John Herlihy, Google’s global head of advertising, recently revealed that Ireland is above the global average of daily YouTube views.

"YouTube.ie is currently running 1.1m hits a day,” said Herlihy about Ireland’s YouTube habits during roundtable with Vint Cerf.

“For a population of just 4.5m people,” added Herlihy, “that's an incredible impact from a science point of view.”

YouTube currently sees over 65 hours of video uploaded every minute and about three quarters of the material comes from outside the US, according to Silicon Republic.

Google purchased YouTube for a staggering $1.65 billion in late 2006, just a year after its conception. Google employs over 2000 people in Ireland and has announced plans for a $75 million data centre to be built in Dublin.