Galway Boy 👨🏻‍🦰🇮🇪

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic is back on this frisky Friday, sneaking into your inbox and dropping some news of the Irish at home and abroad. Like the Craic? Ask friends to sign up here. Oh, and we are also resorting to some bribery: Find out at the end of this email how you can win some Shift merch just by telling people how class we are.

News from Home

Sheer Delight. Global superstar Ed Sheeran has announced he identifies “culturally as Irish.” The Galway Girl singer, born and raised in Suffolk, England, has caused a bit of a stir in the British press (often not the best place to find nuanced debate) with his announcement, with some making it seem like a great controversy when it isn’t. Sheeran hails from a big Irish family, and he spent many a summer here in his childhood. Yet, our absolute favorite opinion piece on this ‘news’ came from The Telegraph, which said, with ridiculous hyperbole, “Nobody wants to be British anymore” and that they didn’t blame Sheeran, as “the Emerald Isles [sic] are much cooler.” You said it, guys.

Law & Disorder. Violence erupted in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena mid-week and spread to other areas of the region after the serious sexual assault of a child. Ostensibly, the ‘protestors’ claim to be protecting women and children, but, as ever, it has descended into mindless violence and indiscriminate targeting of innocent minorities. The footage may seem shocking when it makes it all the way over to CNN, but Northern Ireland has seen this playbook before: young people manipulated by shadowy criminal and political forces, ultimately damaging their own communities, and their own futures. In the end, we all lose.

Holy Smoke. It’s Confirmation season, the time of year when many 10 and 11-year-olds across Ireland affirm membership to the Catholic Church. The Sacrament, which can be a lucrative money spinner if you’ve plenty of relatives, also features “the Pledge,” a vow to abstain from alcohol and smoking until they are 18. (Let’s be honest: most of us broke the Pledge; many times over.) Yet, to show it’s rolling with the times, the Church has added a new proviso – the kids must also vow not to vape.

New Doc. Want to know about the full length and breadth of Irish history and its people? RTE has launched one of its most ambitious series ever, charting the story of Irish people at home and abroad over thousands of years. They’ve brought a ringer to act as the narrator – Mr Colin Farrell, no less. Get more details on it here.

The Irish Influence

An interesting candidate for the Irish Influence this week, as we don’t know whether the person is fictitious or not. June 13th is Molly Malone Day, named in honor of Mary Malone, who died on that date in 1699. Experts doubt that this Molly was the basis for the “Cockles and Mussels” song, as it doesn’t seem to be any older than the late-18th century, but the lads at the Dublin Millennium Commission proclaimed it, so Mary is officially Molly. Anyway, the lack of detail about the real Molly makes it a lot more fun, allowing us to fill in the blanks of her legend and the history of Dublin’s unofficial anthem.

Cúpla Focal

You call it the Milky Way, in Irish it’s called Bealach na bó finne – the way of the white cow. Every now and again, we come across social media posts from brilliant Gaeilgeoirs promoting the Irish language around the world. Find out more about Bealach na bó finne and its meaning here.

Blast from the Past

On June 13th, 2006, former Taoiseach Charles Haughey died at the age of 80. Haughey was arguably the dominant political force in Ireland from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, serving as the head of government on four separate occasions. Nicknamed the “Great Houdini” for his ability to escape political defeats, Haughey divided – divides – opinions like few others. While he had enough scandals – tax evasion, affairs, good old-fashioned phone tapping – to make Richard Nixon blush, one thing is not in doubt: He set many of the things in motion that created the modern Ireland of today.

And One Last Thing….

A national festival to mark the date a fictitious character had their first sexual experience? Sure, why not? June 16th was the date in 1904 when Leopold Bloom had his, ahem, encounter with Nora Barnacle, and is now the focal point in what is now a week-long celebration of the life and work of James Joyce. Visiting Dublin in and around Bloomsday is always brilliant, and you can find some of this week’s events here. But we should also point out that the Irish Embassy in Washington, DC is also celebrating the genius of the Ulysses author, giving away some free books to boot. It’s all part of the global #BloomsdayandBeyond Book Giveaway. Find out how you can get your hands on a freebie here.

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