Choosing the right domain name and tld ( the .com, .eu, .ie bit ) is an important choice when setting up a new website.

Should you get a .ie or a .com?
should you go for a name with hyphens or without?

There are several things that you should take into consideration:

1. who is your target audience
2. what search terms do you want the site to be found under

If you own an Irish business and your customer base is largely based in Ireland then you want to reflect that with your domain name.
You will also want new customers to be able to find you in the major search engines. Many of these search engines take into account the domain tld when compiling their results. This means that when you search from Ireland .ie domains are given preference over other domain types. Also with a .ie domain you are more likely to find a domain name that you want as there are less registered then a .com for example.
However if you own a business that is looking to expand into other countries or move its products onto the web to reach a global market, then a non localised tld would be a better choice such as a .com , .net, .info.

So what if you are setting up a brand new website that is going to be an entirely web based project. Well assuming you want to receive visitors to the site the domain and tld is more important than ever?
If you want to reach as many people as possible then one of the global tlds would best. Take a look at the different Domain Name tlds. It would also be of benefit to choose a domain name that contained one or more of the keywords you want the site to be found under. for example if you were setting up a jobs site then finding a domain name with the word “jobs” in it would be a good choice.

From a users point of view a domain name with no hyphens is easier to remember and type into the url. However you have to remember that most of your visitors are going to find you in a search engine such as Google and using hyphen can enable you to get a better choice of domain name and also allow for better separation of keywords.