Blacknight, a leading Irish registrar, published a press release on the results of the year in the national ccTLD .IE, which says that the number of domain names registered with .IE reached 262,140 as of the end of 2018. During the year, 51,040 new domains were registered, or 140 per day on average. This number may seem low, but compared with the previous year this is significant growth: 29 percent more than in 2017; an increase of 10.4 percent of the zone.
IE Domain Registry (IEDR), that manages the ccTLD, says these numbers are related to Brexit (Great Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union). Many British companies and people are worried about the implications and hence are moving their activities to Ireland, which remains an EU member, so businesses and individuals are registering more names in the .IE zone. The statistics bear this out: the number of .IE registrations from Great Britain increased by 28 percent compared with 2017.
Other factors in .IE growth include promotions and lower prices from Blacknight as well as the simplification of the registration rules. Registrants have to provide evidence of a connection with Ireland, but now this rule is more flexible, which has made registrants’ lives much simpler. It is noteworthy that the same simplification also applies to receiving an Irish passport. For example, now children and grandchildren of Irish citizens can apply for passports regardless of place of birth. According to The Guardian, this and Great Britain’s decision to leave the EU has resulted in a 22 percent increase in the number of applications from England, Scotland, and Wales compared with the previous year.
