AS SUGGESTED BY its title, the brief of this column is to focus on the strangeness of the news rather than the sadness.
The unignorable importance of Sinéad O’Connor is an exception to that quite loosely enforced principle. It is trite but true to note that the singer’s death will likely be one of “those moments” where everyone remembers what they were doing when they heard, and all will likely recall the same sharp shock, the same heart-in-mouth devastation and the same profound sorrow at her loss.
Such was the singular force of Sinéad O’Connor – not solely as an artist but as a bona fide icon of Irish culture and modern history – there are very few, if any, with the requisite wherewithal to eulogise her in a way that could even come close to capturing what she represented.
For now, we will simply say that Ireland became a very different place thanks to her, and will be a very different place now that she is gone.
This was certainly a week in which Ireland proved its surreality several times over.
Late on Sunday the National Party – a fringe political group without any elected representatives – declared that €400,000 worth of gold had been removed from the party’s vault in Dublin.
Even those who do not like to think very hard or very often about the activity of the National Party were suddenly paying attention.
The party is weird enough by itself, led as it is by Justin Barrett – a diminutive man known for his past association with neo-fascist European groups Forza Nuova and Germany’s National Democratic Party (he denies he was aware of the groups’ links to neo-Nazism). The National Party’s seven-year history was covered extensively in a piece by Stephen McDermott earlier this week.
The last time Barrett was in the news, it was because he’d had a milkshake thrown over him while campaigning in Galway.
Learning about the National Party’s Scrooge McDuck-like reserve of bullion was sort of like when you find out the least popular kid in your secondary school owns a pet snake, and not one of the normal snakes, but the kind of snake you’re not supposed to have. Big, potentially venomous, possibly coiled up in a schoolbag mere feet away from where you’re innocently eating your Dairylea Lunchables.
After all, ‘Nationalists claim to have been heisted for their gold’ is more like a headline you’d see on a prop newspaper in a film set in North Africa during World War II. But it’s real! It’s now! We’re living it, baby! I feel like Humphrey Bogart.
The Gardaí eventually found the gold and are investigating the allegation. Which is… good, but leaves some questions unanswered. Questions like: where did you get that gold? Why do you have all of that gold? Why are you like this? May I see the gold?
For the sake of clarity, the National Party says they have this gold in case fiat currency collapses, which does seem extremely on-brand for them.
A statement of grave importance by Justin Barrett Ceannaire An Páirtí Náisiúnta. (The National Party) pic.twitter.com/R7tZBdwfo9
— N.P.D.B.S. (@NP_DBS) July 23, 2023
It does beg the question of what kind of country Ireland really is when you factor in the strange nooks, crannies and vaults that don’t always make the news. There’s so much about ourselves that we simply don’t know.
Like, for example, did you know that we have a king? It’s true. His name is James. He was in court this week.
James had a case against the Gardaí dismissed by a judge. He had been seeking an order against An Garda Síochána for issuing him with a fine after he was caught speeding, but as he owns the roads (because he is the king) the Gardaí had no actual right to do so.
He also sought an order against Bus Éireann for refusing to allow him to board while accompanied by his dog after his car broke down. In an act of what I assume is treason, the judge threw out both applications.
It’s a funny one, because many people think that we slowly but steadily relieved ourselves of monarchy through roughly 800 years of armed struggle and a handful of years of diplomacy, but in actual fact, James is our king. He’s from Meath. What we, as subjects of James, are supposed to do with information remains unclear for now, but we can only assume that sooner or later we will be issued some guidance on the matter.
ChatGPT reared its frightening head again this week (for head, read Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey’s big red eye, but also it has arms and can type at a computer). Multiple local news outlets, all owned by English company Iconic Media, ran an article titled “OPINION: Should refugees in Ireland go home?”
The article was “written” by ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence bot which responds to prompts from users — in this case the prompt being “Should refugees in Ireland go home?”
The article – which appeared on websites such as Limerick Leader and Longford Live – later had its headlined changed to “Can we trust Artificial Intelligence?”, suggesting that Iconic Media was… trying something out. An experiment in journalism, of the ill-fated variety.
What exactly it is they were trying to achieve by prompting a ChatGPT to “write” an “article” about one of the most controversial topics imaginable remains unclear and head of NUJ Ireland Seamus Dooley said: “The original question was deeply disturbing, and I think that to change the heading and to present it as being an experiment in AI is disingenuous, actually.”
It was yet another concerning early salvo in what is sure to be a strange new chapter of journalism, wherein artificial intelligence increasingly threatens to dominate discussions that would be much better conducted by humans — particularly the kind of humans whose capacity for compassion outstrips that of a free-to-use AI chatbot.
We should expect no less in the Kingdom of Ireland.
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