Lá Altaithe Craic 🦃🍗

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic returns on this pre-Thanksgiving Friday, bringing you news from home and a little bit of craic from the Irish abroad. If you’ve been enjoying this wee newsletter, pass it on to friends and family by asking them to sign up here.

News from Home

Butter Than All the Rest. Irish butter made it all the way to The New York Times. The Paper of Record did a taste test of global butters, putting Irish brand Kerrygold on top and calling it the “butteriest butter.” The Times then got a little weird, almost sensual, describing unwrapping the blocks of butter as a “transcendent experience.” Look, we like a drop of the yellow stuff on our spuds as much as the next person, but if you’re calling a dairy product “transcendent,” you might want to get out a bit more.

Warning: Product May Contain Traces of Gaelige. The Craic’s an apolitical animal, so we are going to (mostly) spare you from boring takes on next week’s Irish General Election. However, we did want to highlight one policy proposal that seems to have united all major parties – bilingual messaging on product packaging. The policy has been inspired by Canada, of all places. But we think it’s a good one, a small step in keeping the Irish language alive and well.

The Fighting Irish. You’ll remember we were buzzing over Katie Taylor’s big fight last week. She won, of course, but Netflix has confirmed that the bout had a peak viewership of 74 million, making it the most-watched women’s sporting event in history. Just a pity everyone had to sit through the main event.

The Fighting Non-Irish. Notre Dame University got into a spot of bother this week after advising fans not to wear any green, shamrocks, or things associated with the Fighting Irish moniker when visiting Belfast for their upcoming NCAA ice hockey games. The university apologized for an abundance of overcaution. You can wear what you want in Belfast these days; just wrap up warm.

The Irish Influence

This week’s Irish Influence marks the passing of Jon Kenny, who died last Friday at the age of 66. Kenny was a talented comedian who often leaned into poking fun at the stereotypical idea of rural Ireland, albeit with a surrealist streak. He was a talented actor, too, appearing in, among other things, the Banshees of Inisherin, Angela’s Ashes, and the Oscar-nominated Wolfwalkers. At home, Kenny was well-known as one half of the D’unbelievables alongside Pat Short, with the pair going on to write and appear in several successful television shows and comedy tours. His appearances in Father Ted, notably as Eurovision host Fred Rickwood, are the stuff of Irish comedy legend. Rest well, Jon.

Cúpla Focal

Lá Altaithe Sona Daoibh is the Irish way of saying Happy Thanksgiving Day to You (plural). While we don’t celebrate over here, we do look enviously at the spreads on the tables of our American friends. So, enjoy the Turcaí (TUR-kee): Turkey. Brúitín (BROO-cheen): Mashed potatoes. Anlann Mónóg (AN-lahn MOH-nohg): Cranberry sauce. Súlach (SOO-lukh): Gravy. Pióg phuimcín (PEE-ohg FUM-keen): Pumpkin pie.

Blast from the Past

30 years ago this week, Dustin the Turkey scored the second of his seven Irish No.1 singles. The duet of “Spanish Lady” with folk legend Ronnie Drew would actually stay on top of the charts for a month. Ireland’s airwaves – along with the UK’s – were blighted by novelty songs in the 1990s, but Dustin always got a pass. Ostensibly a children’s character, and a very popular one at that, there’d always be a knowing wink and a gag thrown out for the adults in the audience. Indeed, he was once described as “the most subversive comedy force on Irish television.” Describing Dustin for our non-Irish friends is a bit difficult, but it’s enough to say that the puppet portrayed the essence of the typical wisecracking Dublin man-about-town better than any serious actor who came before or after.

And One Last Thing….

If you weren’t aware already, the intention behind The Craic is to act as an introduction to our upcoming Shift app. With Shift, our goal will be to connect the Irish community globally. The natural home for those connections will, of course, be Irish pubs, and soon we will let you know more about how we will be making that happen. For now, though, we wanted to look at the best Irish pubs at home. The annual Irish Pub of the Year 2024 awards were held last week, and we couldn’t help but notice the description of the winner, Malzards Pub, Kilkenny as a “community hub.” The best Irish pubs have that vibe, going beyond food and drink. Malzards is a worthy winner, but there are plenty more that fit that description at home and abroad, and we will be looking forward to highlighting the ones near you. Slainte.

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The Craic is brought to you by the lads from the Shift app. Shift is a social network for the Irish everywhere, launching in 2025: GetTheShift.app.