Remo
If you are a sole trader the simplest way to do it is to register a business name with the CRO which will cost you about 20 euro. If you intend to trade as anything other than yourself you are meant to register a business name anyway, so it won't hurt.
You can then apply for a domain name.
If the domain name is identical or similar to the registered business name you would use:
Sole trader - registered business name
and supply the cro number
If the domain name wasn't obviously connected to the business name you would choose:
Sole trader - Discretionary
and provide tangible proof of the connection to the domain name.
Registering them isn't hard and if you have a serious project in mind it is well worth the small bit of effort involved.
In
seo terms it will definitely help a LOT if you are targetting the Irish market.
In terms of a business it gives peace of mind, as each domain is registered to a real person / business, which is not the case in .com where there is zero validation
You will also have a much wider range of choices open to you in the IE namespace, as there are far fewer domains registered (sub 100k vs. the millions in .com)
Anyone who says they're not worth the hassle really doesn't know what they are talking about and is basing their views on the way things used to be. It used to be a complicated process - it isn't anymore
We're now connecting directly into the
IEDR via their API, which means that the manual element in registrations has been reduced significantly. It's not as automated as .com or .eu, but it's definitely getting there