The Sunrise period for the .irish gTLD launched yesterday (17 March), St Patrick’s Day, and is now available to the global Irish community for use by businesses, brands and organisations all over the world who wish to register early and who want to market and develop products and services clearly identifying with the word ‘Irish’.

The 60 day ‘Sunrise’ period provides trademark holders with a valuable opportunity to protect their brand names and trademarks by registering their .irish domain name before they become generally available.

From 21 May to 20 June there will be the Landrush Phase. This is a premium phase open to the general public during which high value domain names that are not trademarks can be applied for. If multiple applications are received for the same domain name during the Landrush phase, an auction will be held to give applicants the opportunity to bid for the domain name.

And then on 25 June 2015 the .Irish domain will be open to the general public.