While Ireland crashed out of the Rugby World Cup at the wearingly familiar quarter-final stage again this year, Google searches for the Japanese showpiece proved to be considerably more enduring and it finished the year as the most searched for thing on the site. Gay Byrne finished in second place in the overall search list following his death in November with searches for Brendan Grace, who also died this autumn, ranked fifth. Google’s search trends reflected the sometimes turbulent times we live in and with Brexit rarely out of the headlines. “How to vote?” was runner-up in that category behind the always important question “How to boil an egg?” in the “How to” list. Sports stars and politicians dominated the most searched for in the people list in 2019 with Shane Lowry finishing on top following his win at the Open Championship in July 2019.

Source: The Irish Times December 11, 2019 07:52 UTC