CLUAS will be hitting the 10 year milestone in May 2009 and as far as I know it is Ireland's longest running music website. Am I wrong? Am I forgetting some obscure gem of an Irish music site out there that was knocking around before May 1999 and is still on the go?
I thought hotpress.com might also have been around 10 or so years but it turns out not to be the case. With a bit of digging (thanks to archive.org, the ambitious online project that is keeping a snapshot of web sites over the age) I was able to establish that hotpress.com was home to an offset printing company based in Santa Cruz, California up to Dec 2000. Hmmmm. The domain name, it seems, was only acquired by Hot Press magazine in early 2001 (but no content was published to the site until some time between June 2001 and January 2002). Maybe Hotpress.ie was around a bit longer? Once again Archive.org comes to the rescue, with confirmation that Hot Press' .ie incarnation only began leaving a trail on the web from Februrary 2001 onwards.
What about U2.com? Surely those innovative, technophiles (or something like that) were doing their thang on the web early on? Well, er, no actually. Their website didn't go live until some time in August 2000, giving CLUAS a 15 month headstart on everyone's favourite Croke Park regulars.
So, CLUAS.com? The longest established Irish music site on the web? Yeah?
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2007 - REM live in the Olympia, by Michael O'Hara. Possibly the definitive review of any of REM's performances during their 2007 Olympia residency. Even the official REM website linked to it.