A Very Irish Scandal 🎟️🇮🇪

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic is back on this mid-summer Fri-yay, bringing you all the bits of news and views we could unearth concerning the Irish people, both at home and abroad. If you dislike this weekly newsletter, keep it to yourself, fella. If you love it, don’t be shy and tell a friend to sign up here.

News from Home

Presidential Member. MMA star and Irish Presidential hopeful Conor McGregor has got himself in a bit of bother after rapper Azealia Banks leaked photos of Mr. McGregor’s, um, little McGregor. Banks says McGregor sent the nude pics unsolicited. Normally, we’d say this kind of thing would ruin any budding political career, but hey, it’s the roaring batshit mental twenties, so who knows?

Movie Biz. Coupla bits of news about Ireland on screen. First, there are three Irish stars nominated for the Emmys – Big Ride Colin Farrell, the class Sharon Horgan, and the brilliant Ruth Negga. All well deserved. Secondly, there’s a really interesting report on why the movie biz is booming over here. Spoiler: it’s down to tax breaks. But we are cheap: So Hollywood producers, come on over here and we can have the next Jurassic Park movie set somewhere like Limerick or Killybegs.

Late Night Vibes. A prisoner in Mountjoy Prison became a social media star after filming himself watching the FIFA Club World Cup, frying up sausage and bacon, smoking a joint, and using a mobile phone. The lag was obviously savvy about the socials, using hashtags like #LateNightVibes and #WorkHardStayHumble. All fairly normal, until you remember that most of this stuff is either contraband or illegal. It led to a mad dash from the prison guards to discover how the budding Insta star got all this stuff into his cell.

Wooly Island. We LOVE pointlessly-brilliant stuff done for nothing but the craic, so our eye was caught by the news that a crochet club knitted a huge map of Ireland out of wool. It took four years to knit, and it looks fecking class. See it here.

The Irish Influence

This week’s Irish influence is not a person, but an entity – the Irish pub. You’ll know we venerate the Irish pub, not as an imbibing emporium (although that part is fun), but as a community space, one that is vital to so many Irish people. And yet, the alarm bells are ringing: A new report shows that 2100 pubs have closed in the last twenty years; around four per county per year. Rural areas are the worst hit. There are many reasons – taxes, inflation, a post-pandemic culture of staying home – but what’s worrying to us is that the grassroots campaigns to save the pubs are limited, and political pressure is almost non-existent. It should be a national priority.

Cúpla Focal

Geansaí Buí – {Gan-Sai BU-EE} Yellow Jersey. We highlight this phrase – yellow (buí) and jersey (geansaí) – this week for one specific reason: Ben Healy became the first Irishman in 40 years to hold the Yellow Jersey in the Tour de France. It looks unlikely that he will win the whole shebang, but it’s an amazing feat. Bualadh bos, Ben.

Blast from the Past

July 14th was Bastille Day, and like most places outside of the francophone world, it passed without most Irish people knowing it. However, it’s probably not common knowledge that the Irish flag was created by French women, who were sympathetic to the cause of Irish independence. Irish nationalists received the flag in 1848. It is based on the French Tricolor, and it is meant to symbolize peace between Catholics and Protestants. That took a while to work out, unfortunately. And a little shout out to Irish History Bitesize, who you can follow here, for this lovely little nugget of history and many more like it. Merci!

And One Last Thing….

A Very Irish Scandal. Tickets to the All-Ireland Football and Hurling Finals are among the most difficult to source items at this time of year. One of the most equitable solutions offered by the GAA is to release a limited number of tickets to the hundreds of GAA clubs across the island. This allows real fans to have a chance to see the big games. Most often, the clubs then do raffles, giving everyone an equal chance of getting one. Yet, suspicions were raised after one Co. Cork club, Glanmire, conducted its raffle for the All-Ireland Hurling Final, and, coincidentally, the winners were the club chairman, manager, secretary, team captain, sponsor, and club treasurer. It went viral on Irish social media, with many making comparisons to a classic Father Ted scene. We here at The Craic are not sure if Glanmire GAA has a litigious legal team, so we would just like to say for the record: we are sure everything was above board 😉.

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