Who are the most influential Irish journalists on Twitter?

Good news for RTÉ broadcaster Des Cahill, aka @sportsdes: He has retained his position as the most influential journalist on Twitter as judged by the #murraytweetindex, a ranking by public relations firm Murray.

Back for its second year, Murray's list puts Newstalk's George Hook in the runner-up spot with Irish Times columnist Una Mullally in third.

The top 10 were rounded out by economist David McWilliams, Irish Times consumer affairs correspondent Conor Pope, Sunday Business Post columnist Elaine Byrne, Today FM political correspondent Gavan Reilly, Irish Times daily features editor and columnist Róisín Ingle, RTÉ journalist and presenter Philip Boucher-Hayes and Irish Times communities editor David Cochrane.

The index analysed more than 300 accounts in September-October 2015 and ranked the top 100 based on popularity, engagement and level of activity. Number of followers is the metric with the highest weighting, accounting for 30 per cent of the ranking, followed by number of retweets, which has a 25 per cent weight.

The biggest gainers compared to last year's analysis were Sunday Independent columnist Carol Hunt, Irish Times deputy business editor Dominic Coyle, and Richie Oakley, editor of the Ireland edition of The Times. RTÉ's US correspondent Caitriona Perry and Irish Times/Second Captains sports journalist Ken Early also rocketed up the list.

RTÉ has 21 journalists in the top 100, while the Irish Times has 18 and Independent News & Media 15. Newstalk has nine, the Sunday Business Post and Sunday Times both had four, and there were three from the Irish Examiner.

"Anyone with an interest in news will now most likely hear about a significant news event from Twitter well before a full report is posted online," says Murray's Doug Keatinge, who led the research.

“High-profile journalists on Twitter can play an important role in extending the reach of their outlet’s stories and potentially introducing the content to new audiences with a younger age profile.”

Any general election candidates who care about getting their message across on this particular social network may be interested to know that by Murray's reckoning the most influential political hacks are Gavan Reilly, Harry McGee of The Irish Times, Hugh O'Connell of TheJournal.ie, UTV Ireland's Mary Regan and Newstalk's Richard Chambers.

For any tweet-happy journalist who wants to check their placing and the rankings for other categories – including, ahem, business – the full list, plus all the category winners, is available for your obsessive perusal on murraytweetindex.ie.