Dublin Down on Gridiron 🏈🐸

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic returns with a whiff of September on the horizon, bringing news of the Irish at home and abroad. The Craic is the weekly newsletter from Shift, our app connecting Irish and Irish lovers globally. If you haven’t got Shift yet, get it here. And if you’d like someone else to have The Craic, stick their email in here.

News from Home

Egg Ball! It’s not too often you get Dubs talking about the Tar-Heels and Horned Frogs, yet here we are. It’s the Aer Lingus Classic tomorrow, with thousands of North Carolinians and Texas Christian University-ians in town, as well as Big Bill Belichick, the Tar Heels coach who won the Super Bowl about seventy hundred and seventy-three times (or so it felt like) with the Patriots. Anyway, we are over the moon that this is now locked in as an annual event - Pittsburgh vs. Wisconsin next summer ✍️ - and that Ireland is seen as the land of choice to usher in the new college football season. As an aside, we’ve been reading up on our college team slogans: TCU’s slightly sinister “Fear the Frog” is top drawer, and we also love North Carolina’s does-what-it-says “I’m a Tar Heel Born” (If you say so), but can any Razorbacks fans explain what “Woo Pig Sooie” means? TIA.

Winner. The Irish Bar of the Year awards were held this week, crowning Pig’s Lane, County Kerry, as the overall winner. It’s well deserved, too, known for its locally sourced grub, great music and treasure trove of rare whiskeys. Dozens of awards were handed out – both national and regional – covering everything from best cocktail bartender to best tourist bars. The list is here, which includes several favorites voted by locals. If you’re coming here for a wee visit, using a list like that is far better than relying on TripAdvisor, in our book.

Easy Listening. There’s some cool stuff happening on NPR over the next two weeks. The World Café show is dedicating two weeks to Dublin as part of its Sense of Place series. That means you can tune in and hear loads of Irish musical acts – some established, some next in line for stardom. The series began on Monday, but you can catch up and get more info here.  Oh, and if you want some expertly curated Irish bangers, Shift has made this Electric-Picnic-themed playlist for ya in honor of Ireland’s biggest pop festival this weekend.

Oscar Race. Bit too early to be talking about the Oscars now, but we did want to point you in the direction of Aontas, an Irish-language thriller that will be put forward by Ireland’s film board for the Academy’s foreign-language shortlist. This stuff is important for us. Not just for Irish cinema, but for keeping the spotlight on the Irish language.

The Craic Recommends….Kafka for Kids. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? But it – a show called Kafka’s Doll – is one of many weird and wonderful events at Dublin Fringe Festival 2026. It starts next Saturday in Dublin and runs for 14 days after that. What we love about the Dublin Fringe is its strong emphasis on inclusivity, including financial inclusivity, meaning anyone can experience world-class theater and art shows for next to nothing. Get a full breakdown of the events here and, of course, there’s also event info on Shift.

The Irish Influence

We have to admit that we are as guilty as anyone else of automatically saying “Rory” when asked to talk about Irish golf. But right now, the Women’s Irish Open is taking place at the K-Club, and we wanted to salute some of our female talent competing in an event rightly growing in stature. They include Leona Maguire, Aine Donegan, Annabel Wilson, Anna Foster and Sara Byrne. And keep an eye out for Canice Screene. She may be ranked outside the world’s top 800, but she’s been going great guns across her first two rounds, putting herself in contention over the weekend. Also, a little Shift shoutout to Lauren Walsh competing this weekend, too. Lauren’s dad, James Walsh, is an old pal of our skipper, Patrick, and they won the Leinster Schools’ Football Championship together back in the day.

Cúpla Focal

Aontas {Ayun-tuss} – Unity, Alliance, Union. We mentioned the name of our Oscars tip above, so we thought we’d better explain the name. Aontas means unity or alliance. You won’t be surprised, then, to learn there is an Irish political party, Aontú, with similar nomenclature. 

Blast from the Past

We were aggrieved to hear of the passing of the great Dolly Parton. Universally beloved seems an understatement. She was adored here, too, not least by Ireland’s legions of country music fans. Dolly did speak of her love for Ireland, too, on several occasions, and while all celebs tend to say such things when rocking up to a new country, we are inclined to believe Dolly was genuine. Anyway, we wanted to share the now-legendary clip of Dolly singing at Páidí Ó Sé’s pub in Kerry in 1990. 36 years later, and some of the regulars still can’t believe it happened. If you want to skip the din of the pub and confusing Kerry accents, skip through to about 6 mins 20 secs to hear Dolly sing. RIP, Queen.

And One Last Thing….

Let’s finish this week with a bit of a TV roundup, because there’s loads of cool Irish stuff coming your way soon and not-so-soon: Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee has a new Netflix show due to start filming next year, a mockumentary set in the murky underworld of Irish dancing. There’s also a new Belfast-set drama coming from Love/Hate’s Stuart Carolan (we have big hopes for this). Filming of House of Guinness season 2 is also set to resume next year, meaning it will be a big old gap between the first and second season (sort this out, Netflix). Last of all, we are super excited about Garron Noone’s exploration of America in Western People. If you’ve followed us over the last couple of years, you’ll know we are Garron superfans, so we are stoked to see he’s getting a real TV gig with RTÉ. It’s out in autumn, fall, whatever you want to call it. Soon.