Getting from A to B
“You can’t cook to save your lives, but you do know how to drink.”
Mikael Petterson, chief executive of Villa Vie Residences, is asked in September how he will remember Belfast after the company’s repair-needing cruise ship, Ville Vie Odyssey, spent four months stranded in the city. It was stuck in the vicinity of the harbour for several more days after he came out with this
“You don’t want to see it go off without you, but that’s where we wound up.”
Barry “Butch” Wilmore – who alongside fellow astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams, went to the International Space Station for eight days in June – describes watching their faulty Boeing Starliner spacecraft return to earth in September without them. They are still waiting for their lift home from Space X
A Palestinian in Ireland: ‘Even in Ireland, you can see there are people oppressed, but it’s hidden’
Lara Marlowe: Unstable new world order has frightening echoes of 1930s and 1940s
‘At Trump’s wall, even the cactuses are dying out:’ Enda O’Dowd’s Photographs of the Year
‘How do we raise morale in the Ukrainian military? Give them good food, for starters’
“Looking forward to the holiday is so much an important part of the holiday, and that has been taken away from people.”
Clare Dunne, chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents Association, reports “absolutely huge” levels of stress among Aer Lingus customers in June as its pilots threaten industrial action
Fair city
“We do not think it is audacious to suggest that Dublin 1 can become one of Europe’s most exciting neighbourhoods.”
David McRedmond, An Post chief executive and independent chairman of the Dublin City Taskforce, is bullish about the future in October as the taskforce publishes its report on how to revitalise the city centre
“Every single large city in the world faces these challenges.”
Vanessa Hartley, new head of Google Ireland, assures The Irish Times in November that Ireland remains an attractive location for the tech company despite the housing crisis, the cost of living and other issues
“I’ve gone to Paris [Beauvais] with Ryanair, Venice [Treviso] with Ryanair. Why can’t I fly to Dublin [Shannon] with Ryanair?”
Fianna Fáil TD James Lawless, a Minister of State at the Department of Transport, puts forward an innovative idea in September, proposing that one way around the Dublin Airport passenger cap would be to rebrand Shannon as Dublin
Close families
“[We] hope that we can move beyond this litigation to focus on strengthening and rebuilding relationships among all family members.”
Elisabeth Murdoch, James Murdoch and half-sister Prudence MacLeod issue a hopeful statement in December after a Nevada probate commissioner rules against father Rupert Murdoch’s bid to change his family’s trust to consolidate the power of eldest son Lachlan
“They enjoy being comfortable financially, but they are not preoccupied with wealth. Their mother, from whom they learned these values, would be very proud of them. As am I.”
Warren Buffett, in a November letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, says his three foundation-running children have each spent more time directly helping others than he has
“Bringing back the Roman tradition of making sculptures of your wife.”
Mark Zuckerberg posts an image on Instagram in August of his wife Priscilla Chan, standing next to a giant teal-coloured statue of her that he commissioned from the New York-based artist Daniel Arsham
Tech currents
“Come on in, the water’s warm.”
David Sacks, venture capitalist and friend of Elon Musk, invites fellow tech billionaires in July to join him in supporting Donald Trump’s bid for re-election. He is now Trump’s incoming AI and cryptocurrency tsar
“You could take two really broken business models and put them together and still do well on the stock market.”
US tech journalist Kara Swisher, in an interview with CNN in November, weighs up speculation that Musk’s X and Trump’s Truth Social, both “terrible, terrible businesses”, might one day merge into “kind of a meme stock” or marriage of propaganda vehicles
“The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”
Actor Hugh Grant speaks for many in May as he laments a new Apple advertisement – shared online by chief executive Tim Cook – that depicts the crushing of musical instruments, paints and other symbols of creativity into the “thinnest” ever iPad Pro
Inquiry revelations
“I don’t know what to say. I think you knew.”
Moya Greene, the former boss of Royal Mail, text messages former UK Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells in the wake of ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office. The text emerged at an inquiry in May after the series sparked public anger about a decades-old wrongful prosecution scandal
“I told him, ‘I’m not getting in it’.”
Tony Nissen, ex-engineering director of OceanGate Expeditions, tells a hearing in September that he once refused chief executive Stockton Rush’s request that he pilot the Titan submersible, which went on to implode in 2023, killing Rush and four others. Nissen was fired in 2019 after refusing to approve an earlier expedition to the Titanic wreckage
“We’re not getting the BAM A-game on this project.”
David Gunning, chief officer of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, criticises the lead contractor on the new children’s hospital at an Oireachtas committee in September. BAM, for its part, rejected a suggestion it was “holding the State to ransom”
Life lessons
“As a person I have changed a lot, and probably the most important lesson I have learned is just to focus and enjoy the present! Life is unpredictable for everyone, with many unknowns, but there is a lot of beauty in everyday life.”
An extract from a post written by former YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2022. She died in August this year aged 56, with her post published posthumously in November to mark Lung Cancer Awareness Month
“I think I would like to have understood sooner in my life that it’s okay to pivot. You think you’re on one path in life, you know, and sometimes you find out you need to pivot.”
Philanthropist Melinda French Gates, speaking on Kirsty Young’s BBC podcast Young Again in February, talks about needing to get a divorce from Bill Gates and how she’s “more than okay on the other side”
“I think there’s a Paul Mescal in all of us.”
Jack Wall O’Reilly addresses a cheering crowd after winning a Paul Mescal lookalike contest in Smithfield, Dublin, in November. Celebrity lookalike contests became a craze in cities around the world in 2024 as young people felt like voting for something fun for a change
External communications
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing.”
Kate Middleton apologises in March after a family Mother’s Day photograph was pulled from circulation by news wires including Getty Images, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the Associated Press over concerns it was “manipulated”
“There’s no point pretending it’s anything other than embarrassing and disappointing.”
BBC journalist and presenter Laura Kuenssberg is forced to cancel her scheduled interview with former UK prime minister Boris Johnson in October after sending him her briefing notes “in a message meant for my team”
“I am a person of substance. I’m not a person of soundbite.”
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, speaking in early November shortly before the election was called, kindly gives the Sunday Independent a soundbite nonetheless
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