No, it is owned by The Irish Times Trust which is supposed to guarantee its editorial freedom.  It is generally a very good paper but can become a bit cliquish and dominated by a very few correspondents and opinion writers who have perhaps been there doing more or less the same thing for too long.  You can read much of it online at Ireland.com, but many sections do require a subscription.

I always write as a private individual and they tend to give more space to public figures or organisations.  Hence the editing was probably chiefly for brevity.  However in my last letter they edited out a reference to the European Tribune presumably because they don't want to give publicity to a competitor!


"It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."