IT’S THAT time of year again, where The Clare Echo reveals the list of search terms that brings readers to our website.
The Clare Echo is our county’s most read newspaper – but we also attract a whopping 12 million user interactions on www.clareecho.ie every year.
So what are you – our readers – typing into Google that directs you to our website?
Online analytics tell us a lot and can provide valuable insight on what really interests our readers. We can tell which specific search terms on Google brought readers to our website – something that is referred to as a ‘query’.
And the top queries are…
The query which brought most readers to www.clareecho.ie in 2025 was ‘Clare Echo’ (unsurprisingly) with almost 80,000 searches, followed by terms such as ‘Clare news’, ‘Clare Echo sport’ and so on.
The Clare Echo’s reputation as a source of sports news was evident in 2025. Search terms which drove a huge amount of web traffic to The Clare Echo included ‘Clare hurling players dropped’ and ‘Clare hurling panel changes’, along with ‘Clare LGFA abrupt board meeting’.
Other sporting terms which brought users to The Clare Echo included ‘Ben Lyne’, referring to the young Ennis native making waves at Manchester United, ‘Aidan McCarthy Clare’, and Ennis athletics starlet ‘Alex O’Neill’. ‘Éire Óg Ennis’ was the most queried GAA club that brought users here. ‘Tony Kelly’ also appears in the Top 100 most queried terms.
On a news front, the search terms that drove most users to our website was ‘Bomb threat Clare’, referring to the hoax bomb threat in February which led to the closure of multiple schools across the county.
Other search terms such as ‘Niall Gilligan’, ‘Clare farmer’s restraining order’, ‘courtcases in Ennis this week’ and ‘drug’ all brought thousands of users to our website, displaying the high level of reliable court reports which are found on www.clareecho.ie every week.
‘Trudy Leydon’ and ‘Violet-Anne Wynne’ were the two most Googled politicians, followed by Roisin Garvey and Donna McGettigan, reflecting that female politicians are maybe more relevant than their male counterparts.
Speaking of politicians, Celia Larkin, the ex-partner of Bertie, also appeared on the list thanks to putting her €1.2m home in Killaloe on the market back in May. Other properties which turned up included ‘Thalassa Lahinch house sale auction’, referring to the €1m price the 1970s bungalow sold for in Lahinch.
The top business item that brought users to our website was ‘Madden Furniture closing Ennis’, with users eager to learn more about the historic family business which sold to McDermotts Furniture earlier this year. ‘Ennis Plaza’, ‘Banner Plaza’, ‘Niall Gilligan profits farming’, ‘Raw Killaloe Café Pizzeria closure’, ‘Louis Fitzgerald net worth’, ‘Planet Ennis redevelopment investment’ and ‘Domhnal Slattery net worth’ followed closely behind. Amazingly, Ennis businessman Domhnal Slattery continues to be of interest to the public year after year on this list.
Other terms which people were typing on their keyboards that led them to www.clareecho.ie included ‘Shannon Airport’, ‘Clare Senior Hurling Championship’, ‘Ruan church’, ‘school meal’, and ‘storm bram’,
The Clare placenames that top the list for 2026 are in order as follows: Ennis, Miltown Malbay, Ennistymon, Lahinch, and Lissycasey.
Amazingly, ‘Cliffs of Moher pronounciation’, ‘Lahinch or Lehinch’, ‘Limerick news’, ‘Clare Exho’, and ‘dodgy boxes’ were other top terms that brought users to our site. The most Googled journalist that brought users to our website was Gordon Deegan, our court reporter, followed by our Head of News & Sport Páraic McMahon.
Further down the list, other search queries to bring readers to our site included ‘Gordon Daly’ with 130 website visits, referring to the new Clare County Council CEO. Bruce Springsteen continues to appear on our list every year thanks to a 2020 April Fool’s article on our site which claimed that the Boss got stuck in Feakle during Covid-19 lockdown measures. ‘Davy Fitzgerald’ dropped way out of the Top 100 search terms, with only 92 clicks coming to www.clareecho.ie from his name – a record low in recent years.
