Stout of Pocket 💸🍺

So, What’s the Craic?

Got notions? Well, we do. Shift had a few far more important updates to our app this week, but this might be our favorite. I mean favourite. If you haven’t noticed yet, there are now a particular set of emoji reactions. Can’t say they’re not Irish enough, but what takes the biscuit for you? Check out the latest app and let us know what you think. Cheers!

The Craic return this Friday with more news and bits and bobs concerning the Irish and Irish-ish at home and abroad. The Craic is the weekly newsletter from Shift, the app for the Global Irish and Irish at heart. Want Shift? Yep, have a look at our shiny, sparkling new website here. Want a friend to have The Craic? Free weekly email is this way.

News from Home

A Plain in the Arse. The main topic of conversation this week, outside of idle chat of being conscripted to fight in Greenland, was the price of a pint, coming after Guinness owners Diageo announced a price hike of 7c per pint. It’s not the few extra cents that made it a national discussion, but more so the consistent small rises over the years, adding up to put the capital ‘G’ in Grumble for many folks. Irish socials were littered with graphs and charts showing “pintflation,” and all kinds of lamentation for the halcyon days of, err, 2017. ”So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly back into the past,” as Scotty Fitz would say.

Wanna Job? It sounds a bit like a Hallmark movie plot, but The Great Blasket Island – a beautiful little secluded island off the coast of Kerry – is looking for a pair of caretakers to look after the place over the spring and summer months. You’ll look after the island’s coffee shop and tourist cottages, and have plenty of time to yourself on the days when it’s too windy for boat crossings. Sounds idyllic.

You Shall Not Pass. A recall has been announced for about 13,000 new Irish passports, issued without the tiny chip yokes that let you pass the eGates. New passports will be issued immediately, but this could cause issues for those with imminent travel plans.

Incredible Discovery: Something lovely about this story: Last year, 7-year-old Ben O’Driscoll decided to go exploring in a field close to his home near Mallow, Co. Cork. Young Ben found a small “pearly” stone about the size of a Cadbury Crème Egg (the scientific way to measure things). As it turned out, it was cotterite, a rare type of quartz with only a few dozen known examples worldwide, with none discovered since 1875. Bualadh bos mór, Ben.

The Craic Recommends. Lisa McGee struck gold with Derry Girls, giving the globe a taste of Northern Irish humor. Now McGee is back with How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, streaming on big aul Netflix from February 12. The cast, including Roisin Gallagher, Sinead Keenan and Caoilfhionn Dunne, is top-tier, and there’s support from the likes of Ardal O’Hanlon (forever Dougal), Bronagh Gallagher (always love spotting her in Pulp Fiction) and returning Derry Girl, Saoirse Monica Jackson. Guaranteed hit in our book.

The Irish Influence

We are big fans of the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, marveling every year at the incredible talent of Ireland’s kids. For that reason, we wanted to highlight this year’s Overall Prize Winner, Aoibheann Daly, who took home the award after developing an AI-assisted tool – the GiloScope – to detect an aggressive form of brain cancer. Aoibheann is just 15, and we just can’t get our heads around achieving something like this as a teenager. She received a huge ovation when returning to her Co. Kerry school, and rightly so. We can’t think of anyone more deserving of the Irish Influence spot this or any other week: what a wee legend. ☘️💚🧑‍🔬

Cúpla Focal

Giorraíonn beirt bóthar – “Two people shorten a road”. This Irish saying is a well-known seanfhocal (the Irish word for a proverb) that literally means “old word.” The saying is both beautiful in terms of etymology and sentiment, reminding us that the road feels lighter when it’s shared with good company.

Blast from the Past

As pints are on our mind this week, we wanted to take you back to the turn of the millennium when the price of a pint was also in the news. At this point, Pat Hough, owner of Hough’s pub in Lorrha, Tipperary, was in and out of the news for having the “cheapest pint in Ireland” and steadfastly holding out against price rises. Back then, we used Punts instead of Euros, and Pat was still selling at £1.50. By early 2002, the Euro was adopted, causing inflation for a variety of reasons, and it was once again national news when Pat Hough finally raised those prices. There’s no video to accompany that story, but check out this little home video of a visit to Lorrha below. Skip ahead to Hough’s bar at 7 mins. And if you don’t think it looks like one of the most perfect little cozy shebeens on earth, we can’t be friends.

And One Last Thing….

Shift Towers has been inundated with articles about everything happening and the folks that are shaking in Ireland across 2026, so we thought we should share some of the guides and ideas with you as a kind of public-service-y way to sign off on this email. First, check out a guide of hidden gems to visit in each of the 32 counties here (great road trip material in that one). Second, a bumper guide to 130 (count ‘em!) music festivals and concerts taking place in 2026 is here. Next, you can impress your friends with your hipster insider knowledge by citing lesser-known musical acts with 2FM’s guide to up-and-coming Irish artists here. Finally, click here to find some of the Irish comedians tipped for stardom. Lovely stuff – see you next week!