Dubliners top talkers in phone survey

Michael Brennan

The capital’s phone users out-talk all other counties by spending an average of six hours eight minutes on the line each month, compared to the national average of 5hrs 35mins.

Eircom’s first survey of calling habits revealed yesterday that Dubs also out-talk other counties when it comes to duration.

Their average call lasts for four minutes 12 seconds compared to the national average of 3mins 36secs.

The 52,000-strong population of Monaghan made the most calls per month, with an average of 96.

This was 10 more than the national average of 86 calls and well ahead of the next best county, Donegal, whose people made 92 calls per month.

But Donegal people kept those conversations short, with their call duration of 3mins 30secs among the lowest in the country.

However, not all counties have lived up to their fast-talking reputations. Cork, the home of the Blarney Stone, trails in fifth place in the monthly talk time league behind Dublin, Meath, Monaghan and Kildare, with an average time of 5hrs 39mins.

Wexford people seem the most reluctant to pick up the phone, with the lowest time spent on the month at 4hrs 49mins and the lowest number of calls per month (80). The next lowest for spending time on the phone were Carlow, Waterford and Roscommon.

Eircom carried out the survey by analysing all the local, national and international calls, as well as calls to mobile phones, by its customers in the 26 counties. The survey was based on calls from May last year to May this year.

Eircom marketing director Michael Kennedy said it revealed some fascinating differences in counties’ talking habits.

“Of course it would be great to discover what the nation is talking about and find out why these regional variations exist. However, there is no disputing that Dubliners really do talk for Ireland,” he said.