Antoin O Lachtnain at Eire.com

Antoin O Lachtnain is still in his twenties but a battle-scarred Internet veteran. With Gerry McGovern he founded Nua in the mid-1990s. The Irish economy was just about to hit top speed, it was "Celtic Tiger" this and "Celtic Tiger" that, and thanks to the new Mosaic browser the Web was just becoming the big new thing. And it wasn't that unusual to see people in their early twenties like Antoin running these start-ups doing Web-based projects.

For a time Nua was Ireland's most prominent Internet consultancy, and Antoin was on the Web early enough to have the wit and foresight to register Eire.com.

Nua collapsed as the dot-bomb crisis spread from the States to countries like Ireland, and Antoin decided to go back to college to finish his degree.

Meanwhile he still holds the Eire.com domain name. Initially it was a very flat site, basically offering his consultancy services in the IT and telecom sectors. Nowadays it's much more lively, thanks to his occasional blog. It deals with "Thinking on Ireland, policy, politics, the web, psychology, philosophy..."

Recent entries cover subjects such as rip-offs in the Irish legal system; the Irish law on defamation; Dublin's transport system; Antoin's trials and tribulations after ordering a free beach towel from SAP's website; ASDL and eircom; flash mobs; why Fine Gael was never returned to government as an alternative to Fianna Fail; the implications of the collapse of the Dublin Daily newspaper; privacy issues; a long essay on political psychology and the way people make decisions about voting; and the IE Domain Registry.

Two recurring themes in his blogs are technology and the state of our democracy. Which is why Antoin is in his element when he looks at why "electronic voting should be a hot issue in Ireland. It's the core of our democracy, and the government wants to convert it to electonic form. But the government doesn't seem to have fully considered whether it's necessary or desirable, or whether there might be a better way to improve things..."