The Big Idiot Seat Sale 🌍✈️

🚨☘️Pssst. A bit of a sneaky one for readers of The Craic: Shift has been quietly dropped into the app stores in Ireland and the UK ahead of TradFest 2026. We aren’t making big trumpeting announcements just yet, but since you’re all sound as a pound, we thought we’d provide some early access before we do the official announcement. If you’re in Ireland or Britain, click right here to be among the first to get the Shift app. ☘️🚨

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic is back this Friday with news and views from the wee island nestled snugly in Europe’s armpit. The Craic is the weekly newsletter from Shift, our app for connecting the Irish and culturally Irish globally. Want the Shift? Check it out here. Want someone else to have The Craic? Tell them to enter their digits here.

News from Home

Ryan Affair. You might consider Elon Musk a formidable enemy in business, but he’s no match for Ireland’s savviest CEO. Musk and Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary have had a spat, seemingly over the former’s reluctance to install Starlink in his planes; if you’ve flown Ryanair, you’d understand why we are just happy the plane has wings, never mind Starlink. Anyway, the fallout has been spectacular, with name-calling and Musk even threatening to buy Ireland’s famously low-cost (and MASSIVELY successful) airline. O’Leary, though, has turned it all to his advantage, using the attention to launch an “Every Seat Musk Go Big Idiot Sale.” O’Leary is famously combative and unflappable, so we know who to back in this fight. He’ll relish this.

I’m Running Late, Lad. 🎵In Dublin’s fair city, where the….streets are chocablock with cars🎵. If you’ve driven through Dublin, you’ll know the traffic can be bad, but we didn’t realize it was bad on a global scale. A study suggests it’s the 3rd most congested city in the world, with the 6th slowest traffic. If you want to see some angry Dubs, take yourself off to the comments section on the Journal.ie article that reported this story. Makes Twitter look like kindergarten.

Oscars, Baby. No nom for His Mescalness, but, as expected, Jessie Buckley leads the Irish charge for this season’s Academy Awards. But our Jess is not the only Irish nominee, as John Kelly, Richard Baneham, Maggie O'Farrell, Element Pictures and Wild Atlantic Pictures have also received nods across a variety of categories. As we keep saying, a golden era of Irish cinema.

Legend. Galway man Daragh MacLoughlin has just won the World’s Toughest Row, a grueling solo race across the Atlantic, tagged as, well, the world’s toughest rowing challenge. After this win, MacLoughlin said, “I never rowed before. But I’ve just crossed an ocean.” We assume he meant, “I never rowed before…I started training for this,” rather than just learning on the job as he traversed the Seven Seas. Anyway, good man, Daragh.

The Craic Recommends. We’ve banged the bodhrán for plenty of Irish musical acts on these hallowed pages over the months, but one we have (shamefully) overlooked is Amble, a folk trio who started out a couple of years ago with the goal of playing cover versions in pubs to earn free pints 🤣. But they’ve grown out of that, and their album, Reverie, topped the Irish charts last year. Well worth a listen.

The Irish Influence

The Craic was milling about social media the other day, and we saw the following comment (from an American, no less), who said, “It’s interesting that Ireland, a country that now has a population the same size as that of South Carolina, roughly 5.4 million, produced the most important modern poet (Yeats), novelist (Joyce), and dramatists (Wilde/Shaw/Beckett) in English.” It caused a bit of a row over who was the most important (it was on Twitter, so quelle surprise), but we wanted to highlight WB Yeats as our Irish Influence, as next Wednesday marks the anniversary of the great man’s passing. And, as a wee Friday treat, here’s Big Liam reading one of his poems.

Cúpla Focal

Tús maith, leath na hoibre – A good start is half the work. Our in-house Gaeilgeoir, Vivienne, recommended this seanfhocal as fitting as we trundle toward the end of January. We hope it’s been a great start to the year for you. And if not, well, January is nearly over, so start again in Feb. 

Blast from the Past

She’s not who you’d usually associate with the Irish, but the universally loved (if you disagree, you’re a wrong’un) Dolly Parton has turned 80, and she always seems to have a soft spot for her legions of Irish fans. The time she rocked up to a bar in Kerry in 1990 and started serenading the locals has gone down in Irish folklore. Dolly was on her holidays and decided to treat the folks at Páidí Ó Sé’s pub to a few tunes, including Coat of Many Colors. Perfection.

And One Last Thing….

Irish airports recorded record passenger numbers across 2025, but we note there’s still some reluctance among tourists to head up North as part of their itinerary. It’s a shame. We were reminded of how gorgeous it is when reading this piece about the filming of the new Game of Thrones series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which was almost exclusively shot in Northern Ireland. It’s attached to the rest of the island, so there are geographical similarities, but there are many subtle differences, too. The locals are class, as well, so don’t be put off by talk of borders and political problems everyone wants to leave behind. Make it your business to sail right through Co Louth and come up to join the craic at the “Home of Thrones” the next time you’re over here.