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The Irish Times has dispensed with its subscription-based online edition and launched a new free-to-use website, Irishtimes.com.

The previous website Ireland.com, full access to which was limited to only fee-paying readers, has been relaunched as an events, listings and information destination for the Republic.

The Irish Times was one of the first newspapers in the world to have a web presence when it launched in 1994, but until now it has primarily focused on a business model that relied on readers paying fees.

It relaxed the service partially in 2006, allowing free access to its breaking news. However, the vast majority of its content remained open only to online subscribers.

The Times said the launch and adoption of a fee-to-use model was, in part, to appeal to a growing international web readership and to make navigation between stories and related topics easier.

The Irish Times follows the New York Times in opening access to all its content to all web users. NYTimes.com removed its TimesSelect pay barrier last autumn.

Online readers will now have access to the previous 12 months of The Irish Times content free of charge. 

"The new irishtimes.com will reflect the changing demands of online readers," said Maeve Donovan, managing director of The Irish Times.

"The simplified and improved structure of the site is intended to keep pace with internet-user demand by helping readers find out what they want quickly.

"The new site is designed to bring readers easily from one story to another on related topics, or related websites and it will develop many multimedia features."

The revamp follows changes to the print edition. In February the broadsheets' Saturday edition was relaunched as a 'weekend paper' with a greater variety of news and supplements.

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