INTERNET COMMENTERS CAN get a bad rap sometimes.

However they play a big part here on TheJournal.ie, helping to make the site what it is. Every day several thousand comments are left on the site, shaping the discussion and kickstarting some lively debates (and despite what some commenters might believe, only a tiny number ever have to be deleted…).

We’ve compiled a list of the 10 comments which received the most thumbs up from other readers this year. As you might expect, many of the most popular comments were among the first posts on a breaking news story, expressing what many people felt about an issue. Some were funny, some insightful and some were sympathetic.

So here’s the 10 comments with the most thumbs up this year (all thumb figures correct as of 20 December). And before you ask – no, we’re not going to do a list of the comments which received the most thumbs down. That would be too cruel.

1. Caitriona Lowry got 3,889 thumbs up on the tragic discovery of the body of 65-year-old Peggy Mangan, who was found in Ballymun with her dog by her side, four days after she went missing from her Dublin home:

…so heartbroken for the family… It was so touching to hear her little doggie stayed by her side; not easy for a dog for 4 days with no food! She must have been a wonderful owner and lady. RIP

2. There wasn’t a whole lot of sympathy among commenters after former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was attacked by a man with a crutch in a Dublin pub. Liam got 2,853 thumbs up:

Is the crutch okay?

3. Andrea Rock Massey got 2,819 thumbs up after a gunman made an attempted hit on the life of criminal John Gilligan in a Dublin pub:

I think this was just an attempt by Gilligan to have Garda protection awarded to him. Never before has the gunman walked into a pub shouting the name of the person they were there to shoot. They typically seem to know exactly where the intended “victim” is sitting. Never mind going into a completely different pub for God’s sake! This has set up written all over it.

4. Stone.walled got 2,610 thumbs up after Bus Éireann passengers were reportedly terrorised by a rowdy group of people who threw urine around the coach.

It’s the bus drivers responsibility for his passengers.

All he had to do was ring the guards on the quiet and have them meet the bus at the next town.

5. Ollie O Sullivan got 2,532 thumbs up (and no thumbs down) after a British soldier was killed in a machete attack on a London street in May:

Honestly folks unless ye have something decent to say on a matter as serious as this say nothing at all, the world has turned into a place full of hatred and people looking for attention posting serious sh#t just to get a few likes and dislike

6. Lára de Siúin got 2,457 thumbs up on the article about the photograph of a young man and woman engaged in a sex act at the Eminem concert at Slane which was shared across social networking sites:

I’m cringing thinking about how mortified she must be feeling… Imagine your parents being shown that photo of you!

7. Brian O’Rourke got 2,452 thumbs up on how media around the world reacted to the story of Kerry County Council voting for a plan which would allow rural drivers to have ‘two or three drinks’.

This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious

8. The Cynic got 2,368 thumbs up after inmates at Mountjoy Prison poured water and sugar down the throat of the man who killed 16-year-old Melanie McCarthy McNamara

Two wrongs?

What on earth is wrong with the commenters here? This guy is a drug addict and gang member, who killed another drug gang member. All involved known to gardai. She was due to marry the intended victim (another drug gang member) in a few days, and was sitting in his car with him. While she wasn’t the intended victim that day, she was not exactly walking past with no links to this criminal whatsoever.

And now someone else in a drug gang has paid to kill this man in prison.

Neither the girl, nor this guy should be dead. It is not improving matters to keep killing, one after another. What happens next, this guys family take out a hit on whoever murders him, perhaps in his daughters name? And yet another bystander gets hurt.

I fail to see how perpetuating this kind of barbarism helps our crime problem in this country.

9. Seamus Mac Cormac Finishline got 2,314 thumbs up after the body of 20-year-old Irish student Davin Harrison was recovered from a US river in August after he got into trouble while rafting with friends:

God bless him and family ,I’m from donegal ,I’m in newyork if there is anything I can do to help ,I’m close to JFK too if any one needs a lift ,sorry to hear stuff like this :(.

10. Marie Louise Ni Riain got 2,307 thumbs up after former Priory Hall resident Stephanie Meehan wrote to Taoiseach Enda Kenny to intervene in the doomed development after her partner took his own life:

So sad, absolute disgrace

(Photos: Garda Press Office, Niall Carson/PA Wire, Niall Carson/PA Wire, Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland, John Giles/PA Wire, Julien Behal/PA Wire, Gawker.com, Graham Hughes/Photocall Ireland, Facebook, Photocall Ireland)