Ireland On-Line (IOL) is a former
ISP in
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
.
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.
In 1997, the company was bought by
An Post
(; literally 'The Post') is the state-owned provider of Mail, postal services in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. An Post provides a "universal postal service" to all parts of the country as a member of the Universal Postal Union. Services provide ...
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
BT Group plc (formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-li ...
. In 2002 Esat was rebranded Esat BT. In 2009
BT Ireland withdrew from retail telecommunications and transferred retail operations, along with IOL's former subscribers, to
Vodafone Ireland.
Notes
External links
Iol's home page- now simply a webmail login page for legacy email addresses
Oceanfree.net's home page{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050414014353/http://www.oceanfree.net/ , date=14 April 2005 - now simply a webmail login page for legacy email addresses
Defunct Internet service providers
Internet service providers of the Republic of Ireland