One Mór For Luck 🍀🎉

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic is back on this lovely wee Friday evening, bringing you news and views of the Irish wherever they may be. The Craic is the weekly newsletter from Shift, our app for connecting Irish people with culture (and each other) globally. Want Shift? Here’s the link. And we have thousands of ye reading The Craic each week - but we’re greedy and want more - stick a friend’s email address in here. Ta.

News from Home

Certified Gs. We want to start with a little Shift shoutout to the 70,000 or so young adults receiving their Leaving Cert results today. That’s the equivalent of the SATs (for any American readers wondering). Anyway, it’s a scary time and, in our view, one that puts far too much pressure on the youngsters. If you got what you wanted, just take her easy during Freshers’ Week – it can go downhill quickly if you dive headfirst into the beast’s maw. And if you didn’t get the grades, don’t be dismayed. University isn’t the be-all and end-all.

Cloud Nine. Also congratulations to Caoilfhinn Ní Choiligh, the winner of the 2026 Rose of Tralee. Caoilfhinn won loads of admirers by proudly removing her wig on stage, delivering the message that her alopecia was part of her and nothing to be ashamed of. Too right. We’re certain that the Westmeath Rose, who is training to be a wig-maker, will be a brilliant ambassador for the competition and Ireland over the next year.

Zuck Towers. Ireland has a new resident – Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook boss and world’s finest facilitator of scam advertisements designed to trick your gran out of her pension money is buying a castle in Waterford. We aren’t PR experts, but as Meta is involved in a huge court case right now for (allegedly) willfully profiting from social media addiction in children, maybe buying a castle in the middle of the trial is not the best look.

Christmas News. It’s nearly September, so get that tree down from the attic…nah, just kidding, but we do have two tidbits of Chrimbo-related news. First is that Mrs Brown’s Boys will not be making a Christmas Special for television this year, as the show’s creator, Brendan O’Carroll, suffered a broken jaw. The show is head-scratchingly popular, particularly in the UK, where it forms one of the centerpieces of the BBC’s primetime viewing. Second, RTÉ is now searching for children to star in its annual Late Late Toy Show. If you want your kid to have 15 minutes of fame, the application forms are here.

The Craic Recommends….Bog Child. “Her sentences sing; each note resonates with an urgent humanity of the sort that cannot be faked.” – The Guardian on Siobhan Dowd. Today is the anniversary of the passing of Siobhan Dowd, who was posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal for Bog Child in 2009. Dowd, who was born in Britain to Irish parents, was an incredible talent who left us way too early, and Bog Child is her underrated masterpiece, set in a 1980s Irish border town with the specter of the Troubles looming large. It is a children’s book- well, young adult- but it’s well worth putting on your reading list, whatever your age. You can find it from a site that supports independent bookstores here.

The Irish Influence

This week’s Irish Influence is Electric Picnic, our answer to Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, and everything in between. The festival began with fairly humble beginnings, with a focus on electronic music (hence the name), with around 10K people making the inaugural event. It’s now – by a distance – Ireland’s biggest popular music festival, taking place across the weekend of August 28-30, and welcoming 80,000 people to get stuck in the mud (literally at times), camp, drink, dance, and brave some of the worst toilets in the Northern Hemisphere. This year’s headliners include Gorillaz, CMAT, Zara Larsson, Fontaines DC and Amble.

Cúpla Focal

Fáilte chuig an teaghlach Betis! {Fall-cheh kwig un thai-luk} – Welcome to the Betis family. That was the little message from Real Betis CF to all the Irish fans who might be a little inclined toward supporting the Seville club now that striker Troy Parrott – and hero of our World Cup qualifying campaign – has signed for the La Liga club. We know it’s a marketing ploy when these brands throw out a cúpla focal on socials, but we’re happy enough to fall for it.

Blast from the Past

We aren’t going to take you back to a specific date today. Rather, it’s more of a reflective look at how far we have come. This week, it was reported that Ireland now ranks 3rd globally in the Legatum Prosperity Index. In the 1980s, for instance, we had about 50% of the OECD average purchasing power; today, Irish households enjoy about 220% of that spending power. It’s been an economic miracle, albeit we recognize that not everyone feels it. The Prosperity Index – which you can see here – doesn’t only focus on money, as it looks at freedom, peace, and the freedom to criticize their government (an Irish tradition), health and other metrics. Our only worry is that Ireland now ranks 47th in education, and that really cost us the top spot – it’s a big blot on our resume. 

And One Last Thing….

Where’s Shift this weekend? Well, let me tell ya. We’ll be at Chicago Gaelic Park for Irish Fest 2026 today through to Sunday. And like Phil Collins at Live Aid 1985, we’ll actually be in two places at once, as we’re also out and about at Mór Fest, NYC, which started Wednesday. As ever, if you see us, come and say hello – look at the main image of the newsletter to see the craic we had with a lot of “sounders” (Patrick’s description of the convivial folks he met) in Milwaukee last weekend. Oh, one more thing: if you are not anywhere near Chicago or NYC by dint of having a big aul Atlantic Ocean between you and America, then know that the Dublin City Fleadh is on this weekend. Shift has a breakdown of everything you need schedule-wise on the app.