50 Irish Influencers To Follow On Twitter

Social Media, Twitter August 14, 2009 37 Comments @niallharbison

Finding people to follow on Twitter is easy enough but to show its real power we have selected 50 of the most powerful and influential users of the service that you should be following in Ireland. There are plenty of lists that show who has the most followers and who tweets the most but this list is based on influence and when you take into account that the following 50 people have over 100,000 followers (mostly Irish) you can see just how influential the list actually is. You might also want to take into account that the people on this list have their voices heard by over a million (conservative estimate) Irish people every month (Radio, TV, Blogs, Newspapers and websites). The real power is that you are only a couple of clicks away from starting to engage with these influencers so go ahead and start a conversation with them and you will be surprised just where it might take you…

DJ Ray Foley is an avid Twitter user

1. @rayfoleyshow

King Of The Afternoon. The Big Show. Midday on Today FM.
Website

2. @patphelan

MAXroam & Twitterfone founder, CEO at Cubic Telecom. eliminate your roaming bill at maxroam.com blogs at patphelan.net
Website

3@nialler9

Music blogger, freelance music journalist and web designer.
Website

4@PixieVonDust

Editor of Gadgetrepublic.com. I also write tech for Irish Independent and do some radio here and there.
Website

5@jdrumgoole

CEO and founder CloudSplit.com. Founder, PutPlace.com. Cloud guy. Technology guy on The Right Hook (Newstalk 106). Entrepreneur. Loud mouth.
Website

6@anbordbia

Bord Bia is the Irish food, drink and horticulture industryâ€™s trade development & promotion body. Our mission is to grow the success of world-class Irish food.
Website

7@mcawilliams

I am a very noisy Tweeter, but have been told I can be funny, aggresive and sympathetic, what a mix you know you want to follow me.
Website

8@damienmulley

So far this is the oldest I’ve been
Website

9@trusttommy

15 year old Irish blogger. Off chocolate for 2009. I like to think I’m a low volume tweeter but I’m really not..
Website

10@seanfee80

CEO of lookandtaste.com
Website

11@darraghdoyle

Boards.ie Community Manager, blogger on Culch.ie and sharer of awful jokes.
Website

12@Topgold

Leave me a creative text (+353861743369) if you want to learn Moodle or adopt a homeless dog.
Website

13@sabrinadent

Blogging, web design, marketing, communications
Website

14@krishnade

Digital marketing, marketing in a recession, online reputation, social media speaker, author, commentator, blogger, podcaster,executive career personal brand
Website

15@the_irish_times

Offical feed from The Irish Times newspaper in Ireland
Website

Irish TV and radio personality George Hook

16George Hook

Irish radio and TV personality
Website

17@ManuelTheWaiter

Manuel T. Waiter is 36 years old and bitter, a contented sort of bitter
Website

18@rfwine

Enthusiastic Independent Wine Reviewer
Website

19@adrianweckler

Journalist and tech editor in The Sunday Business Post.
Website

20@beautie

Beaut.ie is a popular blog with the Irish Ladies

The Irish Beauty Blog
Website

21@smallsips

Talks trash about grape juice over at Irish wine blog www.sourgrapes.ie
Website

22@boards_ie

Boards.ie – Now We’re Twitterin’
Website

23@morning_ireland

88.2 to 90fm: Ireland’s most listened-to radio programme
Website

24@twentymajor

Blogger
Website

25@alexiagolez

I am the frenzy, I am the lightening.
Website

Keith Bohanna founder of DB Twang

26@keithbohanna

co-founder of dbTwang, internet consultant, micro enterprise passionist, foodie
Website

27@adammaguire

Irish technology/media journalist and blogger
Website

28@kilian_doyle

Irish Times journalist
Website

29@dickobrien

Newspaper hack, semi-retired blogger and cycling fanatic
Website

30@breakfastnt

Presenters of Breakfast on Newstalk106-108fm.
Website

Popular RTE DJ Rick O'Shea is an avid twitter user

31@rickoshea

Radio presenter, blogger, writer, movie lover, Liverpool fan. Recently rated one star by
Website

32@joelennon

Author of upcoming Apress book, Beginning CouchDB
Website

33@suzybie

Blogger
Website

34@paschald

Fine Gael Senator for Dublin Central.
Website

35@ciarancuffe

Green Party TD for DÃºn Laoghaire
Website

Popular Irish review site Loudervoice

36@loudervoice

LouderVoice – Reviews for Your Web-site
Website

37@antonmannering

Entrepreneur, Networker. CEO of Udoogoo. Do the odd event and networking too.
Website

38@iia

A business association for Irish businesses using the Internet
Website

39@johnpeavoy

Technical Solutions Sales Director with global experience of manufacturing, outsourcing & telecoms

40@joescanlon

Expert of Nothing
Website

41@ccrossan

New startup – www.weddingdates.ie
Website

42@revahealth

Father, CEO and Founder of RevaHealth.com
Website

43@jasonroe

Freelance Developer, Project Manager & all round SEO Expert. I’m currently looking for exciting new projects to work on. Contact me today!
Website

Blogger at center of recent row with Ryainair

44@johnnybeirne

Founder of downloadmusic.ie, textatrack.co.uk and textatrack.com
Website

45@gracesmith

A 26 year old Freelance Web and Graphic Designer in ? with web standards and social media. An unashamed Apple Fangirl. My gallery project: www.cssloaf.com
Website

46@paddydonnelly

An Irishman in Belgium who really lives on the Internet. I’m a web designer and illustrator who co-created The Big Word Project.
Website

47@doneganland

the thoughts and ramblings of landscape gardener, designer and freelance writer Peter Donegan
Website

48@pauloflaherty

Irish, Blogger, Vidcaster, Consultant, Chancer
Website

49@dscanlon

eBusiness Executive, Enterprise Ireland
Website

50@marcusmacinnes

Founder and CEO of Pix.ie – Photo Sharing Platform based in Ireland
Website

The list has been compiled based on my own personal opinion of using Twitter over the last year and is by no means the definitive list. There will be some who feel they belong on the list (add yourself in the comments and I may turn it into a top 100 soon) and there will no doubt be a couple that I have completely forgotten and how I follow everyday and who will be offended, I apologize in advance.

Comments

http://joedrumgoole.com/blog Joe Drumgoole

Hi Lauren,

Thanks for the link juice.

Joe.
http://thisiswhatido.org Darragh

Interesting list! Is it ranked at random/in order of something or just as you found them?

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Yeah totally random Darragh. No order to it, just an overall top 50
http://thisiswhatido.org Darragh

Cool, Niall, thanks. Thanks too for the inclusion. It’s a great post to get attention alright.

In terms of “influence”, I think it would be great to get a handle on why someone is an “influencer” and what that means, even to you writing the personal list. I know the list muct have taken a while too but for example, I’d like to have seen:

Marketing ppl – make you aware of good campaigns, give good advice
Journalists – good comments on topical stories, willing to communicate if you have something to say
Business people – good advice and helpful
Social people – People who know people and can introduce
Websites – people interacting on behalf of their site, sharing interesting things they’re publishing/doing or have found – could also have Automated in there.
Can help you – People who run events, do PR, give advice, give courses
Organisations/Companies
In the media – people like Rick, like Ray, like morning_ireland and breakfastnt and so on

and most importantly

Are fun to follow

Now of course you’re going to come back to me and say “well if you want that, create it”
http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

No it is a good point Darragh. The post took me 3 hours to write and is based on personal opinion. There is an excellent categorization of different folk on Twitter by Lexia http://golez.net/irish-twitter-index/ and as far as I know she adds to it as she finds more people so that is probably more relevant. Would be great to have a more detailed tool though alright.

http://www.mcawilliams.com mcawilliams

Wow how suprised am I to see myself here, thank you Niall for the inclusion.

John

http://blog.doneganlandscaping.com peter donegan

woo000oot ?!!

http://www.enterprise-ireland.com Dave Scanlon

Just squeezed in Was wondering where all the new followers were coming from…

Thanks L + N!

Dave
Aaron

Good list, glad to see a number of wannabes didn’t make the cut
http://keith.bohanna.com keith bohanna

What do they say about club’s who let you in

keith
http://pix.ie/blog Marcus Mac Innes

@dscanlon actually I think I just squeezed in

Thanks Niall for the mention.

Marcus
http://www.demain.ie Dave Allen

Good list, and you were never going to please everyone but @conoro should be in the Top 5, nevermind the Top 50!!

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Yeah I agree Dave that @conoro could be in there but there were a number of people like him who had companies (@loudervoice) and I didn’t want to add the same person twice. I thought with the review element of his site he had a lot more influence from the @loudervoice twitter account

Orlaith Finnegan

Personally I think that list is complete tosh. Some noteworthy inclusions of course, but some..well ahem random selections (the nod to your own CEO, ranked above @darraghdoyle on the list, that was meant as a joke right?)

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

In fairness it says at the top of the post that it is not ranked in any way at all. It is also personal opinion so I am sure lots of other people’s posts would look a lot different to mine

Eddie

A few random includes there alright, but some genuinely influential folk too. What criteria did you use?
http://www.irishtimes.com Kilian Doyle

Not that I’m complaining, but why am I on there? Seems bizarre even to me.
http://www.mulley.net/?sz Damien Mulley

Will I make it into an SZ post for a third week? Tune in soon!
http://www.simplyzesty.com GG

Darragh’s post about qualifying what’s influential is valid, other than that your list is quite meaningless. What influence have these people had? It just seems like more shoe gazing Irish blogosphere back patting …Yawn
http://www.patphelan.net Pat Phelan

That fecking Ray Foley
Nice list, very handy
http://blog.doneganlandscaping.com peter donegan

brilliant stuff love it!

nice one niall mate
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http://www.robertfranciswine.ie rfwine

Thanks a million for the link Niall – nice list !
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http://www.gadgetrepublic.com Marie

Thank you kindly for the add, and thank god it’s random because I certainly wouldn’t come anywhere no. 4 on the influencers list in order of importance! I too would like to see a definitive and handy list of relevant categories actually. Something I can use to group easily in Tweetdeck maybe?
eddieagogo

Sharon_Corr has more followers than most of these yet did not make your list. Why not?
http://swearimnotpaul.blogspot.com Ronan

Great list. Could do with @darraghdoyle who commented above. Man is a legend. More of a legend than I anyhow.

@movies_ie Does that count? Or @culch_ie They’re not really people though.
http://swearimnotpaul.blogspot.com Ronan

Silly me. Forgive that mistake. Didn’t see Darragh at #11. How did I miss that? Sheesh.
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http://frankprendergast.ie Frank Prendergast

This is just sour grapes because I’m not on the list, and I think the links to images of kittens that I tweet are highly influencial – I understand now, having read the comments, that this is a list of 50 people on Twitter that have influenced you, the author – which is cool, just not what I thought I was getting… your opening makes it sound like a very different analysis!

You might be interested though, for further lists, in @mactrast. It has over 150,000 followers and is Irish run. I don’t take any credit for @mactrast, but in the interests of full disclosure I have written some posts for the mactrast.com blog.
http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Nice one Frank! Cheers for sharing that! This list was written what would feel like decades ago in the internet world so well out of date! Agree that it would have been people who influenced me at the time alright
http://pix.ie Marcus Mac Innes

Frank – @mactrast has a following of over 170K but in turn follows “4 people”. In 4 pages of updates (I stopped reading at page 4 because I got bored) has replied to absolutely nobody. Hardly the type of Twitter account that would be worthy of any sort of a mention.
http://Frankprendergast.ie Frank Prendergast

@Niall ha, I didn’t spot the date, the post cropped upon my FaceBook or Twitter stream and I just assumed it was current! Must remember to look at dates

@Marcus the nature of the mactrast account is broadcast, it’s not a personal or conversational account, I understand that’s not of interest to everyone, however it’s a useful tool, followed and regularly retweeted as a source of links and tips.
http://mactrast.com Cormac Moylan

Hi Marcus,
I find it a bit funny that you don’t think @mactrast is deserving of a mention as an influential Twitter account. I would think the fact that the account only follows a handful of people and in turn is followed by 172k to be a pretty good indicator that the account is influential through its popularity.

Do you think that replying to people would make the account any bit more influential? I don’t.

172k people follow the account to get news on breaking Apple news. Not to have conversations.

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Comments

50 Irish Influencers To Follow On Twitter

1. @rayfoleyshow

2. @patphelan

3@nialler9

4@PixieVonDust

5@jdrumgoole

6@anbordbia

7@mcawilliams

8@damienmulley

9@trusttommy

10@seanfee80

11@darraghdoyle

12@Topgold

13@sabrinadent

14@krishnade

15@the_irish_times

16George Hook

17@ManuelTheWaiter

18@rfwine

19@adrianweckler

20@beautie

Beaut.ie is a popular blog with the Irish Ladies

21@smallsips

22@boards_ie

23@morning_ireland

24@twentymajor

25@alexiagolez

Keith Bohanna founder of DB Twang 26@keithbohanna

27@adammaguire

28@kilian_doyle

29@dickobrien

30@breakfastnt

Popular RTE DJ Rick O'Shea is an avid twitter user 31@rickoshea

32@joelennon

33@suzybie

34@paschald

35@ciarancuffe

Popular Irish review site Loudervoice 36@loudervoice

37@antonmannering

38@iia

39@johnpeavoy

40@joescanlon

41@ccrossan

42@revahealth

43@jasonroe

44@johnnybeirne

45@gracesmith

46@paddydonnelly

47@doneganland

48@pauloflaherty

49@dscanlon

50@marcusmacinnes

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Comments

Keith Bohanna founder of DB Twang

26@keithbohanna

Popular RTE DJ Rick O'Shea is an avid twitter user

31@rickoshea

Popular Irish review site Loudervoice

36@loudervoice