History of Ireland Calls
1996 - 'Mayo on the Move'
Mayo Ireland Ltd set up the 'Mayo on the Move' website in 1995 and launched it on Valentine's Day, 14th February 1996. The site quickly gathered thousands of visitors per month, all interested in County Mayo.
1998 - Irish Chat
It was decided to provide visitors with the opportunity to chat with one another on all things pertaining to Ireland and the Irish. Over time, the site developed into a popular meeting place for anyone looking for lively and interesting chat on any topic.
The early years
As its popularity grew, some members began flooding the chat room with unwanted messages, bad-mouthing others, and constantly re-entering under different names just to cause trouble. This affected the overall quality, and many regular and potential users were put off using Irish Chat.
2006 - Irish Chat, the social networking hub
We introduced a subscription-based service and set up a message board for discussions on topics related and unrelated to Ireland. In April 2006 we enhanced the platform by allowing members to add friends, create photo albums, and enjoy a full social networking experience.
<
2007 - Ireland Calls
As "IC" evolved into more of a social networking site, we decided to move away from Irish Chat and adopt a new name. After polling members, we chose Ireland Calls, reflecting the pull Ireland has on the Irish diaspora while allowing the site to still be called IC for short. Thus, Irish Chat became Ireland Calls.
2010 - Ireland Calls Social Networking site closed
Running Irish Chat and Ireland Calls was always a challenge. For a small company run by one and a half people, it was too time-consuming and expensive. We would have closed it years earlier if not for loyal members pleading to keep it open.
To find an alternative, we launched Rendezvous353 (now closed), but without sufficient support, we had to abandon it.
2011/12 - Irish Chat
We decided to keep the Irish Chat room open. This brought us back to 1998, with a straightforward chat room and a "Céad Míle Fáilte" to all interested users.
2012 - September
The chatroom, run by Digi-Net Technologies, stopped working. Attempts to contact the company failed, which was a pity as their chatroom had been cutting edge.
2025 - September
By 2025, the landscape for small, independent Irish-interest websites had changed dramatically. For many years, Ireland Calls and our other projects relied on Google advertising. Over time, revenue declined as larger sites invested heavily in search engine optimisation, pushing smaller sites further down the rankings. Then came AI: search results often show AI-generated summaries at the top, with actual site links pushed lower and often overlooked.
Faced with this, we chose to let many of our domains expire. The alternative was to preserve them as part of a larger home, so we decided to keep Ireland Calls as the central site. We have now incorporated the following projects into it: Accommodation, Leisure, Music, Mystic Mae, Roots, Showbands, Roizine (Irish teen mag from the '90s), Travels in Time and Weddings.
We also preserved a few universal projects: Boltop and SWALK, Hug a Pug a Day, and Zurpled (a playful new word for the poets!).
So while much has changed since 1998, Ireland Calls remains a living archive of Irish connections.
Ireland Calls Trivia Quiz
Over the years, a weekly Saturday night Trivia Quiz run by IC member Andrea proved very popular. To keep it going, Andrea found alternative chatroom facilities. The quiz continues today — join the Ireland Calls Facebook group or see the Irish Chat Facebook page.
It just goes to show that, had we put a business plan together and sought funding, Ireland Calls might have become a rival to Facebook. Then again, we might be just as well off as we are!