Question about google.com vs. google.ie

It's not for either of these reasons. It is not ranking in other countries simply because the signals that it is sending to google has caused google to conclude that it is only relevant content in the US. The site is geo-targeted to the US. In order to geo-target it to other countries you can post an address in that country on one of your pages, get links from websites that are geo-targeted to that country already, or register "yourdomain.ie" and redirect it to your main page.

I think your friend is experiencing something rather more subtle.

He's been doing his research diligently, looking at all the opposition, checking it out for gaps in their story. Night after night, he gets a brainwave about a new direction to tackle, checks it out. It works, he bookmarks the site and sleeps happily.

Which is what any decent internetter does, right?

Now what does Google think of all this activity? Because Google has its dreadful "Personalized Search" which screws up search results because it thinks you are interested in the answers it gives you.

This is the subtle bit: Your pal has been searching for his opposition. Your pal sees the opposition because of his history. What's more, Google make it darned hard to turn off this stupid algorithm. If they made it simple to do, publicized it even, they might find out just how many people switched the stupid thing off*.

Of course, your friend may be canny enough to have done that, in which case it might be that ThatABlaze is right. Only, how do you know? [B]Let's get down to the paydirt: are you getting traffic from Ireland? Don't forget that there are 4.5 million Irish, there are 230 million Americans. You will get less traffic from Ireland. They have different likes, different interests, and don't like the American tone of voice that much, either.

Does this help any??

*More here at SEOmoz

To properly set geotargeting it’s better to register a country-specific domain and a local server, because they help Google to identify a site’s targeted region. As you have a generic TLD, you can use an .ie subdomain based on TLD, and then the site will be shown in local searches as well.

As Punit12 has already mentioned, you need to apply country-specific settings in Google Webmasters Tool. Also make sure that you mention the exact location of a business, as well as contact information, an address and a phone number. Moreover, you may add Google map somewhere on the site, on ‘how to get there’ or ‘contact information’ page.

If you are using PPC advertising for the site, it is possible to set an AdWords campaign targeting to the specific location and set the destination URLs of individual ads. Also you may go for slightly modifying the site’s content and use some keywords that have local references in it.