www.thegoodspider.com

The Good Spider is an initiative of the Irish aid agency Concern. As it correctly points out, your attention has unique value. Just by visiting the site, you are helping generate money for famine relief programmes. Companies advertise on the site and pay for this exposure based on the number of hits. For example, in its first month, last June, there were 3,795 hits, leading to the same number of meals. In December, this was up to 62,331. Why not visit it today?

www.gradu8.net

The Graduate home page bills itself as being "Ireland's essential student guide" (as do a whole host of other sites, of course). It works through offering a series of links for areas such as careers, education, faith, international, news and regional. The links are comprehensive and up-to-date (there's little on the web as annoying as broken links), but more self-generated copy would help round out the site. A new colour scheme would help too.

www.playireland.org

Run by Sugradh, a voluntary body, the site's home page features the banner "Celebrating the child's right to play". Its aim to "promote and protect children's play as a fundamental human right of all children in Ireland" is a good one when, as we all know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. With a good section on how to seek funding for playgrounds from local authorities and a helpful tips area, this is worth a visit for any parent or teacher.

www.iif.ie

If the website of the Irish Insurance Federation does not seem the most obvious link from an educational page, you've obviously never studied economics or business organisation. Its sections on insurance statistics and a glossary of insurance terms alone make it a worthwhile visit for anyone studying or teaching anything that touches upon insurance. The newsletter of the Irish Insurance Federation is also included in the PDF format. A well designed site.

www.pluspublications.com

Plus Publications publishes two magazines, Francais Plus Deutsch Plus, aimed at teachers and students of French and German at senior cycle. The magazines were set up to specifically cater for the study of these languages in the Irish curriculum rather than for British A-levels. The advantage of visiting this website is that there are about 80 articles from previous issues stored there in PDF, so you can check it out before deciding about subscribing.