The Sunday Tribune’s 30-year-story starts with Hibernia’s demise, as an attempt to continue by other means that magazine’s dissenting journalism. Set up by an unlikely partnership of John Mulcahy, proprietor-editor of Hibernia, and Hugh McLaughlin, commercial magazine publisher and Sunday World co-founder, the Sunday Tribune went through several distinct phases in its three decades: 1980- 82, under the control of McLaughlin, with various associates; 1983-94, under the editorship and partial control of Vincent Browne, with changing investment partners, finally Independent Newspapers; 1994-2011, under the effective control of Independent Newspapers, with a succession of four editors. This chapter concentrates on the first two phases, from the founding years through Vincent Browne’s editorship. In these 13 years, the Tribune sought to maintain a structure and perspective that was independent and distinct within the mass-market media of the time. We review several key features of the Sunday Tribune of that period, and present a portrait of a newspaper that has a particular place in the history of Irish journalism and newspaper publishing. But we also describe the pervasive uncertainty about the Tribune’s commercial potential and even its survival, as investors and senior executives came and went frequently, with unsettling effects on the continuing production of the newspaper.