of a brutal apartheid occupying force.
Both the IRA and Hamas have done heinous things, for sure but both of them are a result of unjust suppression and disenfranchisement of people, illegally. Neither of them grew in a vacuum.
If you brutally push people down, they will rise up with whatever means they have at their disposal. I’ve no doubt that Palestinians would love to face Israel down with a conventional army but Israel has seen to it that that can’t happen. You reap what you sow.
@Soundy Sound: Lovely word salad and whataboutery. What “unjust suppression, disenfranchisement, illegally” were the Catholic victims of their supposed defenders guilty of? Strangely, Israel/ Hamas has/ had zero to do with it.
@Pork Hunt: The Shankill butchers murder 9 Protestants .
@Soundy Sound: They didn’t rising up . The majority of Catholics were supporting non violent organisations like the civil rights movement and John Humes SDLP . The IRA did not represent the Catholic population of NI . The 26 counties was a 98 percent RC state. It political system was made up of Republican parties . 40 thousand Protestant fled the 26 counties from intimidation and murder during the war of independence. The Protestant population fell to 3 percent. All this is long forgotten. Ireland was not partition in 1921 . The UK was partition . Irish Nats gain 26 counties the UK lost 26 counties. The UK people and unionists just accepted it and move on . Violence has always been the first choice for republican organisations . They always see themselves as the victims in history.
@honey badger: There is literally no point in arguing with someone who’s starting point is claiming that the nationalist population in Northern Ireland were not discriminated against by the ruling system.
@Jack Moss: protected nobody, and in this instance, actively pushed propaganda that could have caused serious damage to a fragile peace process.
Actual state-sponsored terrorism from so called “security forces”
@Alan Roddy: The security forces had a 99 percent arresting rate . Over 25000 republicans were arrested and prosecuted for terrorism and criminality . Less then 200 were killed by the security forces over 25 yrs of the troubles . 3500 people were killed almost half of those were the security forces . In 69 NI was facing an all out civil war . The only thing that stop it going over the edge was the security forces . Over a 100 thousand people died in the three yr civil war in Bosnia . 3500 died in 26 yrs in NI . If it wasn’t for the security forces and emergency services nurses , doctors , paramedics, fire fighters that all stood in the face of terrorism the IRA would have succeeded in murdering tens of thousands more .
@Soundy Sound: What you mean to say is you can’t comfortably justify why the Provos murdered more Catholics than the British Army. The only place you heard there was no discrimination was in your own head. It’s an odd thing to throw out there. Discrimination was so bad that the provos had to kill more of their own people than the British Army.
RUC might’ve changed their name, but didn’t change their anti-Irish senior personnel.
@Uí Braonáin: If I remember rightly if you got a train from Dublin to Belfast the train was often stop before crossing the border on the recommendation from the RUC north of the border . People were put onto buses for their own safety to travel the rest of the journey because the IRA was constantly blowing up the rail line . They blew it 26 times in six months . Trains carrying people from the south came within minutes of being derailed .
British spy planes hover over Gaza daily passing information to Israel on which tent full of innocent defenceless women and children to blow up next
@Kevin O Brien: Are these the same spy planes that are collecting evidence of war crimes etc?
@Kevin O Brien: Ah! Come on now Kevin!!
@Gary Kearney: Same accuracy
Any article on the cop saying no iPas are unvetted , which he clarifies as fingerprinted as identified. Kids in transition year get more vetting for work experience. No comment from the cop on forced deportation , it’s just part of the process. What a joke.
It was a common tactic of the IRA to leave secondary devices to kill the people that attempted to help the injured . The Claudy bombings consisted of three car bombs left on a public street. Car bomb two and three were timed to go off a few minutes after the first bomb detonated . There purpose was to kill the people that ran out onto the street to help the injured of the first bomb . 9 died 6 of them Catholic .
@Jack Moss: Why do you keep bringing religion into it.
@Daniel Roche: People are living in some fairytale land that the IRA were defenders of Catholics which is untrue.
@Jack Moss:
SF RA did not give a dam about the Irish. It was all about a one Island communist sithole state.
Pikes in the Thatch.
@Róisín Guffpuffin:
Pub in Rathkeel??
have your say