.irish

The word “Irish” represents a brand, a culture, but most importantly a dispersed people — one that has developed over hundreds of years. The Dot-Irish campaign is a new way to employ the synergy and common identity shared by these people — over 75 million worldwide, dwelling in the Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and mainland Europe. Given political and economic histories, the Irish people maintain a constellation that is strong both in terms of identity and number. Today, there is no broadly recognized Internet domain name for the Irish people. The proposed .irish name extension will enable the worldwide collection of people claiming Irish heritage to come together under a common domain.

Advantages of a .irish Top-Level Domain Name

The current state of the Irish population might best be described as a diaspora–a far-reaching, interwoven connection of people. So too can the world-wide Irish population be categorized as the majority of individuals with Irish ancestors reside outside Ireland. Therefore, a unifying symbol such as a top-level domain name could be used in order to strengthen this broad spectrum.

One of the greatest advantages of a name is its ability to invoke feelings. In the case of the .irish campaign, these feelings could spark feelings of pride further strengthening the community. By appending a .irish name to a website’s address, the word itself can help to act as a selling point informing the buyer that the site’s contents relate directly to a topic having to do with Ireland. Furthermore, a website’s domain extension is one factor search engines use to return relevant search results; a .irish ending could thus yield more acceptable answers to searches.