Eamonn Holmes has been crowned the king of Northern Ireland’s celebrity tweeters -- by discussing with his fans the details of having the cold.

While he has some way to go to match the 1m followers racked up by Stephen Fry, the popular TV presenter has built a following of 16,000 followers, overtaking Rory McIlroy last weekend as Northern Ireland’s most popular tweeter.

Eamonn began sending Twitter messages to his friends and fans in October and within less than two weeks broke the 10,000 follower barrier.

His tweet subjects this week have included the controversy over the France v Ireland football clash, describing Thierry Henry as the “worst cheat of all time”.

Eamonn also spent much of this week tweeting on the state of his health this week while he has been laid low with the cold. He also raised doubt about his ability to host Children in Need from Belfast tonight saying: “At the mo just don’t feel up to it.”

He also added: “The cough is the worst bit... but I’m sure I’ll live.”

Things move fast on Twitter and the number of people signing up to follow local celebs change by the minute.

Twitter is not everybody’s chosen social media platform. While boxer Wayne McCullough has fewer than 400 Twitter followers, he has more than 5,000 Facebook friends, plus a fan page with almost 1,500 members.

And Twitter has its own celebs. Blaine Cook, one of the founders of the site now lives in Northern Ireland, but few beyond the technology and web digerati will have heard of him. He adds new followers and admirers every day.

Radio Five Live and BBC1’s Working Lunch presenter Declan Curry is a big Twitter user and is also building up a substantial profile.

Like many celebs Zoe Salmon has a Twitter feed for friends only and a separate feed for fans and followers.

Some Northern Ireland celebs with fewest followers are either very new to the network or have abandoned it for Facebook. So Downtown’s Johnny Hero has few followers and rarely updates, but has over 1,000 friends on Facebook.

Eamonn Mallie with 179 followers is new, as is writer of the Murphy’s Law books Colin Bateman with only 42.