May the road rise to meet you ...
An Irish Special

By Pamela J. Smith
Special Assignments

Biz  
Looking for corporate information? Ireland serves up some searchable sites and company profiles. 

Perhaps you need a list of pharmaceutical companies in Ireland. From the Irish Trade Board at http://www.irish-trade.ie, choose from a pull-down menu, search by business sector or enter a company name in a dialog box. Searching by "pharma*," I received about 10 hits. Most hits linked to a snapshot of the company with HQ, parent, number of employees, registration date and products. Need a quick profile on a company? Check out "Irish Success Stories" under "News and Newsletters," which also has current articles and archives. 

Or turn to Kompass Irish Business Information at http://www.kompass.ie and search for a company, an executive, product or tradename. You can also limit your search by area. Results tagged by an "E" offer "extended" information including executives, business name, address (e-mail address and links when available), business description, products and tradename. Regular results provide name, address, parent, associated companies, employee number, registration date and products. 

Researching the financial industry? Try The Irish Financial Sector at http://ireland.iol.ie/~rclapham/finance3.html for a comprehensive directory of financial services industry sites. Find links to banks, life assurance companies, financial-related news, government links, associations and societies, plus more. Use the alphabetical (scroll box) or the search function. 

Finfacts is a premier site directory and its Irish Business Links at http://www.finfacts.ie/Private/ir_bus/irbus.htm seems like a goldmine to the corporate researcher. Or let your keyboard do its walking through the Irish Internet Yellow Pages at http://www.netcallinteractive.ie/Yellow/. Select a category, browse, enter a keyword or a wild card search. 

Ireland's oldest bank, the Bank of Ireland at http://www.boi.ie, offers a huge range of information. The European Monetary Union resource is almost a site in itself. Don't forget to click on the Business link on the left side of the screen. The Irish Jobs Page at http://www.keyland.com/ifps/co_ads.idc provides business summaries on leading Irish companies. Choose name or industry to receive name, address, phone, fax, email and brief summary of the business 
(followed by current job openings). 

Also, see Cecilia Hogan's review of Irish Business.ie (http://www.irishbusiness.ie/) in the March 1998 issue of the Internet Prospector at http://www.internet-prospector.org/inter0398.htm 

Culture  
Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (CCE) North America, (a loose translation means A Gathering of Irish Musicians), promotes traditional Irish music, language, dance and culture through more than 400 branches on four continents. Founded in 1951, Comhaltas sponsors dance, music and Irish language lessons, maintains historical archives, sponsors competitions and an annual concert tour of musicians and dancers, publishes the magazine Treoir, makes documentary films and videos, recordings and offers scholarships and fellowships to scholars, musicians and dancers. On the web site, find the Archives with its links to other Irish music sites and Gaelic resources at http://www.intac.com/~margie/CCE/. Or try Ceolas, which claims to hold the largest collection of information on celtic music (including dance) online. It offers links to hundreds of related sites, even samplings of tunes at http://celtic.stanford.edu/ceolas.html. Celt  Corpus of Electronic Texts at http://www.ucc.ie/celt//index.html is a searchable online resource for contemporary and historical Irish literature, history and politics documents. 

Two good sources of information on Ireland are at the newsgroup soc.culture.celtic and newsgroup rec.music.celtic. Find the Soc.Culture.Celtic Faq at http://sunsite.unc.edu/gaelic/sccfaq.html. After your immersion in Irish culture, plan solicitation trips using the Virtual Tourist Guide to Ireland at http://www.bess.tcd.ie/ireland.htm or, at http://www.interknowledge.com/northern-ireland/, find a guide for Northern Ireland. 

Education  
For school daze in Ireland, try Ednet at 
http://cgi-bin.iol.ie/ednet/schools/index.html for Irish schools and colleges on the web, with a searchable e-mail directory plus an index categorized by school level -- primary, secondary and colleges (third level) Web sites and international school listings. Two good sites for lists of Irish Studies programs are found at http://www.ucc.ie/celt/ or Irish History (has great genealogy links too) from those Irish eyes in Texas at http://www.ucc.ie/celt/. 

Facts, Figures & Government  
For demographics and all other official stats on Ireland (and links to stat sites around the world), select the Central Statistics Office at http://www.cso.ie/misc/sitehead.html. Just click on the site map and work from there. Or try Demographics. 
 
You may find The Irish Web Server Map a handy tool at http://slarti.ucd.ie/maps/ireland.html. For quick facts, a list of  newspapers, maps and more, turn to The Irish Tourist Board at http://www.ireland.travel.ie/body.asp. 

Find the Irish government page at http://www.irlgov.ie/. To learn about the 1997 Freedom of Information Act, choose the Dept. of Finance or check out the Land Registry & Registry of Deeds. Another alternative is the Directory of Irish Sites' government department page at http://www.browseireland.com/gover_gd.htm. The Northern Ireland Public Service Web has government links at http://www.nics.gov.uk/ and for the hows on accessing and obtaining information, turn to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland at http://proni.nics.gov.uk/index.htm. 
 
 Friends in Newfoundland pulled together a great group of links in the Fiddler's Green at http://www.det.mun.ca/staff/lyard/FiddlersGreen.htm.  Check out the links to People of Note and its great list of Online Newspapers. While a general site, for all things politic, go to the Irish Internet Hub at http://www.larkspirit.com/general/irishhub.html. 

Media 
AgencyNet at http://www.clubi.ie/AgencyNet/htmls/anet.html is a unique site that pulls together advertising information, rates and  audience demographics categorized by Radio, Press, Outdoor, Regional, Commuter, Cinema, Television plus Census data. While PR may drool over such a site, researchers may find the Regional section useful.  Click on a county to find the radio station and press available there or turn to the Radio section for all its links. 

Radio Telefís Éireann Online (RTÉ) is the Irish national broadcasting organization.  Considered a leader in the Irish media, it provides cultural, educational and informational programming via five radio stations, two television channels and this web site. For up-to-the-minute news feeds and links to its many services (radio, television, the national symphony, etc.), to order programs from the archives and even download audio files from RTE Dublin at the World  Radio Network (WRN is at http://www.wrn.org/stations/rte.html) turn to RTE at http://www.rte.ie/. 

Rather read an electronic newspaper (newsprint free)? Try The Irish Times at http://www.ireland.com/ for current news and searchable archives. Perform a Boolean search, use pull-down menus or select a  specific issue. Also, find very in-depth company studies on leading Irish and multinational companies by clicking on Business 2000 (updated weekly). 

For all the Irish abroad, turn to The Irish Emigrant at http://www.emigrant.ie/ for your electronic news. Two sections may be of special interest: the IE Professional rounds up the academic, job and business news and the IE Glossary can help with Irish terms for you and your field officers. 

For a free Sunday brunch, try The Sunday Business Post at http://www.sbpost.ie. Find all your news plus keyword searchable archives dating from September 1997. Or you may like the Belfast Telegraph at http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/gateway/welcome.htm for your business, property, education and, of course, news. It has free citations in its searchable archives dating back to Nov. 1995. There is a fee for full stories. 

People  
If you are looking for that certain someone, try E-Search, Ireland's e-mail directory at http://www.esearch.ie/. After searching for a name or parts of a name, you may want to try its favorite sites page. 

Take two of these and I will bill you in the morning. While The Irish Medical Directory isn't free, check out the great medical links to Irish hospitals (by county), doctors (e-mail directory), even a little dark humor (titled Public Enema), links to Irish and International Pharmaceutical companies, Irish Medical Links (medical companies, schools, organizations, associations, publications and more) and support groups at: http://www.imd.ie/. 

Besides a discussion group with searchable archives dating back to 1994, the Irish Law Site provides election information, the Irish Constitution, legal academics and practitioners, Irish and Northern Irish legal and government information, information on the peace process, links to legal associations, publishers, legal history and more general legal links. Turn to the home page at http://irishlaw.rtc-tallaght.ie/sig/law.home/irlaw.html. 

For a bit of fun, visit profiles on ten People of Ireland at http://homepages.iol.ie/~dluby/people.htm. 

For Green Party 1997 election biographies, turn to http://ireland.iol.ie/resource/green/biogs.htm. Click on "More" for pictures and politics. 

Roots/Genealogy  
Speaking of roots, here is handful of sites to help you on your quest. 

First stop is Ireland's Family History and Genealogy page from The National Archives of Ireland at http://www.kst.dit.ie/nat-arch/genealogy.html. This site provides a description of resources available to genealogical researchers. 

Next stop is the nonprofit, The Irish Ancestral Research Association (TIARA) at http://world.std.com/~ahern/links.html. Starting with the links page (which includes items available on the home page, too), this magnificent resource has maps, clans, vendor listings, emigration and passenger lists, almost everything a researcher needs. 

The Irish Family History Foundation at http://www.mayo-ireland.ie/roots.htm outlines common surnames, famous people, migration patterns and more for 32 parishes in Ireland (there is a fee for more in depth research). For a fee, document finders at http://www.genealogy.ie/ can perform a will search for you. 

You may want to subscribe to the Irish Roots Magazine at http://ireland.iol.ie/~irishrts/. At the fastest loading page in Erin, you will find sample articles, books, professional genealogists, publication deadlines, local societies and more. For respite, browse the newsgroup soc.genealogy.ireland for more information on Irish roots. 

Sweet Old Etc. 
   --  Dictionaries, Listservs and ...  
Select a county for your property purchase in Ireland from Real Estate Ireland at http://www.ibi.ie/property/. Don't forget to click on the Mortgage Calculator to figure the financials or check out it its other services, including links to architects, solicitors and more. Cecilia thought we might find our retreat house in Hidden Ireland at http://www.indigo.ie/HiddenIre/map.html (links to sites on how to get there too) or even our family mansion at http://www.family-homes.ie. 

At a loss for words? Try local searchable dictionaries with hyperlinks at http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/index.html. The Gaelic Dictionaries Online even supply computer terms. 

Or do you want to learn Irish? GAELIC-L & GAEILGE-B are for you. GAEILGE-B is a mailing list for users who want to learn Irish. The home of GAELIC-L (Irish, Scottish and Manx Gaelic) is at University College in Dublin, Ireland with a mirror site in Fresno, CA. To subscribe, send a message to listserv@listserv.hea.ie or search the 1996 and 1997  archives of GAEILGE-B at http://yeats.csufresno.edu/GAEILGEB.HTML. 

And may the wind be always at your back ...