Who Owns Irelands County Domains? And how are they being used?

While researching who owned laois.com and planning to buy the domain, Modus looked into who owns the .ie and .com domains attached to the Republic of Ireland’s 26 county domains. We also looked at what the domains are being used for. The results were very interesting. All .ie domains are registered. As are all the .coms. But, their use varies wildly.

.ie County Domains

Most .ie domains are used by councils, as county portals, for tourism, community or by big corporates. Historically .ie county domains were mainly used for county council websites. The growing trend sees those domains used as county portals for council, business and tourism.

Twelve (Cavan, Carlow, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Laois, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary, Westmeath and Wexford) of the .ie county domains are in use by county councils. Eight (Donegal, Limerick, Leitrim, Longford, Mayo, Meath, Sligo and Wicklow) of the .ie domains are used as portals encompassing council, business and tourism. Two (Cork and Clare) are tourism only. Kildare is a community site. One (Louth) currently has no website and two (Waterford and Kerry) are owned by the Irish corporates that bear their names.

.com County Domains

The picture here is less clear. Eight .com domains (Cavan, Clare, Donegal, Kerry, Mayo, Roscommon, Waterford and Wexford) are in use by Irish and foreign companies. Limerick.com is a community site. Meath.com is operated by the Local Enterprise Office (LEO). Tipperary.com is a tourism site. Kilkenny.com is a portal like many of the .ie domains. Monaghan.com is an email for rent service. Sligo.com is a holding page. Carlow.com is under construction. Three sites (Galway, Westmeath and Wicklow) don’t even have a holding page. Seven domains (Cork, Dublin, Leitrim, Kildare, Longford, Louth and Offaly) are for sale for a variety of prices.

Modus just secured laois.com and we are looking at potential uses for the domain, possibly as a county/tourism/business portal or even a news site. Contact hello@modus.ie for details.