Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Ranking high on Google is the holy grail of the Internet. I work in Public Relations in Ireland and I’ve lost count of how many consultancies there are in Ireland at the minute. Each of these comapnies is spending €5k+ on a fancy website, yet I outrank them on Google and this [...]

There are thousands of charities across the globe all vying for money from a limited pot. Because it is such a competitive space, charities are having to go above and beyond with their efforts in order to raise awareness about their cause.
I read about a very interesting fundraiser in the Irish Times yesterday. [...]

The picture above is the packed house at the Irish Blog Awards on Saturday night. The picture below is the front cover of the Sunday times, the picture on the front page is of Una Keane, an Irish singer, and Joe Conway, of Digicast, to announce the launch of Making Waves, a new [...]

I was out in the recently reopened Laughter Lounge in Dublin last week. One of the comedians on the night really highlighted the fact that the media seem hell bent on keeping the public in a state of fear. Open the papers any day of the week and there will be a prominent [...]

The Sunday Business Post has a nice article on Irish businesses and podcasting in today’s Computers in Business supplement. Bernie Goldbach has a synopsis of the article on his website. One thing that annoys me about podcasting though is the belief that it will become a successful commercial enterprise in the near future. [...]

Despite numerous invitations from friends, I still haven’t managed to get around to setting up my own Bebo page. However this weekend, I did actually manage to make it to the website in order to see what all the fuss was about. It didn’t take long though to see that Bebo is going [...]

I was reading a recent post by Antony Mayfield about how a rise in circulation does not necessarily mean revenue growth. His comments about the Guardian’s investment and innovation online got me thinking though.
Current methods to decide circulation and listenership figures in Ireland seem to becoming a bit outdated because they aren’t capturing the [...]

Dublin’s freesheets, Herald AM and Metro, have agreed to give anti-litter campaigners €120,000 worth of free advertising following complaints about the rise in littering following their launch. I’d touched upon the subject before and am glad to see that each publication will try to help change the mindset of Dubliners - walking the city [...]

Some people seem to think that the Dublin riots is some kind of pivotal moment for Irish blogs as they supposedly brought the story and the pictures to the Irish public. In reality it did nothing more, but highlight the line between the mainstream media and citizen reporters.
While RTE radio should be criticised for [...]

I was meant to go into Dublin City Centre to see a movie in the Jameson Dublin Film Festival today. By the sounds of things I was better off staying at home, having slept it out this morning and not getting caught up in the riots in Dublin city today.
Instead of being a landmark [...]

It has to be said that Spin FM, a Dublin based radio station, is the best media organisation for freebies. They put a smile on the staff here in Drury Communications today after sending in some extra large pizzas after the JNLR results were released last week.
When you’re operating in a highly competitive marketplace, [...]

The latest JNLR figures have been released and they indicate a couple of growing trends. The big winners again are regional and commercial stations, whereas RTE, the national broadcaster, continues to lose listeners. In terms of the Irish context, the figures show that 85% of adults listen to radio daily, a statistic which [...]

The Sunday Times appears to have been offering free DVDs for some time now, or so I believe according to the copy of Howards End that has been sitting unwatched in my DVD collection from a few weeks ago. This week’s edition really caught my attention though as they were giving out [...]

A new website for the Master of Arts in Public Relations programme at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) has been launched. The website acts as a student resource and provides employers with direct access to potential employees.
The site gives a course overview,a short bio on each of the students and some discussion topics in [...]

The Sunday Times has an interesting front page article about Naomi McElroy, a journalist with the Sunday Mirror, who is going on trial tomorrow for faking prescriptions and buying drugs with them as part of an expose.
It will be a very interesting case to watch and would obviously have huge repercussions if McElroy is found [...]

The Daily Mail launched its Irish edition today as copies of Ireland’s newest paper were distributed on the streets for free. Another newspaper launch and cue the inevitable comparisons to the Irish Independent. The same arguments that the Mail will lead to the demise of the Indo were heard only a few short [...]

Women in business constantly appeal to the media yet we don’t see enough of them profiled in the press. Journalists and producers are always on the lookout for female entrepreneurs, but they don’t seem to be as good at promoting themselves as their male counterparts. It is a shame really because the resulting [...]

The Dublin Tourism Office has begun to offer audio podcast guides for Dublin (via Damien Mulley and Smart Mobs). The first in the series, Georgian Dublin, is available now, and will be follwed by nine other titles with accompanying brochures. This is something along the lines of what I hope to do if [...]

The best things in life are free, but sooner or later the government will find a way to tax them - Author Unknown
There is lots of talk about the continuing battle of the freesheets in Dublin between the Metro and Herald AM. The most decisive moments will probably be when CIE (the Irish rail [...]

Irish Permanent has announced that it is giving up its sponsorship of the Irish rugby team, which makes perfect sense to be honest because the company has scaled down over recent years. It will be interesting to see who snaps up their spot on the green jerseys, but it does throw up a few [...]

It looks like Irish politicians are finally starting to embrace the web, albeit for a variety of reasons. On the one hand, politicians like Liz McManus TD of the Labour Party and Councillor Damien Blake of Fianna Fail both have websites so that they can actively engage with the public. On the other [...]

John Collins has a really interesting review of Irish tech media marketplace in 2005 on his site. If there’s any one sector that is feeling the impact of the war between paper media and electronic media, it has to be Irish technology journalism.
2005 was quite interesting for me because it was my first [...]

Press Release Irelandoffers free online press release services to Irish companies, organisations and Govt. bodies.”
I haven’t used it yet, but will try it out shortly. The website claims that it is easy to add press releases via their content management system.
Obviously it is aimed at delivering content to journalists who can subscribe to email [...]

The Golden Pages is Ireland’s leading business directory. For years it has stagnated somewhat. I occasionally use their website, but the majority of copies of the directory are used to prop things up in the office or bundled into the corner.
However they’ve redesigned the website and are hiring a whole array of staff. [...]

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives - Robert Maynard Hutchins
I have written an Introduction to Blogs for Irish PR practitioners (PDF). The document is going to be made available to all PR students in Ireland thanks to Carmel Doyle, my lecturer when I was in [...]