King of Country (and Kicking)🤠 🏈

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic returns on a lovely Friday evening with news of the Irish at home and abroad. The Craic is the weekly newsletter from Shift, our app built to connect Irish people and lovers and likers of Ireland around the world. If you haven’t got Shift yet, download it here. And if you’d like someone to get The Craic in their inbox each Friday, stick their email in here.

News from Home

Victory! (Sort of). You may remember a few weeks back when we told you about the legendary old bookshop in Belfast at risk of closing due to some mean old property developers? Well, it has been saved. Or kind of saved. Belfast City Council has agreed to find new premises for the beloved Keats and Chapman, aka the city's last independent bookstore. So not a total win, but still good news. Perhaps more importantly, the movement to save the shop has also prompted the city council to commission a report on the role of independent businesses in the city. Yes, we know politicians can promise the moon and deliver bugger all, but it’s a good start.

Friends in Carlow Places. We’d say Garth Brooks has a shout at being the most popular American in the eyes of Irish people.  Thus, a lot of dreams came true when the country star announced a raft of gigs across the island in 2027. Indeed, Big Garth is playing 10 dates across Belfast, Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick and Galway next spring. He’d probably still sell them out if he did 100.

Get That Tree Up 🎄! Christmas news now. Irish star CMAT has collaborated with Elton John (did he not retire?) on a new-old Xmas tune. It’s a duet version of Elton’s 1973 hit, Step Into Christmas. Great stuff. Now, keep it off the airwaves until about, say, mid-December.

United In Grief. Some sad news to share: Tributes have been played to Irish Olympian Ciara Mageean, who has tragically passed away at just 34. Ciara was a European 1500m gold medalist and also represented Ireland at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. She was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in May 2025.

The Craic Recommends…a juicy burger. We know tourists aren’t going to come here for burgers – you want stews, colcannon, bacon and cabbage, a few Tayto with your stout. But a Dublin burger joint has been named the second-best spot in the world for a delicious patty. Bunsen Burger is now a bit of an institution, and it has several restaurants across the city, as well as in Cork and Belfast. Is it any good? Yeah, we’ve tried them, and they are great. Just a word of warning: the menu is FAMOUSLY slimmed down, offering the choice between burgers, double burgers, cheeseburgers, and, yep, double cheeseburgers. So best tell your vegetarian mate to stay in the pub while you nip in for a bite.

The Irish Influence

This Week’s Irish Influence is Ireland’s Kicking Kings. Charlie Smyth, placekicker for the New Orleans Saints, has taken a lot of the attention as Irishman-swapping-GAA-for-the-NFL. And there was a bit of Irish magic for the Indiana Hoosiers on Halloween, with Paddy McAteer kicking a monster 60-yard field goal for the national champions. But many more talents could be plucked from Ireland, and the NFL and NCAAF programs clearly know it. This weekend in Chicago, we will see the conclusion of Ireland’s Kicking King competition, which has been whittled down from over 1,000 entrants to the final four. The event will be played at halftime during the Northwestern vs. Iowa game at Ryan Field. It’s all part of a big push to find the best untapped kicking talent from Ireland, helping those athletes join college football programs, and then, hopefully, on to the NFL like Mayobridge man Charlie. Find out a bit more about here. We also have pics of the “Kicking Kings” from Thursday night’s event celebrating Ireland’s partnership with Northwestern University. By the way, that’s our “Coding King,” Darren Gibney, on the bottom right, pictured beside finalist Dan McKiernan.

Cúpla Focal

Dearglach {DYAR-(uh)g-lukh} – Red glow in the evening skies. We’ve actually been having lovely weather of late. Hardly sunbathing climate, but nice crisp autumnal days and cool-but-not-rainy evenings. And if you look up, on occasion, you’ll see lovely hues of red streaking the skies just before dusk. The English have no common word for this (we assume scientists might), but we do: dearglach. A little shout-out to the brilliant Darach Ó Séaghdha from The Irish For for bringing this one to our attention. 

Blast from the Past

Not really sure as to why, but we’ve been thinking about absolutely shite songs that somehow made it high on the Irish charts. Ronan Keating’s butchering of Fairytale of New York is up there as outstandingly crap, and Linda Martin’s version of Daft Punk’s Get Lucky is so bad it’s kind of good in a perverse way, but we have to highlight the unlikely success of Richie Kavanagh’s Aon Focal Eile, which topped the Irish charts for a fair chunk of the autumn of 1996. Now, you’ll note that the title and much of the lyrics are a play on a certain F-word, which prompted the BBC to ban it from British radio and TV play back in ‘96 (lucky them). We were going to point out that the song somehow managed to stay in the charts for six months, and that tastes were different back then, but then we learned that Aon Focal Eile got a new lease of life on social media, particularly TikTok, earlier this year when Richie rereleased the track with his grandson, CJ.

And One Last Thing….

We came across a lovely report in the Smithsonian Magazine, detailing how the traditional Irish sport of road bowling is finding a new life in the United States, particularly in small towns and rural spots. The report also claimed it was a way for participants to honor their Irish heritage, though plenty of non-Irish people play it too. Nevertheless, it got us thinking about a few things, not least, where in America feels most Irish? Patrick put that very question up on socials this week, and we can tell you that we got 100s of fascinating comments and messages on the topic. A lot of ye claimed Butte, Montana, is, indeed, the most Irish place in America, while there were some claims for various neighborhoods across NYC, Chicago, and Boston, districts in cities like Cleveland and Philadelphia, and even a few spots we hadn’t heard of before. A few of ye even chimed in with places in Australia and beyond. But we learned loads from you guys, including a little history on Browne’s Irish Marketplace, which has been operating since 1887 in Kansas City. We really loved all the comments and feedback! GRMA!