IT business offers lifeline to rural communities

THE dot.com implosion may have thinned the ranks of dapper young internet execs out for a fast buck, but e-Ireland isn't dead and gone.

There are dozens of tech success stories hidden down back roads all over the country. For those organisations who saw the technology as a means to an end rather than the end in itself, the downturn merely shrunk the market, it didn’t destroy it.

12Travel packages Irish holidays for foreign visitors. Despite last year’s disastrous tourist season, the company grew by 60%. It’s run from converted farm buildings in Castletownsend, Co Cork.