Claire Grady, editor of the Irish Independent, has stepped down after only a year in the post, reports the Irish Times.

The paper's first female editor is to be replaced on an interim basis by Ian Mallon, head of news at the paper's publisher, Independent News & Media (INM).

When she was appointed in August 2013, INM's editor-in-chief, Stephen Rae, described Grady as "one of the outstanding journalists of her generation."

Her departure will be seen as calling into question Rae's judgment. In wishing her the best for her future, he said Grady had "played a major role in developing the title and in leading the rollout of the new production system at the title."

She was appointed after a year as editor of the group's Dublin Evening Herald, having previously held a succession of senior executive positions on that title.

The reasons for her departure remain unclear at present, but the Independent - known in Ireland as the Indo - has had a miserable 12 months on the sales front.

According to the audited circulation figures for the first six months of this year, the Indo's sale fell by 7.2% compared to the same period in 2013, recording a daily average of 112,383 copies. But only 87% of the total were actively purchased.

The headline figure including 14,083 bulk sales - the copies sold at a fraction of their cover price to enable hotels and airports to give them away for free.

It meant that the newspaper's real sale dropped below the 100,000 threshold to 98,300, which is regarded as a landmark moment in its history. But it remains, by some margin, Ireland's largest-selling daily.

Soon after her appointment, Grady spoke to the Mayo News about the challenges she faced at the Indo due to the sales decline and people's increasing use of social media.

She said: "Newspapers have to adjust to the fact that they are not always going to be first with the news, but they can still be the first with a detailed account of the big story, with analysis and commentary of it.

"People still want expert opinion on what matters to them... The reality is that there are going to be fewer newspapers and people are going to read newspapers with less frequency, but the challenge remains for us to remain relevant."

Sources: Irish Times/Mayo News