Welcome to the History of the Irish Internet!

This site is a companion effort to the techarchives website, except it is less well-researched, and is primarily a personal view of the development of the Internet in Ireland by your humble author, Niall Murphy. There is indeed room for a well-researched, unbiased and scholarly account of the events; this isn't it. Try techarchives for that.

You can find your way around in two main ways; the articles themselves, which you'll see below grouped under various headings, and the search function. There isn't a specific order: the articles are deliberately written to be a bit less chronological and a bit more subject-oriented, but if you read them as per the grouping below, that would be ideal.

I suggest you begin with reading the introduction, and then read on whatever subject area takes your fancy. If you come across obvious errors or missing pieces of content, let me know. However you read this, though, I certainly hope you enjoy it. Comments and questions welcome.

DISCLAIMER: the opinions expressed herein are my own, research was in fact carried out, and that the quoted interviews and extracts reflect the opinions of others. Lawyers have reviewed the publication and any errors or omissions are of course my own.

Articles

The Dialup ISPs

The Dialup ISPs (743 words) The 1990s were a wholly remarkable decade for Ireland.

The IEunet Story (3337 words) IEunet, and all who sailed in her.

The Internet Societies

Portrait of the Nerdist (2407 words) My Journey through Computing, and Ireland's.

The Internet Societies (2277 words) While other people were having a good time, I was having a very different good time.

Netsoc Rise and Fall (1670 words) All good things must come to an end. Thankfully, so must the bad things.

Naming Things

The Naming of Cats (1458 words) How some things have a number of different names.

Fishbowl with a limo tint (4420 words) The sturm and drang of quango-stalking.

Raising the Curtin (6387 words) I face the final Curtin.

Government and Governance

Governance and Government (3275 words) The sorry tale of other-regulation and self-regulation.

Lawyercats (4733 words) Legal Felines and Data in the age of Osmosis

Disordered Packets

To Eir is Human (4313 words) The Future Sound of ISDN