your domain name & host are two seperate entities. so you can have a xxxx.ie domain name hosted in the US or anywhere for that matter. You can choose any domain name .ie or .com given its availibility…. but it may or maynot be listed top if you search in google.com or google.ie or google.cn.
google employs a technology called as “pagerank”. every website is assigned a pagerank, aka priority. This pagerank is based on majorly the number of “back links” into your website. So the more number of other websites who refer to your website, better your pagerank. This way google acheives the relevancy of your website, and lists the pages in the search in that order. Now to answer your question, google’s pagerank algorithm may decide to give more priority to local websites (domain names). The host can lie anywhere.
So, you see different results based on which country based google service you choose to use. Hope that answers your questioin. good luck.

I don’t really know. Sorry.

Dear friend, I recommend a doman in format of .COM which is an international format and you can find millions of websites from all over the world which have chosen that format. They come from USA, CA, AU, India, China, … and also Ireland! Take into consideration that web hosting is a global service, it is not important you are located in Ireland or Ca or US. And also the cost of hosting services in UK and Au generally is high in compared with the same services in CA & US.

If you want to start a website I suggest you to purchase your domain and hosting together. In this way it is possible to get your domain for free. Some hosting services offer this gift today.

As an experienced webmaster I recommend BlueHost service which I’m sure it would work for you and fulfill all your requirements. They have a really great offer for hosting & I have used them for over 3 yrs now, and have never had a single problem with them. (One of my websites is an online business site)

They offer an installing service called “Fantastico”. By using this service, you can easily create your own shopping carts.

You can go there through the address below:

Here I have copied and pasted its features from their website to view:

- Multi-awarded
- Free Domain Forever
- 1500 Gigabyte Hosting Space
- 15000 GIGS of Transfer
- Host UNLIMITED Domains (Support All Domain Names)
- 2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
- SSH (Secure Shell), SSL, FTP, Stats
- CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
- 2000/2002 Front Page Extensions
- Free Site Builder
- 24/7 Superb/Responsive Sales/Support
- Free Search Engine Submission

******IMPORTANT*******
* This service was awarded as the best Web Host 2008.
* If you sign up for this service you will have $100 credits to advertise your business with the google & yahoo search engines for free!
* If you don’t exactly know what technical features you need for setting up your website, I recommend BlueHost as a full-featured service which fulfills all your requirements.
*************************
Good Luck!

I totally agree with Dave with one exception. I would suggest you get your domain name by itself on one day… wait 24 hours, then purchase a hosting package. That way, you are assured that you own the domain name. Sometimes when you get a domain name with a bundled package that includes a FREE domain name, and you decide to change hosting companies the next year, that domain name may not be yours to move. Before signing on the dotted line with any hosting site, read the fine print. It may say that your domain name is FREE as long as you host with that company. Since you’re looking at creating a shopping site, it’s important that you know for sure. I learned this lesson the hard way. I hope that helps. Good luck!

Go with .com
Use GoDaddy for registering domain name but NOT hosting.
Here’s a list of good hosts: