2008 actually started off with a Christmas party (first of 2 that year), the team descended on the Hardwood Restaurant in Cork where much merriment ensued, in fact so vocal was the merriment that we had to remove ourselves from the premises before dessert (heads hung in shame).

Following that excellent start, 2008 was a very busy year (particularly for me as following one long advertising meeting on the 1st July, I gave birth to my son Conor, it was a wee bit earlier then planned so I’d say Rebecca was a bit surprised when I texted her to say there was no need to pick me up for work the next morning!).

2008 saw lots of new web developments for RecruitIreland.com; we launched our new Career Centre & our Blog as well as developing our Facebook Application and joining the revolution that is Twitter. This meant that Vicki, our web 2.0 evangelist, had to explain to certain people many times that those that twitter are tweeters & not twits.

We posted a job vacancy on the site for Taoiseach when Bertie Ahern handed in his resignation – the job vacancy received almost 200,000 page views and received international acclaim.

The year ended with yet another Christmas Party, this time in Kenmare, where the RecruitIreland.com Oscars took place. Prestigious awards were handed out for Best International Employee (Rebecca), Best Timekeeper (Gill), Discounter of the Year (Elaine), Shopper of The Year (Diarmuid), Talker (Charlie), Messiest Desk (Ronan) and Biggest Surprise (me).

Also in 2008

• Blockbusters were Mamma Mia, The Dark Knight and Sex & the City
• The Olympic Games took place in China
• Michael Phelps wowed us all with his body, which, we were repeatedly informed, is perfectly proportioned for swimming
• Barack Obama became the President of the United States
• Lehman Brothers collapses
• It was International Year of the Potato – who knew!!
• Brangelina had twins, Knox and Vivienne
• Tyrone were All Ireland Football champions
• Kilkenny won the All Ireland Hurling title