World Cup, Meghan and veganism – how we googled in 2018
OUR team didn’t make the cut, but the FIFA World Cup was the top-ranking Google search for Irish people this year.
The annual “year in search” results released by Google have provided an interesting snapshot into what caught our attention during 2018.
It seems that the summer football spectacular in Russia, which was eventually won by France, had us all tapping away on our keyboards,
But Ireland’s interests are many and varied, the results indicate.
Electronic dance musician Avicii was our second top-trending topic this year. Famous for his song ‘Wake Me Up’, the Swedish musician died in April at the age of 28.
Third place went to actress turned royal Meghan Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex. Meghan, now expecting her first child, touched down in Ireland with her husband Prince Harry last July.
But there is no doubt the huge interest in her wedding last May also helped push her up the ranks. Rugby player Paddy Jackson, acquitted in a high-profile rape trial last March came in at number four.
And when it came to food-related searches, recipes for healthy Operation Transformation were closely followed by cake recipes, followed by healthy dinner recipes.Bread recipes came in at number four, and that was followed at number five with “weight watcher recipes.”
Interestingly, vegan recipes made their first appearance in Google’s top trending food search list. Politically, we were inspired to ask “how to register to vote” – which came first in the “how to” searches.
But it seemed that the weather also played a part in this list, with “how to build an igloo” coming in second place. Third place went to the ever-popular “how to lose weight.” The top search under the category of “what is” related to blasphemy, followed by: “What is bitcoin?” Perhaps not surprisingly in this era of wall-towall Brexit coverage, the third most searched for term in this category was: “What is the backstop?” When it came to movies searches, ‘A Star is Born’ starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper took the top spot.
Tech worries centred around “how to get old snapchat back” and “how to turn off automatic updates.”
When it came to sporting events, the World Cup was followed by the epic Ireland versus New Zealand rugby clash last month, which saw us enjoy a historic win. Cheltenham horse racing came in third place.