Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers
The US Republican “war on woke” is not going well, writes Fintan O’Toole in the aftermath of the US midterm elections. “What happened this week is, in many ways, less important than what did not happen. These midterm elections were supposed to be the beginning of Trump’s political resurrection. Instead, they have left him in the condition of the undead..” You can read his column here.
The long era of zero interest rates is coming to an end with ferociousness, writes David McWilliams. Property moves much slower than finance but the iron law of money always reasserts itself. When interest rates rise, prices fall. As such, have you noticed an increase in the number of houses for sale in your area? he asks. “Six months ago, there was almost nothing on the market. Buyers had to clamber over each other, as supply was withheld. Today, “for sale” signs are sprouting up all over the place, which means estate agents are beginning to panic. Properties they were holding back in the expectation of higher prices are now being put on the market with the hope they will grab those higher prices, before they fall. The market is swinging as a buyers’ panic leads to a sellers’ panic.”
And on the topic of interest rates, on Thursday, Bank of Ireland raised the cost of fixed-rate mortgage products for new customers by 0.25 of a percentage point, making it the latest mortgage lender in the Irish market to make a move since the European Central Bank started hiking its interest rates in July. In his Smart Money column, Cliff Taylor looks at which Irish mortgage borrowers are most exposed as rates rise, and says that while the focus so far has been on those with tracker mortgages, the real risk is people coming off low fixed rates in the next few years.
As world leaders continue to meet for Cop27 in Egypt, and unseasonably warm weather is being experienced in many countries across the globe, Justine McCarthy writes that “capitalism is inherently bad for the environment because its survival principle is to part people from their money, often by creating artificial and grotesque needs and gargantuan demands on the environment. Who in their sane senses thinks it necessary to spend the equivalent of a family’s annual grocery bill on a handbag? . . . Politicians don’t like talking about the cause and effect of capitalism on the climate because the globalist credo is that economic growth trumps all else, even the survival of our species. Global economic crashes and a lethal pandemic that slowed the rat race, making the air breathable again, have failed to change the mindset that greed is not just good; it’s best.”
Earlier this week, as new Twitter owner Elon Musk dismissed about half of the social media company’s employees and Meta and Stripe announced they too would be making some workers redundant, Cliff Taylor examined how the threat to jobs in the high-tech sector follows a remarkable expansion of the sector in Ireland over the past three years, which continued despite the pandemic. “A new data series from the Central Statistics Office shows employment in the ICT sector increased from 97,800 at the start of 2019 to 123,300 this August. . . .However, analysts say it has expanded too quickly and is now being forced to contract as the cost-of-living crisis hits consumer spending and economic growth. A key issue for Ireland is whether this is just a temporary readjustment or something which could take a few years – and whether any big employers in particular will be shown to be particularly exposed.”
The changing of the guard at Twitter, and the uncertainty over what direction the social media company will take, prompted an Irish Mastodon stampede this week. If you’ve never heard of the social media site, or didn’t until this week, then you’re not alone. “Mastodon’s look and feel are similar to Twitter,” explains Karlin Lillington in her Net Results column, “offering a relatively easy transition for people, although some elements can be baffling at first — especially having to join a specific instance/community, rather than just sign up to a single service, as with commercial platforms like Twitter or Facebook. The biggest difference is that Mastodon is designed to eliminate structural aspects of Twitter that make it easy to use it to attack and bully others, to self-promote and grandstand, or to make more contentious posts, which more easily become viral and get more follows and likes.”
An RTÉ Doc on One broadcast on Monday recounted the horrific experiences of two Dublin brothers at the hands of a trusted priest at the Spiritan run Blackrock College in the capital. Survivors of child sexual abuse by members of that congregation have now called for an independent inquiry as the number of allegations against the order in Ireland continues to grow. Patsy McGarry and Carl O’Brien here write how the Blackrock College ‘code of omerta’ finally shattered by the brothers’ bravery.
Honesty is at the heart of our restaurant reviews, and sometimes the truth can hurt. As Food Month at The Irish Times reached its halfway point, Corinna Hardgrave tried out celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s new Dublin restaurant. “This is the celebrity restaurant that no one ordered,” she wrote, with a dessert that “would not be out of place in the chilled section of Tesco Finest” and a main course that she described as “a crime against lamb”. There were some redeeming factors, however: the food was hot. Read the full review here.
If you prefer dining at home, our newest cookery columnist Gráinne O’Keefe shared three pasta recipes that can be elevated with a good Irish cheese. “Cheese is one of my favourite ingredients and I firmly believe Ireland has some of the best cheeses in the world,” she writes. Find the three recipes here.. And to find that magic ingredient, look no further than your local grocer, stocking quality Irish produce. We found the best places to shop local in Ireland and you can see them here.
Rugby has a problem with its match day experience, and paying Ireland fans deserve more than current offering at the Aviva stadium, argues Gerry Thornley. From the selling of alcohol to the type of music played at the stadium, there is much room for improvement, he writes. And there is one obvious solution: “Namely, to make the in-stadium experience better by bringing elements of the TV coverage into the stadium. As in the NFL in the US, why can’t the ref and TMO microphones be wired into the Aviva’s sound system? It seems an obvious solution and would keep the supporters much more engaged during those breaks in play than a few piped musical ditties.”
In the Tell Me About It column this week, Trish Murphy advises a reader who says “All the caring I put into my parents – the time, effort and money – is gone, wasted. . . .Sometimes, I want everything to end – to stop the pain. I try not to burst into tears all the time. I feel all the big decisions that I made – caring for my parents, working in the family business until it closed, leaving my marriage – were all wrong. I feel I am just dragging my way through each day until I too become elderly like my late parents.” You can read Trish’s reply, here.
And finally in her column, Roe McDermott responds to a reader whose pandemic hobby has become a successful new career but she now says her husband resents it. You can read Roe’s reply, here.
As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com and there are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.
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