From The Euros to iced coffee - What Ireland Googled in 2021

2021 Google ‘Year in Search’ results revealed

As 2021 comes to a close the Google Year in Search results offer a snapshot of what caught the country’s attention over the last 12 months.

In a year where Covid restrictions continued, sport was one of the most popular topics. With rescheduled sport tournaments taking place alongside annual competitions, sporting topics take the top two spots on the overall Google list – and the European Football Championships was the most searched trend, followed by the Premier League.

The Irish nation’s sporting interest can also be seen on the most searched people list as Christian Eriksen, the Danish footballer who suffered a cardiac arrest during their Euro 2020 group stage match with Finland this summer, is the most searched person, and Olympic Gold medalist Kellie Harrington is the fifth most Googled person this year.

While Coronavirus continued to dominate the news agenda, it dropped one place in the list to third.

Every day, millions of people ask Google questions, and the pandemic drove even more concern for health: ‘How to register for the Covid-19 vaccine’ was the most Googled question of the year.

Other Covid-19 related questions in the top trending searches included ‘How to do an Antigen test’; ‘How to book a Covid-19 test’; ’How to apply for the Covid-19 payment’; and ‘How to get the Covid-19 certificate’.

Like last year, people continued to search for ways to stay connected and entertained at home and Netflix smashes Bridgerton and Squid Game took the top spots this year for searches for TV shows.

Returning favourites such as Love Island and Eurovision were also big searches.

The top 10 Most Googled recipe list gives a glimpse into what Ireland has been cooking this year, and comfort food took over the most Googled list, as pancakes, waffles and shepherd’s pie all made the top ten.

The summer heat pushed ‘how to make an iced coffee’ to the second most popular question people asked Google this year.

As the Brexit transition period came to an end and the UK officially left the European Union, Irish people turned to Google to find out the implications. ‘What is Article 16?’ was the top ‘what is’ question of the year.

Political issues dominated the top ten ‘What is’ questions on Google but people still found time for those biggest questions in life like, ‘what is a verb?’; ‘how to get rid of fruit flies’; and ‘how to solve a Rubik’s Cube’.