Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers.
The deaths of 10 people in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal following an explosion at the local petrol station on Friday has left the “entire nation mourning and deeply saddened,” as Taoiseach Micheál Martin said on Saturday.
Four men, three women, a teenage girl, a teenage boy and a girl of primary school age were killed in the blast. Eight people, including children, have been brought to hospital for treatment. One of those was transferred to a hospital in Dublin and is in a critical condition. The other seven are understood to be in a stable condition.
Hundreds of people, including emergency workers who had taken part in the search, packed the local church on Saturday evening for a service of remembrance. Local priest Fr John Joe Duffy said there is no community as strong as that in Creeslough. “The greatest strength of any community is its people. The individuals and families that together form a community. The closer we are as a people the stronger the sense of community, and nowhere is that sense stronger, in no place is there as strong a community as we have here in Creeslough. Especially at this time. Our hearts are indeed broken, we all sense a numbness, a disbelief that we are really experiencing this tragedy, that it is real.” You can read our full coverage, here.
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While the almost universal expectation of anyone who watches Irish politics and most of the people involved in its practice, is that Sinn Féin will lead the next government in the State, Pat Leahy argues the party still has some work to do before it’s a done deal. “There are three tasks facing Sinn Féin. Failure to address them successfully might not keep them out of power, but it will certainly reduce their chances of dominating the next government. Completing each of them will make that inevitable.”
Sinn Féin’s opponents in the North, the Democratic Unionist Party held their annual party conference this weekend. Freya McClements was in Belfast for the events where the DUP said it will not re-enter the North’s powersharing Assembly unless its demands regarding the Northern Ireland protocol are met, party leader Jeffrey Donaldson told the conference. You can read Freya’s analysis on the conference, here.
Fintan O’Toole, meanwhile, writes in his Saturday column, “that unionists are crazy to support the Conservative Party’s great Brexit misadventure is increasingly obvious. But there’s another reason why anyone who wants Northern Ireland to stay in the UK should be working hard to bring down the Tories. It’s the shredding of the welfare state.”
Newton Emerson argues the emerging three-communities model of unionist, nationalist and other introduces a complication into discussion about Irish unity. “When a fifth of the population have a Northern Ireland-only identity, it becomes theoretically possible for a vote against the union to not be a vote against partition.”
In her column this week, Justine McCarthy drew on actor James Nesbitt’s speech to the Ireland’s Future event in Dublin last week which was “above all, respectful in its avoidance of flippancy, soundbites and slogans.” McCarthy writes that “no political party owns Ireland’s future. None has a monopoly on this State’s constitutional aspiration that the island be joined up again. Any party that hijacks an event dedicated to pursuing that ideal damages the cause. If Sinn Féin cannot recognise this cause-and-effect, it is as blind as the DUP.”
Elsewhere, spiralling energy prices and the rising cost of living continue to dominate the media landscape. Economist John FitzGerald argues that “if we are serious about reducing demand at peak times, customers can’t be kept in the dark about their usage patterns and what’s costing them money, when their smart meter already collects this information.”
Budget promises of €30m for IVF treatments and €47m for free schoolbooks are very welcome, but why on Earth have they taken so long? asked Fintan O’Toole in one of his columns earlier this week.
Former Leinster lock Damian Browne returned to Galway this week after rowing for 112 days across the Atlantic. He navigated all kinds of volatile weather fronts crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a small boat. But even he couldn’t avoid getting drenched in one of Galway city’s infamous rain bursts on a quick dash up Quay Street for a morning coffee on his way to meet Keith Duggan to talk about his astonishing feat.
Earlier this week French writer Annie Ernaux was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Paris correspondent Lara Marlowe writes that Ernaux’s autobiographical oeuvre is marked by the themes of social class domination and amorous passion and that her “simple, crystalline style shuns lyricism in its exploration of the social dynamics and emotions of modern French life, while maintaining a thirst for social justice”.
Higher housing costs, a more expensive state pension and doubts over their ability to inherit are just some of the problems young people will face down the line that many of their parents didn’t have to deal with, writes Fiona Reddan.
And in another feature, Fiona asks, could interest rate hikes cause a property price crash in Ireland? “While Irish lenders have been slow to follow the ECB’s lead on hiking rates, common sense would suggest it is only a matter of time until they do.”
Protection from your enemies, a steady income and a new home abroad, maybe even somewhere sunny and beachside; on the face of it, witness protection doesn’t sound like a bad deal. That’s perhaps what Jonathan Dowdall, who has turned State’s witness against Gerry Hutch in the Regency Hotel murder trial, was thinking when he first asked gardaí about the programme in April of last year. It has no doubt since been explained to him that the reality of the Witness Security Programme, as it is officially called, is far different, writes Conor Gallagher.
There was more worrying news for professional rugby this week after a landmark study found rugby players were 15 times more at risk of developing motor neuron disease than people of the same age in the general population. The headlines will again make more parents question the wisdom of allowing their children to play the sport, writes Gerry Thornley. More pressingly, in improving the safety of the sport, rugby needs to intensify its efforts to reduce the amount of head injuries and improve treatment of concussion.
In his column Denis Walsh writes that sports psychology was the last of the sciences trusted on the front line in GAA. “Part of the scepticism was that its impact was unquantifiable.” However, nearly 30 years after Derry’s success with Craig Mahoney, the use of psychologists is now the norm.
Meanwhile, Marie-Claire Digby got a sneak peek at Chequer Lane, Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant in Dublin city centre which will open on Tuesday, while the reviews are in for plays at the Dublin Theatre Festival, so check them out here before deciding what you’d like to see.
Finally, in her column this weekend, Roe McDermott advises a woman who has “a close male friend who is in a committed relationship. I have feelings for him but I do not want to tell him. I don’t want to lose him as a friend. When we are together I feel safe and secure.” Click here to see Roe’s reply.
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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