Category Archives: Business & Environment

Irish media: past, present and future

I am reading Newspapers and Nationalism: the Irish provincial press, 1850-1892, by Dr. Marie-Louise Legg.

The book offers a “survey and analysis of the ‘Fourth Estate’and its impact and involvement on nationalist politics in Ireland in the second half of the Victorian age,” as detailed in this review. Legg “gets inside the period and writes to us about the newspapers themselves, their editors, the people who bought them and, those who actually read them and whether or not were influenced by them in their morals, intellects and politics.”

This title belongs to the important niche of books about Irish media, including:

These studies explore how journalism impacted politics and society, and visa versa, before, during and after Ireland’s revolutionary period, 1912-1922, now commemorating its “decade of centenaries.”

There are also important contemporary developments in Irish media.

  • Irish lawmakers are trying to criminalize the use of social media and technology to spread “fake news” to influence political debate, as detailed by Poynter’s Daniel Funke.
  • Irish Times columnist Una Mullally organized a forum to explore sexual harassment, gender discrimination and female under representation in the media industry.
  • The Irish Times’ parent company has agreed to acquire all the publishing and media interests of Landmark Media Group, the Cork-based owner of the Irish Examiner newspaper and other media assets.
  • Dublin-based Maximum Media, the company behind “digital lifestyle brands” JOE.ie, Her.ie, SportsJOE.ie and HerFamily.ie, is investing in a new Galway office and adding 20 new jobs  in copywriting, design, journalism, sales and client services.

Learn more about what’s happening in the industry today–and what’s on the horizon for tomorrow–at The Institute of Future Media & Journalism (FuJo) at Dublin City University.

Image of press plates, circa 1935, from the Independent Newspapers Collection at the National Library of Ireland.

Ireland and Britain reach border deal

UPDATE 2:

Ireland, Britain and the European Union announced agreement (8 December) to avoid a hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the deal “had “achieved all that we set out to achieve” in this phase of the Brexit negotiations.

Read the full text of the agreement.

UPDATE 1:

The border deal has collapsed, at least for today (4 December), due to DUP objections.

Here’s a good explanation and background story from The Washington Post.

ORIGINAL POST:

Ireland and Britain have reached a deal to prevent the return of a hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, according to The Irish Times and other media outlets.

Negotiators have agreed on the term “regulatory alignment” to describe customs rules and trade practices between the north and south of Ireland, rather than a formal commitment to “no divergence” originally sought by Ireland.

The reported deal comes weeks ahead of more wide-ranging Brexit negotiations between Britain and the European Union (of which the Republic remains a member) later this month.

Some early press reports portray the agreement as a concession to Ireland by Britain, which has angered the Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP could block the deal “given Theresa May’s dependence on the party for a working majority in the Commons.”

I’ll update this post as more details emerge.

Unholy trinity of bad news for Ireland

UPDATE:

Fintan O’Toole hits on two of the three items mentioned below, and more, in his column “Ireland is nobody’s little darling anymore.”

ORIGINAL POST:

It’s said that death and other bad news come in threes. This trio just arrived:

  • France won the right to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup, with Ireland finishing a distant third in voting behind South Africa. The World Rugby Council decision also means the tournament is likely to head to the Southern Hemisphere in 2027.
  • Ireland is the worst performing country in Europe for taking action against climate change, according to the 2018 Climate Change Performance Index. Dropping 28 places from last year, Ireland now ranks 49 out of 59 countries. Ireland is also “back-sliding” on its targets to achieve a 100 percent renewable energy system by 2050.
  • Dublin is now rated one of the worst cities in the world to emigrate to due to the lack of affordable housing and high cost of living, according to Expat Insider 2017.

Expensive Dublin will not be hosting any rugby World Cup games in 2023, and the Irish government located in the capital city isn’t doing enough to combat climate change.

Guest post: Welcome home to Ireland

I’m always happy to publish a guest post from people visiting or just returned from Ireland. My good friend Sister Cathy Cahill, OSF, a globe-trotting retreat leader and spiritual director, just sent the correspondence below. Last year, she wrote about the 1916 Easter Rising centenary. MH

***

It is always a joy to be in Ireland! The greeting that always takes me by surprise and warms my Irish-American heart is, “Welcome home!” It comes from friends and strangers alike.

My current visit comes after two weeks in Thailand and Myanmar. The contrast could not be greater with regard to climate, culture, pace, and scenery. After a few days in Dublin, where my sister’s quiet neighborhood has become a huge construction zone for much-needed apartments, I’ve shifted to the pastoral setting of County Louth for some rest and renewal.

Lovely Louth countryside.

There are none of the cranes dotting the horizon here as there were in Dublin. As I gaze out the window, it is sheep and cattle and verdant countryside that meet the eye.

The papers and radio programs are filled with voices raised against the latest problem on people’s minds, the tracker-mortgage scandal. It seems bankers have systematically overcharged consumers on mortgages. Much cynicism is voiced about whether bankers will be held accountable.

The good news that has grabbed headlines is the release of Ibrahim Halawa, a Dubliner who was held in an Egyptian prison for four years. An Irish citizen, Halawa got caught up in a protest while visiting family in Egypt. The ordeal has been long and harrowing so the joy of his return is great.

The Irish are happy to shout, “Welcome home!”

Ophelia brings weather madness to Ireland

UPDATE:

Storm Brian brings flooding to Limerick city, disrupts rail service.

ORIGINAL POST:

Ireland’s worst storm in more than 50 years has killed three people, disconnected power to more than 360,000 others, closed schools and businesses, blocked roads and halted transit systems, plus other chaos.

The remnants of Hurricane Ophelia lashed the island’s southwest coast with winds of more than 90 mph. Surging seas pounded coastal waterfronts as rainfall created scattered inland flooding.

Nearly 20,000 additional people were left without power in Northern Ireland as the storm moved northeastward across the island. Ophelia also disrupted talks aimed at restoring the Northern Executive and Assembly, The Irish Times reported.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was due to meet the DUP and Sinn Féin in Belfast … to encourage them to end the political deadlock. That plan had to be abandoned due to the storm, although there is a possibility he could meet the parties sometime on [17 October].

Eleven people died when Hurricane Debbie hit Ireland in September 1961. The National Geographic explains “three weird impacts” from the latest storm.

Post-Famine: Ireland is world’s most “food secure” nation

One hundred seventy years after “Black ’47,” the worst year of Ireland’s Great Famine, the 26-county Republic is now considered the world’s most “food secure” nation, according to a new report.

The sixth annual Global Food Security Index is based on food affordability, availability, quality and safety. Other factors include access to financing for farmers and prevalence of undernourishment. The report was designed and constructed by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

See the details for Ireland‘s first place finish score of 85.6. The United Kingdom, including the six counties of Northern Ireland, ranked third at 84.2, behind the United States at 84.6.

While The Irish Times has not yet reported the Economist’s finding, the venerable daily could not resist the appetizing news that eight Irish restaurants have received the Michelin Guide “Bib” award for  “good quality at good value.” Four of the trendy eateries are in Dublin city, while the other four are in counties Kildare, Clare, Galway and Down.

It’s long, long way from the 19th century potato blight.

Synge’s ‘Playboy’ arrived in Ireland long before Hef’s mag

The New York Times proclaims: “Hugh Hefner, the Original Playboy, Is Dead at 91.” Vanity Fair describes the dearly departed (27 September 2017) magazine publisher as “the indefatigable (albeit Viagra-enhanced) Playboy of the western world.”

We can only wonder what the late Irish playwright John Millington Synge would have thought. His play, “The Playboy of the Western World,” debuted in January 1907 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin,  well before the December 1953 appearance of “Hef’s” Chicago-based skin mag. As The Washington Post reports:

Hefner had planned to call his magazine Stag Party, but when the publishers of another men’s magazine named Stag threatened to sue, a colleague came up with an inspired afterthought: Playboy.

The Online Etymology Dictionary says the term for a “wealthy bon vivant” dates to 1829.

Synge died in 1909, two years after his play offended Irish moral sensibilities and sparked riots. In a 2011 theater review, The Guardian noted:

Synge had clad his maidens in shifts, presumably to mollify strict moralists among his Abbey audience. But perhaps he half-suspected a truth which Hugh Hefner would later turn into a different Playboy business: that a scantily clad woman can be even more inflammatory to the jaded imagination of male puritans than one who is wholly naked.

Playboy magazine was banned in Ireland until 1995. Twenty years later, Ireland became the first nation in the world to legalize same sex marriage by popular referendum.

Synge

The Americans, and Irish Americans, in Ireland

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) of Ireland 21 September 2017 released migration and diversity data from the last national census. The report shows there were 535,475 non-Irish nationals living in the country in April 2016, a 1.6 percent decrease from 2011.  However, the numbers of people holding dual citizenship (Irish-other country) increased by 87.4 percent to 104,784 persons.

America was among 12 nations with over 10,000 of its citizens living in Ireland, which combined accounted for 73.6 percent of the total non-Irish national population. The 10,519 U.S. citizens living in Ireland last year was slightly fewer than the 11,015 recorded in the 2011 census.

The number of U.S. citizens living in greater Dublin increased to 4,092 in 2016, up from 3,473 in 2011. Over that five years, Cork and Limerick cities also gained Americans; Galway and Waterford cities lost U.S. residents. (My ancestral county of Kerry’s U.S. population declined to 401 from 481.)

Irish-Americans (17,552) comprised the largest group of dual citizenship residents, followed by Irish-U.K. (15,428). Again, Dublin was the stronghold for this demographic, with just over a quarter (26.4 percent) of the statewide total. The Irish-American population also increased in the other Irish cities. (Irish-Americans in Kerry reached 1,000, from 891 in 2011.)

Over 700 U.S. companies have operations in Ireland, employing more than 150,000 people (Irish, Americans, and others), according to the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland. Business sectors include software, pharma, med-tech and finance.

All wet: Houston’s Irish slosh through Harvey

Stories of Irish men and women caught in the flood waters of Hurricane Harvey, which continues drenching Houston, are surfacing in media.

“I have never seen anything like it in my life,” County Down (NI) man Chris Bohill told RTÉ (via The Belfast Telegraph.) “Where I live there was a park and a baseball field now it’s just an ocean. It is phenomenal.”

The Irish Echo has a story about a County Carlow girl battling a rare form of cancer who was trapped in an apartment as she waited to see a specialist at the city’s Children’s Hospital.

The Irish Times has a roundup of several first person accounts. Earlier this year, the Times reported on Houston’s “small, but proud Irish community.”

The city is home to an Irish Network chapter, and The Irish Society of Houston.

Photo by Thomas B. Shea/AFP/Getty Images, via abcnews.go.com.

Fintan O’Toole’s ‘State of Us’ series

Fintan O’Toole, a columnist at The Irish Times for nearly 30 years, has just finished a four-part series of reflections about the state of modern Ireland. His thoughts are contextualized by last year’s Easter Rising centenary and the massive political, social, economic and religious changes on the island, north and south, especially over the past decade.

The series is called the “State of Us,” and it’s well worth the read.

Part 1: Ireland’s story doesn’t make sense any more

Part 2: Irish identity is no longer fit for purpose

Part 3: Irish nationalism needs a revolution

Part 4: The ties that bind