Sports dominated Ireland’s most popular searches on Google this year.
In a year where Covid restrictions continued, the tech giant’s annual ‘Year in Search’ show the European Football Championships and the English Premier League were the most popular overall searches in 2021.
Meanwhile, the most popular question of the year was 'How to Register for a Covid-19 vaccine.’
Christian Eriksen was the most searched-for person, after his collapse at the Euro's - with Gordon Elliot second - following his fall from grace after being pictured on a dead horse.
Olympic Gold medallist Kellie Harrington was the fifth most Googled person.
Julie Dilger, Head of External Communications for Google Ireland, said sport dominated our searches this year:
“I think the most noticeable thing is Irish people were very excited to see sports back on their screens,” she said.
“So, four of the top ten most Google things this year were sporting related and six of the top ten most Googled people were sports people- including the wonderful Kellie Harrington, our gold medallist from the Olympics during the summer.”
Television shows were also extremely popular in 2021 – with Netflix’s Bridgerton and Squid Game also among the top searches.
Returning favourites such as Love Island and Eurovision were also big favourites as they returned to our screens.
'What is Article 16' was also among the most popular questions, while Britain’s Prince Philip was the most searched for person who died this year.
However, Ms Dilger said COVID was still high up people’s searches.
“Well COVID has actually moved down the overall searches one place – so down to number three from last year,” she said.
“But there was a lot of COVID-related questions in the most Googled questions of the year – such as how to register for the vaccine, how to do an antigen test, how to book a COVID test and how to apply for the COVID payment.”
The top ten Googled recipes saw comfort food taking over the most Googled list, with Pancakes, Waffles and Shepherd's Pie all breaking into the top ten.
Over the summer, How to Make an Iced Coffee’ the second most popular question people asked.
Overall search top 10
- Euro 2020
- Premier League
- Coronavirus
- Seesaw
- Christian Eriksen
- Champions League
- Zoom
- Prince Philip
- Virgin Media Player
- Sarah Everard
Most Google People
- Christian Eriksen
- Gordon Elliot
- Alec Baldwin
- Matt Hancock
- Kellie Harrington
- Travis Scott
- Joe Biden
- Tiger Woods
- Emma Raducanu
- Tyson Fury
