Ireland On-Line

Former internet service provider (ISP) in Ireland

Ireland On-Line (IOL) is a former ISP in Ireland.

Ireland On-line was the first commercial internet service provider in the state. The company was formed in 1992 by Barry Flanagan, and was reported to have launched "Ireland's first mass-market Internet service" in January 1994.[1] In 1997, the company was bought by An Post for IR£2.5m. Two years later, it was sold to Esat Telecom Group plc for IR£ 115m. A year later, Esat Telecom was taken over by BT Group plc. In 2002 Esat was rebranded Esat BT.[2] In 2009 BT Ireland withdrew from retail telecommunications and transferred retail operations, along with IOL's former subscribers, to Vodafone Ireland.[3]

## Notes

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1. ^ Grossman, Wendy (June 1994). "Ireland goes On-Line". Personal Computer World.
2. ^ Boyle, Pat (11 July 2002). "Rebranded Esat BT holds all Irish units". Irish Independent. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
3. ^ Apostolou, Natalie (23 July 2009). "Vodafone snaps up BT's Irish ISP customers". TelecomsEurope. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012. Retrieved 18 December 2011.

## External links

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* Iol's home page \- now simply a webmail login page for legacy email addresses
* Oceanfree.net's home page Archived 14 April 2005 at the Wayback Machine \- now simply a webmail login page for legacy email addresses