Popular perceptions of the local press in Britain centre around images of newspapers printed on old-fashioned machinery, filled with reports of courts, councils, fetes and jumble sales, and the births, marriages and deaths of local citizens. Bob Franklin and Dave Murphy argue that this perception is long out-of-date. With almost 1800 titles, including paid and free, morning, evening and weekly newspapers, the local press is a highly significant component both in local media networks and in the context of the British press as a whole. Many papers combine substantial circulation figures with...

The Shackleton of his day, Leopold McClintock (1819-1907) from County Louth was the leading Arctic explorer of the Victorian era. He undertook four major voyages, epic sledge journeys, and was the first to bring definite information on the lost Franklin party. He then rose to admiral and advised Robert Falcon Scott before the Discovery expedition in 1901. After his death a memorial plaque was unveiled at Westminister Abbey, portraits were hung in the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the McClintock Channel in the Arctic was named after him.