[JMT1985]

I don't have the figures to hand but about 60% of households pay for Cable/Sky/telecoms TV.... About 25% Have Satellite /Freeview Saorview  10% are Saorview only and there are a few percent in the Republic that have only UK TV (last time I saw a figure for that was 2020 and it was 4%). So it's approaching 30% that don't pay for UK TV in the Republic. Plus there are a lot of houses that have Sky in the main room or rooms and have Feeds from Freeview in other rooms (Several Households I've visited do this in Donegal ) I've stayed in a few places on Holiday in the republic and almost all of them had Freesat or Freeview. 

There's no question that Virgin Media are losing viewers in the 25% of houses that have Freesat/Freeview and Saorview. You can watch the Rugby in HD or in Vaseline vision on Virgin Media One

Most people (under the age of 50) I know in the Republic use the iplayer almost as much as the RTE player. ITVX is fairly popular as well.

So it seems a large chunk of people on Ireland use a VPN then