Whimsical Skidaddlers ☘️🕺

So, What’s the Craic?

The Craic returns with all the Irish buzz we could dig up over the last week. If you enjoy this weekly newsletter – and there must be one of you who does 😉 – pass it on to friends and family by asking them to sign up here.

News from Home

Context is Key. A new study ranking nations on the friendliness of their drivers placed Ireland as 10th. That caused a wave of Irish newspapers to post articles trumpeting how sound we are behind the wheel. Yet, The Craic channelled its inner Bob Woodward and went further than your average media outlet: we actually read the fecking study. Turns out we were 10th of 16th nations, so not so great. The US placed 4th, and 1st place went to our neighbors, Britain. Fair play to them, we suppose.

14th is Better than 10th. We do have another ranking appearance that shines a better light on Ireland: Time Out magazine ranked the world’s 50 most beautiful movie theaters, and the stunning Stella Cinema in Rathmines (south Dublin) ranked 14th. Key to its addition to the list was a 2017 redevelopment, which restored it to its 1920s grandeur.

Legends Standing Down. We will update you in full on Ireland’s Six Nations rugby fate (we are unbeaten and in the driving seat) when the tournament draws to a close in a few weeks. Yet, there was some huge news from the camp as Peter O’Mahony, Cian Healy, and Conor Murray have announced they will be retiring from Ireland duty when the tournament ends. They will be missed, but the phenomenal production of young players by Irish rugby means the juggernaut will keep rolling.

Skidaddling. Not news by any stretch of the imagination, but we have come across a video where someone describes Irish dancers as “professional whimsical skidaddlers” and felt we had to share it. Hard to argue with.

The Irish Influence

Ireland is constantly producing innovative leaders in the tech industry. Heck, the engine room behind Shift app, 3Advance, was founded by two Irishmen. But few Irish techies have been as influential as John and Patrick Collison, founders of payments company Stripe. If you’ve paid for anything online, you’ve probably used Stripe, most likely without knowing it. Their company has just been valued at $91.5 billion – up 40% in a year. We’ve done a bit of math, and should John and Patrick decide to sell, they could give every soul on the island of Ireland $13,000. Sure, we could close up the country for a month and head to the pub. We’ll open her up again in April. Do it, lads.

Cúpla Focal

Uaigneach {OO-EGG-NE-ACH} – Lonely. We all know that Ireland is perceived as a friendly nation – the land of a thousand welcomes and all that – yet did you know that it is officially the loneliest country in Europe? One in five of us considers ourselves lonely. Campaigners are pushing for the problem to be recognized for what it is – a killer epidemic.

Blast from the Past

On February 27th, 1997, divorce finally became legal in Ireland. Read that again: Nineteen-Ninety-Seven. We weren’t complete barbarians, as legal separation was permitted, but people were not allowed to remarry, for example. It’s stunning to think that this was less than 30 years ago. Things changed after a 1995 referendum, with ‘divorce winning’ by a narrow, narrow margin – 50.28% to 49.72%. The video below by the Associated Press in the lead-up to the referendum is mostly silent, but it’s all the more poignant as it provides almost haunting imagery of the arguments at the time.

And One Last Thing….

Lads and lasses, we are getting excited. As we’ve said before, the purpose of this meandering, sometimes-irreverent newsletter is to shine a light on Shift, our upcoming app that will connect the Irish – everywhere. Well, things have been moving at a steady clip behind the scenes. We have Shift.Irish BETA going live on Monday! This will be the first release this year - the Shift website, first focused on what’s going on around the world for St Patrick’s Day. This is still just a very early version, with Monday we’re calling a “soft launch”, so our close friends (that’s you!) can check it out and let us know what you think. The official launch will arrive a week later, and then every two weeks for the rest of this year, we’ll be releasing more content, more features, more of everything. The Shift journey begins with this directory of all things Irish, then our social, dating and IRL (in-real-life) networking app will be coming soon after. If you’re interested in what’s brewing, check out our Roadmap. The development team at 3Advance is busy coding away to ensure Shift knocks your socks off. With Paul and Patrick still churning out the podcast (with mandatory pints) on the regular, we just thought we’d take a moment to remind you that there’s a lot of method behind this newsletter madness.

Yay! You made it all the way to the end! If you liked this bit of craic, remember to pass it on to your mates. They can sign up here: https://www.thecraic.us/

The Craic is brought to you by the lads from Shift. Shift is the directory of all things Irish, first of its kind IRL social network, rolling out in the next few months.