When it comes to telephone services, the Irish market has a variety of services from which to choose. Note that prices vary from one provider to the next. The smartest decision is to shop around and compare rates before deciding on a company.  
Competition in the Irish telecoms market results a variety of telephone service providers from which to choose. Prices do vary across service providers so it is wise to shop around. Typically, you will have you landline connected by Eircom once you have this you can choose different providers.

You will usually be charged for line rental, which is the monthly cost of your phone line plus the minutes you have talked. Some companies are offering free line rental so watch out for special offers!

Some providers are offering special plans for international calls (mostly western European countries); meaning that you pay a monthly fee and you can be on the phone as much as you want with your family and friends at home free. Please note that this deal only applies on calling landlines. This will cost you around €25/month.

If you have broadband internet at home you can also use Skype, Yahoo messenger, MSN, etc to do free calls. Of course, the one you are calling needs to have the same software on the other end. You can also call landlines from Skype using your credit card. Typically, it is still cheaper than other telecoms but the quality is not always good. The faster broadband connection you have, the better the voice quality becomes.

Telecoms in Ireland:

www.btireland.ie
www.chorus.ie
www.talktalk.ie
www.eircom.ie
www.skytel.ie
www.dometelecom.com
www.smarttelecom.ie
www.swiftcall.ie
www.vartec.ie

Internet based Telephony:

messenger.msn.com
messenger.yahoo.com
www.skype.com