Website hosting

Considering a website for your diocese, parish or organisation?

The following is an overview of the services that Church of Ireland Hosting Services is able to offer:

• Free webspace
  We can offer you the option either a shared Windows 2008 or a Linux Server with Apache 2.2.  As these are shared webservers, your site will be hosted on a server with many other websites, most of which will not be Church of Ireland sites.
  If you are considering WordPress or Joomla, the Linux Server is ideal.
• A domain name
  You can have a domain name linked into the widely adopted Church of Ireland/Anglican network (e.g. http://tullylish.dromore.anglican.org, http://booterstown.dublin.anglican.org).
  We are the only people able to offer this naming convention, but it is restricted to “official” Church of Ireland bodies (e.g. Church of Ireland parishes or organisations) as recognised by the Internet Committee of the Central Communications Board.
• Email forwarding facilities
  Provision of email addresses using the anglican.org naming convention
  e.g. fahan@raphoe.anglican.org
  This address is configured to forward email to an existing account e.g. @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, email.com.  Please note, there are occasional issues with forwarding to @outlook.com, @hotmail.com and @hotmail.co.uk email addresses, this is outside of our control.
  If you wish to ‘send as’ an anglican.org email address, you may need to set up an email alias in your preferred email service.  Please consult your email provider’s help files for this and note that not all services will provide this facility.
• FTP facilities
  You will be issued with full FTP facilities so that you can upload the files for your website.
• A free 150MB MySQL database
  A MySQL database is essential if you wish to use a Content Management System (such as Joomla or WordPress).  150MB is adequate for most parishes or organisations.  A 300MB database is available, but will incur a cost.
• SSL certificate/HTTPS
  This may be provided at a minimal cost of £25 excluding VAT per annum.   
  As all websites are hosted on shared webservers, there may be an issue with the www. subdomain of your website (ie www.parish.diocese.anglican.org may not function, though https://parish.diocese.anglican.org would)
• What will it cost?
  To encourage parishes and organisations to publish their own websites, there is currently no charge for basic web site hosting using the anglican.org domain structure.

What we do not provide:

• Backups
  We do not provide backups for websites or databases, and recommend that regular backups are taken.  It is recommended that frequent backups are taken, particularly before undertaking development work.  Details on how to backup websites and databases are available here.

Please contact us for details on our other offerings or if you have any queries, for terms and conditions, or to order your account.

See here for the terms and conditions (including bandwidth usage policy) under which this service operates.

Please contact Church of Ireland Hosting Services if you have any queries or to order your account.

The initial contact should come from the incumbent, but in the case of a vacancy from the rural dean, archdeacon, diocesan communications officer, or other official in the diocese will suffice.

Please note that hosting is only available for official Church of Ireland websites which are approved by the Central Communications Board.
 

Related policies

Website hosting terms and conditions

Copyright and the internet

Social media guidelines

Safeguarding