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

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. 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 postal services in Ireland. An Post provides a "universal postal service" to all parts of the country as a member of the Universal Postal Union. Services provided include letter post, p ...

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 (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broa ...

. In 2002 Esat was rebranded Esat BT. In 2009

BT Ireland BT Communications (Ireland) Limited is a telecommunications and internet company in Ireland. It is a subsidiary of BT Group plc. History Esat Telecom The company was founded in 1990 by a consortium headed by business magnate Denis O'Brien and ...

withdrew from retail telecommunications and transferred retail operations, along with IOL's former subscribers, to

Vodafone Ireland Vodafone Ireland Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Vodafone Group, is a mobile phone network and broadband provider in the Republic of Ireland. It was created when the Vodafone Group bought Eircell, the mobile arm of Telecom Éirean ...

Notes

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External links

Iol's home page
- now simply a webmail login page for legacy email addresses
Oceanfree.net's home page
- now simply a webmail login page for legacy email addresses Defunct Internet service providers Internet service providers of the Republic of Ireland