IT Sunday: Welcome to the new-look digital Irish Times

Good morning and welcome to IT Sunday and also, welcome to the new-look Irish Times website and app.

Along with a new, minimalist design that is consistent across all platforms, our redesigned app is now searchable – which has been one of the most requested features from readers. The new app also allows users to save articles to read for later and to select push alerts that of most interest to them.

A number of features have been introduced exclusively for subscribers, including a new interactive crossword available on desktop, mobile and in the app.

The Crosswords & Puzzles section includes Sudoku and new and improved versions of the Simplex and Crosaire games. Readers will now be able to listen to an audio version of almost all stories, including a selection read by our columnists and writers.

A detailed explanation of the changes can be found here.

One the stories we have selected for you this week is from London Editor Denis Staunton, who writes that an increasingly frail Queen Elizabeth should use the platinum jubilee as opportunity to announce retirement.

“There is some chatter in London about invoking the Regency Act to hand the queen’s powers to Charles on the grounds of the sovereign’s incapacity due to infirmity of mind or body. But that would be almost as undignified as the current, ghoulish speculation about the queen’s health and it requires a committee of senior figures to certify her incapacity. It also creates uncertainty because it can be reversed.

“The better course is for the queen to abdicate, making clear to the public that it is her decision and setting out the reasons why. She has already taken some steps towards planning for the future beyond her reign, including her statement declaring that she wants Charles’s wife Camilla to have the title of queen.”

In his column this week David McWilliams argues that, counterintuitively, “recent falls in stock markets are just what we needed. In fact, the falls in all financial markets – bonds, stocks and of course, the plaything de jour, crypto – may just save the world from an economic catastrophe.”

McWilliams says the prevailing view is that financial markets are supposed to be economic indicators; when they go up, the future is rosy and when they go down, it’s time to get out of town.

“Sometimes this is true but not in 2022.”

Ruadhán Mac Cormaic also examines the impact of the war in Ukraine and the migration of millions of refugees from that country and the possible longer term demographic consequences for Ukraine, the wider EU and countries such as Ireland if the refugees do not return.

“The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the more Europe is likely to be changed by it. Parts of its legacy for the Continent are already written: the heavy economic toll, the surge in defence spending, the race to find alternatives to Russian energy and the forging of unity in the face of Vladimir Putin’s aggression. But it is the exodus of millions of Ukrainians from their battered country that could have the most lasting effect.”

One Ukrainian family that decided to go back is that of Daryna Fedorenko. She fled to Ireland with her children and has spent two months living in the suburbs of Dublin. But the pull of her family and homeplace became too strong, and she made the decision to return.

“People here are good. But I have not seen my husband in a long time, and Ukraine is my real home. I must go back,” Fedorenko said last week, as she packed her bags for the second time.

As the days lengthen and thoughts turn to holidays, Conor Pope looks at the “prohibitive” price of an Irish summer holiday in 2022.

He notes that while it is hard not to have sympathy for the hospitality sector and what it faced during the pandemic, “sympathy only extends so far, and anyone looking to book a holiday at home between now and the end of August might find themselves asking who, ultimately, is paying the price for the resurrection of Irish tourism?”

In her column this week, Jennifer O’Connell recalls living in America, receiving a Code red lockdown at her children’s school and the constant sense of alert in case the day came that there was a shooting. She also notes how this sense of threat was normalised into an utterly unremarkable part of their school lives.

“There was a non-specific emergency drill every week. Once a term, the children would barricade the door with desks and cower in a closet sucking lollipops to help them stay quiet.

“Some teacher decided that hate-filled humans were too terrifying a prospect for first graders, so my boy believed he was practising hiding from mountain lions.

“I understood: I could live with the red widow spiders nesting in the cracks between the swimming pool tiles, or the 99 per cent likelihood of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake hitting California. But I couldn’t live with the idea that their classrooms were places of incalculable danger.”

As always there is much more on irishtimes.com, including extensive coverage of Leinster’s last minute defeat in the Champion’s Cup final and Liverpool’s loss in the Champions League Cup Final.

And don’t forget you can check out more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.

We hope you enjoy reading these articles and we hope you enjoy the new website and app. We value your comments and suggestions, so please feel free to contact us with your views or suggest ideas for issues you would like to see addressed, at feedback@irishtimes.com.

Stay safe and well.