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WELL, IT’S CERTAINLY been a year of strange times, tough times, and all the in between.
But even though 2024 had plenty of moments that made people gasp and despair around the globe, there were some positive moments too.
So let’s take some time to remember a few reasons to be cheerful about the year that was in Ireland.
What a start to the year: watching our own Cillian Murphy win his first Oscar for Best Actor. It was all down to his role as J Robert Oppenheimer in the latest Christopher Nolan blockbuster, and boy was the country excited.
Murphy also brought some other great news to us this year when it was announced that he and his wife, artist Yvonne McGuinness, had bought the Phoenix Cinema in Dingle. The actor’s performance in Small Things Like These also earned further positive reviews, and has been performing well at the box office across Ireland and in the UK.
He’s reportedly taking some time off from acting, but we do have the Peaky Blinders film to look forward to on Netflix (where he co-stars with Barry Keoghan).
This year, the fact the Olympics were on in Paris meant that Irish viewers didn’t have to tune in at 3am to watch the games. This meant many communal moments as 133 athletes took part across 16 sports in the Olympics, and 35 across six sports in the Paralympics.
There were so many highlights, from Daniel Wiffen, Kellie Harrington, Fintan McCarthy, Paul O’Donovan and Rhys McClenaghan taking home golds, to cheering on our women’s 4 x 400 relay team as they narrowly missed out on a medal. (Here’s Gavin Cooney on why it was a spectacular Olympics for Ireland).
And of course, there were the six medal wins by Katie-George Dunlevy, Róisín Ni Ríain and Orla Comerford in the Paralympics. What a year.
Watching the success of the documentary Birdsong and its subject, ornithologist Seán Ronayne, has been lovely this year. Sometimes it can be hard to find someone in the public eye to root for – not so in the case of Seán.
He’s been spreading the word about the need to protect Irish nature and also talking about important topics like neurodiversity. Plus, he only went on to achieve further suceess at the Irish Book Awards for his memoir, Nature Boy.
Who had ‘a group of young kids from Cork and Lisdoonvarna make one of the best songs of 2024′ on their bingo card?
Not us, but this was one of the year’s highlights.
The gang’s song The Spark has over 50 million listens on Spotify and made headlines across the globe. It was a real positive story about young rappers from Cork who joined up with children who live in Direct Provision in Lisdoonvarna to make a feel-good banger for Criunniú na nÓg. The song ended up being longlisted in two categories at the Grammys – and they even found the time to release a Christmas song. Amazing stuff.
For a few days in June, Ireland was all about Taylor Swift. She visited here to play at the Aviva Stadium for three nights of her Eras tour, and charmed us all by saying the Irish are “unmatched storytellers” with “the best accents”.
It’s Paul Mescal’s world, we’re just living in it. Not content with an Oscar nomination last year, starring in a bajillion excellent films and making his way in Hollywood, this year saw the Kildare lad star in his first blockbuster, Gladiator II.
The Ridley Scott epic got solid reviews, did brilliantly at the box office and showed us yet again that Mescal is a star for the ages. There’s also a bit of an Oscar buzz brewing about it… we’ll find out more in January. Not to mention that he hosted SNL, made some interesting comments about King Charles and inspired a lookalike contest. Let’s hope Paul puts his feet up over Christmas.
May meant one thing for TV lovers: the return of Bridgerton. And this time, the series focused on a character played by Galwegian actress Nicola Coughlan: Lady Penelope Featherington. It was finally her time to shine, and shine she did.
Coughlan also showed that she wasn’t a star afraid of speaking her mind, wearing an Artists4Ceasefire pin at the premiere of Bridgerton’s latest season, and raising almost €2 million through her social media accounts for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
Time Magazine named the Derry Girls star as one of its Next Generation Leaders, and she was widely praised for her humorous reply when asked about her ‘bravery’ in filming Bridgerton’s nude scenes.
Not only did the 2023 Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch get to showcase the talents of Irish literature across the year, but in 2024 we had another author on the prestigious awards’ longlist: Colin Barrett.
His excellent novel Wild Houses didn’t make it to the shortlist, but the year showed yet again that not only do Irish novelists come up with the goods, the whole world is watching as they do.
Sally Rooney had yet more amazing success with her fourth novel Intermezzo, with it becoming the fastest-selling book in the Republic of Ireland this year.
Plus none other than Oprah selected books by Colm Tóibín and Claire Keegan for her book club.
What a year it was for Kneecap. The West Belfast Irish language hip-hop trio released their album Fine Art, released a film called Kneecap, quickly made over €1 million with that film at the box office in the UK and Ireland, won their legal challenge over UK government funding that had been denied to them AND only went and got shortlisted for an Oscar (we’ll find out if they get a nomination in January).
Lord knows what 2025 will have in store for this hugely popular trio.
What were your most cheerful moments for Ireland in 2024? Let us know in the comments.
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