Irish Times buys funeral notice platform RIP.ie

The media group owns online property platform Myhome.ie as well as the Irish Times and Examiner newspapers.

RIP.ie is operated by Co Louth-based company Gradam Communications, owned by siblings Jay and Dympna Coleman who established the business in 2005.

They’ve owned the company on a 50/50 basis since setting it up and gave up jobs, in an office and on a farm, to operate the start-up venture which has gone on to become a major online challenge to the traditional newspapers that previously dominated death notice classified advertising.

RIP.ie generates 60 million page views a month as people visit the site for information on funeral arrangements or just to keep up with who has died.

During the Covid pandemic the Central Statistics Office (CSO) used statistics drawn from the site on an experimental basis as a primary tool for publishing more timely mortality statistics.

The most recently filed accounts for the business showed accumulated profits of €1.695m with just four emplyees.

The company recording an after tax profit of €264,912 for the 12 months to the end of December 2023, well ahead of the previous year.

Apart from 2022, the RIP.ie business had recorded strong profits in recent years as traffic to its website has continued to increase.