The first week of the General Election campaign is now coming to an end, and Google has released the top trending searches for political parties and leaders over the last six months, and election-related searches since Enda made the announcement on the 3rd of February.
Ronan Harris, Head of Google in Ireland said: “The amount of traffic a search term generates cannot be used to accurately gauge the true popularity of a candidate or political party, however, it is a useful way of measuring interest in them at any one time.”
In terms of parties, people want to know what their names mean (Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael), when they were founded (Sinn Féin, Fine Gael) and what each of the parties stand for in a political sense
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The most-Googled question about The Labour Party is pretty damning – ‘Is the Labour Party dead?‘. Ouch.
People also have some very interesting questions about the party leaders including ‘How tall is Joan Burton?‘ which was the fourth most searched question about the Labour leader.
There’s obviously some romantic interest in Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, with the second most-asked question: ‘Is Gerry Adams married?’ (Yes, he is. Sorry ladies/gentlemen).
Funnily enough, the most Googled query since the election date was….what date the election will be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
