Indigo Internet

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Indigo Internet was established in late 1995 as an Internet service provider in Dublin, Ireland. Originally founded by Macky Moyna, Indigo was believed to be one of the most popular ISPs in Ireland with over 16,000 subscribers, though others question the validity and accuracy of these users.^[1]

Their sudden appearance as a new company that would provide internet services caused a stir amongst the small number of communications companies and individuals who were active in Ireland at that time. This raised many questions when Bill O Herlihy's Public relations company announced when questioned that Indigo would provide approximately a 4 million punt (Irish pounds) investment in interenet services.

Approximately 3 months after their launch in early 1996, Indigo were subject to an article in Computimes, a special section on computing run weekly by the Irish Times, about a security breach in their system. This story due to the interest in the development of the internet made the font page of the Irish Times. They, Indigo, had placed a file containing what was believed to be most if not all of their users usernames and passwords into a public file download area. The file was acquired by Computimes staff and opened to expose the security content. Some of their competitors referred this incident as the "Who do you want to be today" incident, reflecting on the then popular Microsoft advert "Where do you want to go today."

When the investors were asked about the source of their investment, they stated that this was from repatriated profits from Cuba and was in the region of approximately 4 million Irish Punts (Pounds). This relationship i.e. the admission of trading with Cuba is believed to be the real cause of their withdrawal from Indigo as the source of their internet connection was carried via a United States company which could not legally trade with Cuban connected interests at that time. This, after allegations of ties with the Irish Republican Army and questions regarding Indigo's investment sources, led to the company being initially sold off to one of the amusement companies in Bray (would this be an obvious choice of diversification) and then some months later, resold to a consortium of investors headed by Shay Moran and supported by Davy Stockbrokers.

It was subsequently sold to Telecom Éireann^[2], the incumbrent Irish telephone and state monopoly who had received additional monies from a decision of government allowiong them to minimise their tax liabiity and so maximise cash flow giving them an ability to expand. The Department of Communication requested a second audit by Stokes Kennedy Crowley of Telecome Eireann's first annual statement prepared by independent audit on a private company basis by Price Waterhouse was being questioned. This stated that there was an under report between 80 to 90 million pounds in tax. (estimated to be about 140 - 160 millions today)

This second report has never been made public or discussed in any public arena. Some believe this bounty from government should be considered to be an undisclosed payment for ensuring Ireland's Internet future had apparently no hidden issues and no attached rumour of criminality of corrumption. This benefit also was that Telecom Eireann showed financial results well beyond expectations and these were used by promoters to hype Eircom shares sales which initially climbed to a high level after launch and their take up by many Irish citizens, being presented as the most successful public company launch in Ireland. Indigo was retained for some years as a separate internet company unit and had some key Eircom staff "dropped" into this. These key staff later returned to Eircom. After its absorption some years later into Eircom, it disappeared as a working entity except for some users who retained their email addresses.

Questions into the original start up by Donal Moyna were highlighted by incidents such as the news that a man who Federal officials say was a member of the Irish Republican Army was being held on charges of carrying $13,500 in counterfeit $50 bills at La Guardia Airport, when arrested. The suspect, Donal Patrick Moyna, then 29 years old, of Dublin, was about to board a plane for Providence, R.I., when he was stopped by agents of the U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Andrew J. Maloney, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. ^[3]

The strangest part of this incident is that even though he was caught "red" handed, he was quickly released by the U.S. authorities and allowed to leave their country. It is believed that the investigators were not happy with this turn of events.

In 1998, the national telephone company, ^[4] saw the need to enter the ISP market and made an offer for Indigo which was accepted by the consortium of investors, including Shay Moran.^[5][6]

Indogp was purchased by Eircom^[7]

^[8] Indigo effectively no longer exists as all of its activities have been subsumed into Eircom (Formerly, Telecom Éireann). It is now impossible to sign up for a new account and the Indigo website now simply points to Eircom services.

See also

• List of Irish companies

External links

• Official site

Now redirects to Eir^[9]

References