Ireland’s tech sector grew until it collided with the power supply
- Data centres: around 21% of national electricity
- New Dublin data centres paused until 2028
- Apple has been in Cork since 1980
- Galway: Boston Scientific and Medtronic
Three editorial pieces on the Ireland digital market. Editorial register, no product pitch. Companion series: Malta, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland.
How Ireland’s tech scene grew
Ireland joins the EEC
Membership, alongside tax policy and an English-speaking workforce, is one of the three things the entire foreign-investment strategy was built on.
The digital economy here
Dublin is where the American technology industry keeps its European headquarters — Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft and Stripe among them. That concentration was built deliberately over decades on tax policy, EU membership and an English-speaking workforce, and it worked. The less discussed consequence is physical: Irish data centres now consume around twenty-one per cent of the country’s electricity, a share expected to approach a third, and grid pressure has been serious enough to pause new data centre construction in Dublin and the surrounding area until 2028. A national digital sector growing until it collides with the power supply is a genuinely unusual position.
It also means Dublin has two economies that barely touch. One is the multinational layer, procuring internationally on terms set elsewhere. The other is the ordinary Irish business economy underneath it, which is where almost all actual local demand for websites sits.
Outside Dublin the specialisms are sharper and the work is different in kind. Cork is a cybersecurity and cloud engineering base — Apple since 1980, now with Dell Technologies, IBM, VMware and Trend Micro — and the distinction from Dublin matters: Dublin holds a great deal of sales, marketing and European administration, while Cork builds and defends things. Galway is one of the significant global centres for medical technology, with Boston Scientific and Medtronic alongside Creganna Medical, Aerogen and a growing applied-AI set working on predictive diagnostics and digital twins.
Where the work happens
Three cities with genuinely different technical cultures — and two of them resent being described as satellites of the third.
Dublin
The European headquarters of much of the American technology industry, and the reason data centres now draw around 21% of national electricity. Two economies that barely touch: the multinational layer, and the Irish business economy underneath it.
Cork
Apple arrived in 1980 and the rest followed — Dell Technologies, IBM, VMware, Trend Micro. A cybersecurity and cloud engineering base where people build and defend things, plus a large harbour and a pharmaceutical cluster. Fiercely independent of Dublin, and says so.
Galway
A significant global medical-technology centre. A device that monitors, records and transmits is a data product with a physical housing — and regulated data at that — so the engineering skills have shifted steadily from mechanical toward software.
Enterprise Ireland
The state agency for Irish-owned businesses — as opposed to the inward-investment story that dominates the coverage.
How Irish businesses buy websites
English throughout, which removes the language question that complicates most of this series — and replaces it with a sharper one about who you are actually selling to. The multinational layer is not a local market; it procures through frameworks and rarely from small suppliers. The Irish business economy is the real customer base and buys much like the UK, with one difference worth respecting: regional identity is strong, and "Dublin agency" is not a selling point in Cork or Galway.
Galway in particular has a business community fluent in regulated industries, validation and documentation. That is a specific technical culture, and it shows up in how carefully they read what you send them.
Trades and home services
Local and relationship-driven. Name the counties and towns you cover — Irish customers check whether you are actually nearby.
Clinics, salons and studios
Online booking is standard, and prices are expected on the page rather than on request.
Shops, cafés and hospitality
Tourism matters well beyond Dublin, and a large share of visitors arrive with a phone and no local SIM. Keep the page light.
Regulated and B2B
Medtech in Galway and security in Cork buy on documentation, validation and long procurement cycles. Precision beats enthusiasm every time.
How well do you know Ireland’s digital economy?
5 quick questions. Get all 5 right and you win a 10% off discount code. Every answer is somewhere on this page.
Ireland quiz · 1 of 5
Roughly what share of Ireland’s electricity do data centres consume?
Why FastSites works here
Irish small businesses compete against suppliers priced for a multinational market that has nothing to do with them. A published price for a proportionate one-page site is a straightforward answer to that.
Live in days, built mobile-first, and light. Tell us which counties you actually serve — outside Dublin that is the credential customers look for first.
The Ireland series
One piece per city, written in an editorial register for people assessing the market rather than shopping for a supplier.