it's far from handy. You're in luck in some ways in that thre are records going back centuries. Unfortunately not all are online. Each region (I think by county) had a genealogy service partially funded a few years back but they've almost all closed - may be what you've found, they were money-making businesses (not for profit they claim:
http://www.rootsireland.ie/ifhf/terms.php), so you'll be on your own. There's apparently a very good site run by the mormons(!) but I've never used it.
Pretty much all records are publically available but you may need to visit. Going back a few generations the local records were all held by the local churches and still are (for free). You could try contacting the national library in dublin as they have copies of loads, but bizarrelly quite a few were destroyed by the govt at the foundation of the state.
I guess you've seen this?
http://www.nationalar...ealogy/beginning.html