On Wednesday, as Irish wannabes around the world drink a toast to St. Patrick, Web companies will promote the Emerald Isle with a slew of new Internet portals providing everything from local news to genealogy, from an Irish pub guide to advice about manufacturing in Ireland.
"There are a number of companies trying to provide a catchall for everything Irish on the Web," said Niall Swan, director of operations for Nua, which is launching Local, a Washington portal to Irish communities in the United States.
"We don't view these companies as competition," Swan said. "We're all raising the awareness of Ireland on the Net."
Other Irish portals going online this week include the Irish Times' Ireland.Com; the Irish Government's Ask Ireland; ISI's guide to Irish pubs in New York; and Touchtel's tourist information site GoIreland.
On Friday, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern was in San Jose to launch another portal for Irish business in Silicon Valley, the members-only IT Networking Forum. The online mentoring program provides ways for established Irish companies to assist newcomers doing business in the Valley.
"This will give Irish companies the ability to share information on how to do business in California," said Ahern. "There are now over 30 Irish companies in Silicon Valley, and we expect that number to grow significantly in the next year."
How can a country that has only 3.5 million people sustain so many portals? Most sites are hoping to mine the large population of Irish descendants in the United States, Canada, and Australia for customers. There are, for example, more than 9 million Irish Americans in the United States.
"We're not making money -- it's as simple as that," said Seamus Martin, editor of Ireland.Com. "Our current projections show that it will be at least two years before we will begin to cover costs."
The national Irish daily is no Web novice. It has provided online news since 1994 and claims more than 1.5 million independently audited page views per week.
Its new Ireland.Com goes beyond the sphere of daily news, providing Gaelic netizens with ways to look up their ancestors, watch live videocasts of the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin, or monitor the peace process online.
Touchtel's GoIreland allows tourists to book a guest house in Ireland or browse the restaurants in Dublin or Galway.
Ask Ireland provides a gateway to Irish governmental agencies, an informational site for offshore manufacturers, and a comprehensive guide to products and services offered by Irish companies on the Web.
"One of the objectives of Ask Ireland is to give, say, a BMW engineer searching for a wing-mirror supplier on Yahoo a list of Irish companies that provide the product," said Jim Mongey, marketing manager for the Enterprise Ireland trade organization. However, in spite of its banner -- "If you don't ask, you'll never know" -- Ask Ireland's search engine is clumsy and doesn't readily provide information.
The new sites will join a gaggle of woolly-jumper portals that serve the needs of Irish immigrants abroad. These include PaddyNet, Irish Abroad, and Celtic.com, with services from local news to personal email and where to buy warm sweaters online.
But as Ian Spandau, managing director of ISI Interact Services Ireland, said: "At the end of the day, Irish people network in the pub, not on the Internet."
