From Snapchat to storms, here's what Ireland has been Googling over the past 20 years

In 2003, Google opened its first office in Dublin with just five employees. That same year, the Spire was erected on O'Connell Street, and the Special Olympics were held in the capital.

Unsurprisingly, the weather has been the most searched thing on Irish Google over the past two decades, and the most weather-obsessed towns were Carrick-on-Shannon, Tramore and New Ross.

While Ireland has just experienced its wettest July on record, back in 2018 'heatwave' was a trending search across the country.

The top related searches were 'how long will the heatwave last', 'when will the heatwave end', 'heatwave memes', 'Met Éireann heatwave', and 'Dublin heatwave'.

In 2015, Ireland left nameless storms behind as Met Éireann launched the 'Name Our Storms' campaign, which allowed the public to submit names to be considered for storms for the upcoming year.

Since then, Storm Ophelia, the worst storm Ireland had seen in 50 years, has been searched most often, followed by Storm Lorenzo and Storm Callum.

Sticking with the weather, in 2011 widespread flooding caused chaos and even saw Dundrum Town Centre under water.

The most searched for places at the time were 'Dublin floods', 'Dundrum flooding', 'Meath flooding', 'Monaghan floods', and 'Galway City flood'. 

Ireland's most searched topic following the weather was sport.

In 2012, as the Olympics were taking place across the pond in London, Ireland searched for the Olympics more than any other year.

Those games were searched at nearly twice the rate of 2016 or 2021. 

That year, Katie Taylor was the top-searched person in relation to the Olympics in Ireland and 'When is Katie Taylor fighting in the Olympics' was the top trending question. 

In 2016, Annalise Murphy was the top-searched Irish Olympian during the games, while Michael Phelps was the top-searched Olympian overall.

Rugby also proved a popular search over the past 20 years, but even more so in 2009.

'Grand Slam' was a breakout search in March of that year after Ireland's Historic Six Nations win.

This year, Ireland vs England was the top-searched match-up of the Six Nations tournament and 'what's a grand slam in rugby' spiked by 700% during the tournament.

Every day, millions of people turn to Google to ask all sorts of questions, but one that regularly tops the trending searches in Ireland is 'how to make pancakes'.

In 2014, ‘how to make loom bands’ was the most searched question, while in 2015, people turned to Google to find out ‘how to use new Snapchat’. 

The most searched ‘what is’ terms brings us back to some recent referenda. 

In 2008, ‘what is the Lisbon Treaty’ was the most searched 'what is’ question and 10 years later, in 2018, it was ‘what is blasphemy’.

The 'definition' searches over the past 20 years give an insight into cultural moments of the time.

In 2013, ‘twerk ’ topped the list, ‘Despacito’ was the most searched in 2017 and again in 2019, and the year impeachment proceedings began for Donald Trump, ‘impeachment’ was the most searched definition term in Ireland.