Crosaire (The Irish Times)

About Crosaire (The Irish Times)

Crosaire is the cryptic crossword that has run in The Irish Times for generations. Its first setter, Derek Crozier, wrote it for 67 years. After a short spell by Roy Earle as Mac An Iarla, Paul O'Doherty took it over as Crossheir in June 2012, and in May 2022 new setters took over. Puzzles now carry the setter's name, and recent grids have come from Dominic, Le Corsaire and Fidelia.

Each puzzle is numbered (No. 19256 appeared on 2 October 2026) and goes live at midnight Irish time. There is one from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays and a few holidays the page keeps showing the previous puzzle. The grid is a standard 15x15 cryptic with around 28 to 34 clues, played in the browser or in The Irish Times app, and the date picker opens the last two weeks or the wider archive.

Every clue has two parts: a plain definition at the start or end, and wordplay such as an anagram, a hidden word, a homophone or a charade that leads to the same answer. The Irish Times publishes a guide with an example of each clue type from Crosaire, and full explanations of the solutions are available for puzzles since May 2022.

Crosaire is for solvers who already enjoy cryptics or want to learn them. Readers who prefer straight definitions usually start with Simplex, the paper's other daily crossword, which uses the same grid. Both need an Irish Times digital subscription.

How to play Crosaire (The Irish Times)

1. Open Crosaire on irishtimes.com or in The Irish Times app and sign in with your subscription.
2. Pick today's puzzle, or an earlier one from the date picker or the archive.
3. Read each clue and find the definition, which sits at the start or the end.
4. Work out the wordplay in the rest of the clue to confirm the answer.
5. Type answers into the grid; crossing letters help with the harder clues.
6. Finish the grid, then check the published explanations if a clue still puzzles you.

Tips

• Look for anagram indicators such as 'thrown', 'broken' or 'involved' and count the letters next to them.
• A proper name in a clue is rarely part of the definition.
• A question mark or words like 'perhaps' often mean the definition is playful or indirect.
• Learn the common single-letter abbreviations: compass points, Roman numerals, chess pieces, musical notation.
• Setters rotate, so if one day's style does not suit you, try the next day's puzzle.

Questions