  We consider an extension of the holographic Ricci dark energy model by
introducing an interaction between dark energy and matter. In this model, the
dark energy density is given by $rho_{Lambda}=-frac{1}{2}alpha M_{p}^{2}{R}$,
where ${R}$ is the Ricci scalar curvature, $M_{p}$ is the reduced Planck mass,
and $alpha$ is a dimensionless parameter. The interaction rate is given by
$Q=gamma H rho_{Lambda}$, where $H$ is the Hubble expansion rate, and $gamma$
is a dimensionless parameter. We investigate current observational constraints
on this model by applying the type Ia supernovae, the baryon acoustic
oscillation and the CMB anisotropy data. It is shown that a nonvanishing
interaction rate is favored by the observations. The best fit values are
$alpha=0.45 pm 0.03$ and $gamma=0.15 pm 0.03$ for the present dark energy
density parameter $Omega_{Lambda 0}=0.73 pm0.03$.
