BREXIT, THE ÁRAS race and the Beast from the East were among the most-discussed topics among Irish Twitter users this year, the social media giant has revealed.

New data from the company shows how 2018 was another year for political discussion on the platform in Ireland, with the three most-shared hashtags about Irish news all relating to current affairs.

The #repealthe8th hashtag was the top-shared hashtag by Irish people on Twitter this year, with other popular hashtags on the topic including #together4yes, #8thref, #savethe8th and #repealthe8th.

However, political and meteorological storms weren’t far behind, with discussion about Brexit, the Presidential election and Storm Emma among next most popular hashtags of the year.

The top five hashtags of the year were:

1. #repealthe8th
2. #brexit
3. #áras18
4. #beastfromtheeast
5. #gdpr

Storm Emma also provided one of the most popular tweets in Ireland during 2018, when the Mater Hospital shared information about their staff staying at the facility overnight.

People also recalled the events involving a JCB at Lidl in Tallaght, and the @lidl_ireland account caused a stir with this tweet the following Monday.

International topics featured heavily on Irish Twitter in 2018, with the World Cup, Donald Trump and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in May all widely discussed.

The top international news hashtags were:

1. #brexit
2. #worldcup
3. #trump
4. #royalwedding
5. #russia

Current affairs was also a hot topic when it came to those who tweeted while watching Irish television: three of the top five spots in this category went to the Tonight Show (#tonighttv3), RTÉ Prime Time (#rtept) and Claire Byrne Live (#cblive).

Internationally, the biggest day on Twitter this year was 5 February, when the closing ceremony for the winter Olympics took place.

Meanwhile, the top three hashtags shared around the world this year were #nowplaying, #newprofilepic and #bbb18 (Big Brother TV show Brazil).