For a good few years now, Irish popular culture has been building to a crescendo. It’s not like we weren’t warned. From a revival of the Irish language, to brilliant folk and traditional music, from remarkable strides in cinema to, let’s be honest, the Guinness boom, Ireland is off the rails, hurtling towards a sort of global zeitgeist and pop culture relevance that feels equal parts right and unprecedented.
Not being embarrassing (at least in the eyes of outsiders) also helps. Ireland’s solidarity with Palestine is lauded by those who appreciate what the right side of history is. In a global online culture that increasingly celebrates authenticity, what is seen as our rejection of superficiality now has new currency. The green wave that keeps rolling (while artists emigrate) has come crashing down on online shores, red carpets, soaking newspaper features on splitting the G (an online trend in which drinkers take a big gulp of Guinness in hopes that the line between the stout and the foam will intersect the “G”) and sucking in anyone looking for the next hot thing.
In the acting world, a new generation of Irish actors have come to the fore, including Barry Keoghan, Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley, Aaron Heffernan, Daryl McCormack, Alison Oliver, Nicola Coughlan, Alisha Weir, and Lola Petticrew. Other actors have been around for a while but feel especially prominent in global popular culture, particularly Saoirse Ronan, Andrew Scott, Keoghan, Coughlan, Mescal, the cast of Bad Sisters – one could go on to include Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy, and Jamie Dornan.
Then there are the TV shows themselves – Say Nothing and Bad Sisters being audience-winners this year. There’s cinema, which has been on a roll, this year encompassing Small Things Like These, That They May Face The Rising Sun, Oddity, and Birdsong.
Then there’s the music. At times it can feel like Irish bands are single-handedly sustaining contemporary rock and indie music. Fontaines DC make a good case for being the best non-legacy band in the world right now. But rising bands are earning plaudits too: NewDad, Just Mustard, Sprints, Pillow Queens, Gurriers, Murder Capital, and Bricknasty are good examples. This year’s Glastonbury festival was seen, in part, as an Irish takeover. In pop, CMAT is huge. Hozier had a US number one this year. In hip hop, Belfast’s Jordan Adetunji is nominated for a Grammy for the remix of his breakout hit, Kehlani.
Kneecap became one of the groups of the year globally, with a critically acclaimed debut album, their film storming Sundance, making the shortlist for an Oscar nomination and sweeping the British Independent Film Awards, a victorious legal case against the British government, their role in the Irish language revival, their activism on Palestine, and raucous live performances.
And that’s before you even get to what performers such as Lankum, The Mary Wallopers, John Francis Flynn, The Scratch, Landless, Lisa O’Neill, and Ye Vagabonds are achieving across Irish folk and groundbreaking interpretations of traditional music. Apologies to the countless brilliant artists I haven’t mentioned. There really are too many to cite.
Then there’s literature, an embarrassment of riches. Where do you start? This was the year of Intermezzo, in my opinion Sally Rooney’s finest novel to date. Claire Keegan finished out the year with Oprah heaping praise. A thriving literary journal scene is also acting as an increasingly packed pipeline for new voices.
In fashion, Jonathan Anderson heads up Loewe and recently announced a collaboration between his own label, JW Anderson, and Harry Styles’s Pleasing brand. Seán McGirr is the creative director of Alexander McQueen. Simone Rocha is on a brilliant creative run, as is Robyn Lynch. Richard Malone is expanding his artistry in incredibly exciting ways.
As the year ends, 2024 can be characterised as reaching Peak Ireland, a coalescence of talent, vibes, authenticity and relevance that now appears to be utterly out of our hands
Maybe this situation also has to do with a broader fragmentation of the global centres of popular culture. Specific countries earning a spotlight globally for a while isn’t an unusual thing. One could point to Scandi noir across literature and television, or South Korean cinema and pop, or Icelandic music, or Japanese animation. And yet the Irish cultural moment appears to be more all-encompassing, cutting across literature, cinema, television, music, fashion, alcohol brands, a lust for authenticity, or even lifestyle.
Next September, TBEX Europe, a large travel blogger and influencer conference, will be held in Donegal. If your social media feed isn’t already cluttered with wistful musings from American influencers about the beauty of Irish fields and pubs, or discussing the merits of Irish dairy (the New York Times recently named Kerrygold the best butter of 2024), wait until attendees see Donegal’s beaches. The draw to the “cosiness” of an Irish aesthetic recalls a previous global embrace of Danish and Norwegian hygge.
As the year ends, 2024 can be characterised as reaching Peak Ireland, a coalescence of talent, vibes, authenticity and relevance that now appears to be utterly out of our hands. The irony is that the lived experience of those creating in Ireland is often a struggle. Many of the pop culture phenomena I’ve mentioned don’t even live here. How great would it be for arts funding to multiply and match the needs of those wanting to make work here? For rent to drop to stem the outward flow of young creative people? For corporate gentrification to stop squishing the character of the capital? For Government to stop dawdling on licensing modernisation so we’d have decent nightlife, and most importantly, for nature to be protected? Government agencies will sell the Cool Ireland brand far and wide, but what appears authentic abroad needs to have authentic support at home.