About Us

Celtic Media Group is probably the best positioned company in the industry to advise other newspapers on how to publish and print high quality titles. Reason being that CMG is large enough to have most of the benefits in terms of economies of scale – but small enough to be able to think like an “independently owned” company.

CMG publishes market leading newspapers such as The Anglo Celt in Cavan; Meath Chronicle in Navan; Westmeath Examiner in Mullingar and Westmeath Independent in Athlone/Roscommon. It also has a quality free newspaper The Offaly Independent.

But it is the extent of our “total solution” offering – involving Celtic Media Pre-Press, Digital Hub both located in Mullingar and Celtic Media Print situated in Navan and within half an hour of the M50 – that is really facilitating much-needed reinvention of the regional newspaper business model.

Meet the team

Celtic Media Group is owned and managed by its Irish management team – arising from a management buyout of the company in June 2012 from its former Scottish group of investors, which was facilitated by Lloyds Banking Group. The three board directors are Frank Mulrennan (Chief Executive Officer); John Keogan (Group Finance Director) and John Wood (Chairman – Non-Executive)

Frank Mulrennan

is Chief Executive Officer of Celtic Media Group, one of the leading regional newspaper publishing and printing companies, employing 140 people across six centres in the Midlands, Northeast and West of Ireland. Frank led a management buyout of the company in June 2012 and has been the key driver to reposition CMG as the No. 1 full service provider to the publishing and print newspaper sector. He is a former Business Editor and associate editor with the Irish Independent and previously was Editor of the Farming Independent. Frank was also Managing Director of Drogheda Independent Group, owned by IN&M from 2000-2005 before joining Celtic Media Group. He began his media career with RTE, having qualified from UCD in 1982 with an honour’s degree in Agricultural Economics. He was awarded an M.Sc in Management Practice from TCD/IMI in 2004. Frank was a member of the inaugural Press Council of Ireland and is the incoming President of Local Ireland, the representative body for local newspapers.

John Keogan

Is the Financial Director of Celtic Media Group. John joined the group in 2003 when it was the Meath Chronicle publishing and printing business. He has been involved in the expansion of the group to its current position as one of Irelands leading newspaper provider in both print and digital. John was Financial Controller of the company until 2018 when he joined the board as Financial Director. John is currently the company secretary. John is a qualified Chartered Accountant who spent his earlier years working in the publishing business in London before returning to Ireland in 1999.

John Wood (Non-Executive)

was appointed Chairman of Celtic Media Group in June 2012, as part of the management buyout of the company. He is a specialist independent Director, based in Derbyshire, England and was initially introduced to CMG by Lloyds Banking Group. A metallurgist by background, John has previously worked as a consultant with Deloitte in restructuring, M&A and operations; as a Managing Director in the packaging, print and point-of-sale industries (18 years) and since 2007 has been advising companies across varied sectors on turnaround, transformation and growth strategies.

Partnerships

We work hard to build partnerships with all our clients, allowing us to better understand their evolving challenges and to identify additional opportunities to improve the performance of their brands.

Ourselves

We’re proud of our people and of the services we provide. We constantly develop them and the models and tools that enable us to generate consistently high quality output for our clients.

Continuous Improvement

Our experience has taught us that there is always potential to improve. In the same way we strive to improve our clients’ brand and business performance, we strive to improve ourselves, our tools, our methods and our services.