Trump meets Ophelia: Ireland’s year in Google searches

13 Dec 2017

What have Irish people been searching for on Google this year?

Google logo. Image: JPStock/Shutterstock

The annual Google Year in Search provides a snapshot of what caught the Irish public’s interest in 2017.

As another year draws to a close, Google Ireland has released its most popular search terms in the country for the last 12 months.

October’s Hurricane Ophelia was the most popular trending topic of the year, which came as no surprise considering the impact it had on every resident’s life. Extreme weather abroad also piqued the interest of Google users here in Ireland later in the list, with the Caribbean’s Hurricane Irma coming in sixth place overall.

Wake up and smell the covfefe

US president Donald Trump nabbed the second spot this year, climbing two spaces from the 2016 end-of-year results.

The riddle that was ‘covfefe’ also occupied the minds of Irish Google users, and plenty wanted to know more about what DACA (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was when Trump called for its repeal this year. Irish users were also interested in cryptocurrency, along with the rest of the world, with ‘What is bitcoin?’ coming in third place in the ‘What is?’ search category.

The ultimately fruitless World Cup qualifying matches between the Republic of Ireland and Denmark were the top sporting event and third most popular trending topic overall. The second most searched sporting event was, of course, the controversial Mayweather v McGregor fight, with plenty of fans asking Google how they could tune in.

The top movie search of the year in the country was Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, followed by the Stephen King horror It and Beauty and the Beast, rounding out the top three cinematic searches. La La Land, which had been a global phenomenon, missed out and sits at the No 4 slot.

In terms of what Irish users were craving for dinner, it seems like hearty fare was the order of the year with spaghetti bolognese, chilli con carne and beef stroganoff the most popular recipe searches.

Ireland on a mission for the perfect slime recipe

In a somewhat left-field turn of events, the most popular how-to search in Ireland saw people on the hunt for the perfect recipe for slime. The slime video craze had been bubbling under the surface of the mainstream internet for a while now, and it looks like it has finally hit the surface.

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!”