In second place, at half an hour per visit, is King. com . . . the largest 'skill' gaming website in the world where you can play games like pinball, bowling and word puzzles for free or sign up to win cash prizes.

Disney. co. uk comes in third for the most time spent on a site, indicating the low age profile of internet users.

Bebo, the social networking site that boasts one million accounts in Ireland, comes in at no 4 with the average user spending just over 25 minutes on the site per visit. Visitors to premierleague. com spend an average of 20 minutes browsing, closely followed by the apartment and housing rental site daft. ie.

Paddy Power told the Sunday Tribune that the company was happy that Irish people were spending more time on the company's poker site per visit than any other website.

"The common sense reason is that poker takes a good while to play, but clearly it's a very popular site with lots of different types of games, " Power said. "It means that people are satisfied with the site if they are playing for long amounts of time." The company said the statistic showed how popular poker has become in Ireland recently.

"Playing poker is a good evening's entertainment. It's indicative of the boom in poker online and in pubs and clubs around the country. Poker is a sexy thing to do now."

On the more straightforward list of the most popular sites, search engines reign supreme with two entries each for Google, Yahoo and MSN making up most of the top 10.

Ryanair is 11th and Aer Lingus 16th most popular. Ebay is at 14, Wikipedia at 16 and RTE. ie at 17. AIB moves to no 18, indicating the growing popularity of online banking.

Most visited websites

1. Google. ie
2. MSN. com
3. Bebo. com
4. Google. com
5. Yahoo. com
6. Hotmail. com
7. MSN. ie
8. Ryanair. com
9. Yahoo. co. uk
10. Microsoft. com

Top websites for time spent per visit

1. Paddypowerpoker. com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58.7 minutes
2. King. com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30.4 minutes
3. Disney. co. uk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27.8 minutes
4. Bebo. com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25.2 minutes
5. Nih. gov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 minutes
6. HMV. co. uk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.9 minutes
7. Match. com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.1 minutes
8. Stardoll. com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21.4 minutes
9. Deviantart. com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21.3 minutes
10. Littlewoodsireland. ie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20.4 minutes