Jay,
I got your address from Mike Peel of Wikimedia UK. I'm writing in connection with a discussion on-going to establish a Wikimedia chapter in Ireland.
We have set a date for a meet-up (the 25th of this month) with the possibility of an Irish chapter on the table. Ahead of this, we plan to issue a press release to advertise the meet-up and the possible discussion around the establishment of an Irish chapter to the largest possible audience.
Mike suggested that you may be able to advise on this and supply us with with some information about use of Wikimedia projects in Ireland (number of active editors, page hits, etc.). Both the en.wiki and the ga.wiki are of interest; and both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (though possibly as separate data sets). Is there any advice you would offer on the content of such a release? I would also appreciate it if yourself, someone else, the Wikimedia Foundation, Jimbo, the Board of Trustees, etc. could supply us with some statements on the possible establishment of a Irish chapter, Irish Wikimedians, Wikimedia in Ireland, etc. that we could use in a press release of this kind.
Finally, for the purposes of emailing the press, our colleagues in the UK have graciously offered to register wikimedia.ie in trust for us. (The .ie domain overlaps with .uk in Northern Ireland and an unincorporated association would likely be unable to register it owing to rules around the registration of .ie domain names.) Is the foundation OK with this? Or would it be possible to use a wikimedia.org email address until such time as we can register our own? Mike has advised us that this is likely a question more suited to Mike Godwin. If so, could you forward this question to him?
I have CC'ed the Wikimedia Ireland mailing list but included your email address as a BCC as you may not want it in the public domain.
Kind regards and many thanks in advance, Oliver Moran