Image via Wikipedia
When .eu launched a couple of years ago all member states were given the chance to put names down on a “reserve list”. The idea being that these names should only be registered either by the state or its organs.
Unfortunately some governments didn’t take advantage of this, with the end result being that the .eu launch led to domains like cork.eu and dublin.eu being registered to organisations with questionable entitlements.
Later this year Eurid will be launching IDNs in .eu. In simple terms you’ll be able to register domain names using characters other than standard ASCII – think accents, Cyrillic etc.,
And again, as .eu is run by the EU, governments were given ample opportunity to get names added to a reserve list.
However, the Irish government seems to have all but dropped the ball – again!
While other governments submitted large numbers of names, the Irish one seems to have restricted itself to IDN versions of “Ireland” and “Irish”. What’s even more insane is that they didn’t even bother putting a block on the word “dáil”, which is the Irish parliament!
Here’s the list (excuse the formatting, but the copy and paste from a PDF didn’t work too well):
1. irlanda
2. irsko
3. irland
4. iirimaa
5. ireland
6. irlande
7. irlanda
8. Īrija
9. Airija
10. Írország
11. L-Irlanda
12. iρλανδία
13. ierland
14. irlandia
15. Írsko
16. irska
17. irlanti
18. irland
19. .irlande
20. Ιρλανδία
21. irlande
22. republicofireland
23. eire
24. irelànd
25. irelánd
26. irelánd
27. irelánd
28. irelând
29. irelãnd
30. ireländ
31. irelånd
32. irelænd
33. irèland
34. iréland
35. irêland
36. irëland
37. ìreland
38. íreland
39. îreland
40. ireland
41. irelan•
42. irelañd
43. irelānd
44. irelănd
45. ireląnd
46. irelanď
47. irelanđ
48. irēland
49. irěland
50. irėland
51. iręland
52. irěland
53. ĩreland
54. īreland
55. ĭreland
56. įreland
57. ıreland
58. irelańd
59. irelaņd
60. irelaňd
61. irelaʼnd
62. irelaŋd
63. iŕeland
64. iŗeland
65. iřeland
66. ирландия
You can download the full PDF here
Actually if you look at other countries Ireland didn´t even do that bad… Denmark or Finland for instance have even less on their list.
Then again, some of the Irish ones are pretty funny (like plain typos with foreign characters that don´t mean a thing, like Irelånd :D)