Irish News Office, 113 Donegall Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 2GE

The Irish News Office at 113–117 Donegall Street is a three-storey, four-bay red brick building designed by the Belfast architect John Joseph McDonnell in 1905. It was purpose-built as the headquarters and printing works of the Irish News newspaper, and stands slightly forward of the general building line on Donegall Street, north of Belfast city centre, surrounded by generally modern buildings.

The front elevation faces west and is constructed in red brick laid in Flemish bond, enriched with painted stone or stucco detailing. The roofline is concealed behind a deep stucco parapet, approximately one metre high, with wave parapets at each end and a deep moulded and dentilled cornice with modillion crown below it; the roof itself is of corrugated metal, with the front slope not visible from the street. Giant order brick pilasters rise through the first and second floors to plain capitals, continuing up through the cornice and into the parapet. The upper floor windows — mostly pairs of casement windows with mid-rails, with tripartite windows set in slightly arched openings in the outer second-floor bays — have narrow stone keystones and projecting sills. The first-floor keystones are linked by a moulded string course running between the floors. Soldier courses, splayed at the edges, sit above the upper-floor windows.

The ground floor is finished in painted stucco or stone and is divided into three irregular bays by panelled pilasters, with the left and central bays further subdivided by additional pilasters running from plinth to entablature. The entrance door is at the far left. The remaining bays are divided into vertical windows with toplights. The entablature over the ground floor projects deeply and is supported on dentils, with the central portion rising in an arc to enclose the name "IRISH NEWS Ltd." The plinth is panelled between pilasters over a plain base. The side elevations of the main building are rendered above the level of the neighbouring buildings.

To the rear, a later addition abuts the main building: a gabled red brick structure with a series of casement windows, which is itself further abutted by a series of single-storey gabled blocks. These rear structures face north onto a car park, fronted by a red brick wall with modern openings. The windows throughout are timber.

The architect, John Joseph McDonnell (1857–1924), trained under the Roman Catholic architect Timothy Hevey before establishing his own independent practice in 1881. He worked across commercial and domestic commissions, but is best known for designing Roman Catholic churches, convents and schools — his most accomplished work being the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in Clonard Gardens, Belfast (1908–11). He also served as a Justice of the Peace from 1893 and as a member of Belfast Corporation from the late 1890s. As a nationalist Roman Catholic architect and politician, McDonnell was a fitting choice to design the headquarters of the pro-nationalist Irish News.

The Irish News itself was first established in 1891 as an anti-Parnell periodical, formed from the ashes of the Belfast Morning News (founded 1855). Its political outlook shifted quickly, and by the early 20th century it had become one of the most widely read nationalist papers in Belfast and the first penny newspaper in all of Ireland. The paper's first offices were at 125 Donegall Street; the move to the current purpose-built premises took place in 1905. The site itself has a notable earlier history: it is recorded that it was previously occupied by a cotton spinning mill belonging to John McCracken, father of the United Irishman Henry Joy McCracken, which was demolished in the mid-19th century to make way for the Victorian redevelopment of Donegall Street.

The Irish Builder recorded the building's construction in 1905 and noted McDonnell as its designer. The Annual Revisions initially valued the new headquarters at £230. As well as the Irish News and Belfast Morning News, the building also housed the production of the Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner, under the management of a Mr T. Whyte, as recorded in Belfast Street Directories between 1907 and 1918.

Alterations were carried out between 1922 and 1924 by W. J. Convery, a Belfast-based designer, resulting in the building's current appearance; these works increased the rateable value of the site to £348, as noted in the Irish Builder. The First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 assessed the building at £490. The building survived the heavy bombardment of Belfast city centre during the Blitz of 1941. By the time of the Second General Revaluation, which commenced in 1956, the value had risen considerably to £1,230, reflecting the extension of the printing facilities to the rear of the building — an extension visible on the Ordnance Survey map of 1959–60. No further alteration was recorded before the revaluation closed in 1972.

Following a series of bomb attacks in the vicinity during the 1970s, the printing presses were removed to other premises. Parts of the building have since been rebuilt to basic modern standards, and despite much historic fabric and detailing surviving on the principal elevation, the building is considerably diminished from its original extent. The Irish News continues to use 113–117 Donegall Street as its main headquarters, though the paper is now printed elsewhere.