Craic On

CraicOn Readership

CraicOn started in November 2006.

It has been pretty successful in Moville and probably even more so in Muff where Grainne McCool runs the Muff versions of the website.

More than 40% of the audience is now outside Ireland.

This is a mixture of people from here who are working or living away, people who have connections here or are regular visitors here as well as people of the town and the area.

Indeed, last year, CraicOn was read in 101 different countries.

The UK is the main one outside Ireland but it is also popular in America, Australia, Spain for some reason and a host fo other countries.

It helps us get great publicity for such events as the DylanFest and Beatlesfest.

Moville People Living Abroad

People from Moville, who live away, have told me that they can get their news from the local newspapers online versions.

However, they say that reading CraicOn makes them feel that they are in touch with home and with what people are talking about – even if I have been putting up fewer articles recently as I’ve been concentrating on other things.

I fondly thought, when I started it, that lots of people would want to run their version of CraicOn in their towns up and down the country.

However, they didn’t.

Some Contacts

A few contacted me from various places in Ireland but I wasn’t sure if they would be right.

So, although it has been successful locally, it hasn’t taken off across the country as I had hoped.

It’s probably too big a commitment for people to talk on.

It’s also difficult to know if you have the right people when they do apply – Grainne being an excellent exception.

CraicOn Changes

So I am going to make three changes to CraicOn.

1. I’m going to make it so that people can just send in an article with information about the craic in their towns and I’ll probably publish it. This is less commitment than having to run a town. If they want to write regular articles about the craic so much the better. By the way Moville people and people from the area can also do this. I’ll try to get the website more publicity, maybe even nationally in the New Year
2. I’m going to make it also a record of the history of the town as told by older people who have lived through it. It will be about the people who lived here in the past and what they did. My father, Gerry senior has a host of stories of the old Moville and I’m going to load them all up. I’ll create a separate section for them called Moville History. This will be the history as seen through the eyes of those who lived here. It will be there for anyone to use, like the schools, or history societies in the future
3. My father has about half the copies of the Moville Emigrant and I’m going to get these loaded up onto CraicOn soon
4. I’m going to change the format of the website. In a month or so it will look like this but with the news for the different towns and counties etc. rather than the categories it has now –  www.ITContractor.com

I’m going to start with the historical tales straight away and already have a story from my father to kick it off.

It’s an exciting new direction and I hope you like it.