Life in your 20s can be a blur, so it is perhaps forgivable that TG4’s new “down with the kids” documentary, Glúin Z (TG4, Thursday), is a little bit all over the place. Billed as a “unique, honest and entertaining look at life in Ireland today”, the series features a dozen or so young people from Cork to Donegal, who are invited to share their largely random thoughts about life, the universe and the property crisis.
Glúin Z is at its sharpest when discussing Ireland’s apocalyptic accommodation situation. In Galway, law student Colm Ó hÓgáin delivers a guided tour of the converted van where he sleeps every night. “The price of housing is insane,” he says. That message is taken up by other participants. One is still living at home at 25. Another reveals that he knows people in their 30s who continue to sleep under the same roof as their parents.
But of course, the property crisis doesn’t just impact Gen Zers and has become the Irish equivalent of a sort of forever war – a problem that is going to be passed down the generations rather than solved.
One student in Galway talks about commuting to college and having to constantly keep one eye on the clock so that he doesn’t miss the last bus. Welcome, young man, to the rest of your life. Because if there is one thing Ireland isn’t going to get on top of, it is our Kafkaesque planning system – fine-tuned over the decades to inflict the maximum misery on the greatest number of people.
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Housing aside, Glúin Z lacks focus and has little new to say about life in Ireland in 2025. One young man rejects the assertion that Gen Zers are lazy – but is that something people actually say about young people nowadays? Was it not a barb aimed at Millennials, with their mythical avocado toast brunches?
There is also the baffling decision to feature 25-year-old TD Barry Heneghan, but not tell us upfront that he is a politician. It isn’t as if the series couldn’t have got by without him: in episode one at least, he doesn’t have a lot to say beyond observing that today’s twenty-somethings are following in the long tradition of Irish people who emigrate in search of a better life.
Glúin Z could have worked harder at avoiding cliches. “We are Glúin Z – a generation of the digital age,” says the opening voiceover, “When everything is available at the touch of a button.” But how does that differentiate Gen Zers from Millennials? Does it make that much of a difference that you were raised on TikTok rather than Bebo and Facebook? Not to quibble, but the choice of incidental music feels likewise phoned-in – the score brims with Millennial favourites MGMT and Tame Impala. Then, we are treated to LCD Soundsystem, fronted by 50-something James Murphy. Could they not have put something by an actual young person on the soundtrack?
With so many interviewees, it can be challenging to keep track of who is doing what. In Gweedore, Co Donegal, Aoibhín Ní Dheagha talks about her home baking business – which has some novelty at least. Next, it’s off to Sligo, where Sinéad Ní Riain is struggling to find a job. If there is a bigger picture, it is that Gen Z are a diverse bunch, each with their own hopes, features and motivation – but, then, isn’t that true of us all?
