Like its sister newspaper, the daily The Irish Press, politically the paper loyally supported Fianna Fáil.

'When I open the pages, I duck' was Brendan Behan's description of reading The Sunday Press, for the habit of published memoirs of veterans (usually those aligned to Fianna Fáil) of the Irish War of Independence.

[2] It soon built up a large readership, and overtook its main competitor the Sunday Independent, which tended to support Fine Gael.

At its peak The Sunday Press sold up to 475,000 copies every week, and had a readership of over one million, around one third of the Irish population.

However, with the collapse of the Irish Press Newspapers group in May 1995, all three titles ceased publication immediately.