Here’s what Ireland’s most Googled terms for 2017 were

The weather, politics and sport were amongst the top hitters of Ireland’s most searched terms for 2017.  

As 2017 draws to a close, the annual Google Year in Search results provide a fascinating insight into the minds of Irish people over the last 12 months.  

It seems that paleotempestology was a hot topic in the search engines of the Irish public, with October’s Hurricane Ophelia claiming the top spot, and Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean bagging sixth overall.

US president, Donald Trump climbed from the fourth spot in 2016 to  second place in this year’s overall ranking. Following on from this, the Irish also asked “What is covfefe?” (President Trump’s mysterious Tweet) and “What is DACA?” (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that he called to repeal).

The heartbreakingly ill-fated World Cup qualifying matches between the Republic of Ireland and Denmark were, unsurprisingly, both Ireland’s top most Googled Sporting Event and third overall trending topic. 

Coming in second place was the McGregor vs Mayweather fight.

In terms of films, Ireland’s favourite movie search of the year was Christopher Nolan’s Second World War epic Dunkirk, followed by the clown-based horror movie It.  

The famous Google Doodle (the often artistic moving icon that allows you to click on the Google logo, informing you about a specific day, place or persion)  continues to be a big hit in Ireland, with its distinctive illustrations introducing us to the antikythera mechanism (a 2,000-year-old ancient Greek ‘astronomical computer’) and pangolins (an armadillo-like creature which is the world’s most hunted animal) in the “What is…?” category.

We’re also big fans of hearty, meaty dishes, with spaghetti Bolognese, chilli con carne and beef stroganoff our most-searched recipes this year. No surprise there. 

And then there was slime. Videos demonstrating the hypnotising gooey substance were viral hits in 2017, and Ireland couldn’t get enough of them: It was the top “How to…” search of the year.

Check out the rest of Ireland’s top searches below.

Fionnuala Meehan, Head of Google Ireland, said:

“Each year, Google’s Year in Search provides a fascinating snapshot into what we cared about collectively as a country over the preceding 12 months, and this year is no different. Hurricane Ophelia was obviously the big event of 2017 and Irish people turned to Google as a trusted source of vital updates all throughout the incident. We’ve also discovered our love of period movies over musicals, our affection for beefy recipes, and, of course, the continuing enigma that is slime!”

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