If in Dowd

Irish music has gone through somewhat of a renaissance over the past number of years. With an influx of new Irish voices, we have a diversity of genres in Irish music. No longer is this country’s repertoire limited to folk and rock. I was fortunate to have experienced this revolution first hand. From 2017-2018 I was presenting a Sunday night Irish music show on FM104 called the Open Mic. The producer and I always made a concerted effort to have diversity on each show, both in terms of gender and genres. From the hip-hop beats of Soule and Erika Cody to the blues of Wyvern Lingo and the experimental jazzy riffs of BARQ. It was a pleasure to hear all of these artists perform live. Also – it was a rare luxury to have a degree of control over what songs were played and what acts were interviewed. Usually decisions about the music are made by a programme director. This week, publicist Linda Coogan Byrne published research on the percentage of Irish female musicians played by ...

We’re approaching the US Presidential Election and a maelstrom of vitriol. In the red corner, a proto facist and the first President to adopt a  govern-by-tweet  approach. In the blue corner, a seasoned operative but one who is gaffe-prone and uncharismatic. This is in the midst of an impending economic recession, low oil prices which have decimated the Texas shale industry, pent-up anger and frustration from the COVID lockdown and a culture war which has emerged from the Black Lives Matter movement and the racist killing of George Floyd. 2016 was a year which changed the course of history. Trump was elected, the UK voted in favour of Brexit and as the Presidential race began in France, the vitriolic, anti-immigrant National Front stormed ahead. Cambridge Analytica mined the data of thousands of people, playing into the psychological vulnerabilities of unsure voters. We realised the fragility of democracy as it is played out via social media. Facebook is no ...

Johnathan Swift described experiencing satire as peering through a glass in which the beholder discovers everyone’s face but their own. It is only palatable to the beholder, he suggested, because they will not be offended if they fail to see themselves in it. I partially disagree with this. Satire is by design, uncomfortable to behold. While it is not offensive for offense’s sake, it unnerves us with its piercing and unrelenting truth, forcing us to confront the aspects of our lives we’d rather ignore. Satire, done well, is great. Good satire casts a mirror on society, letting us to reflect on our prejudices, misconceptions and the outrageous behaviour of those we hold dear. There’s dual emotions – on one level we are falling off the couch with laughter at the tropes of Sacha Baron-Cohen’s Borat . On another level, we wince and cringe at the candid Texan agreeing with Borat’s suggestion that gay people, or “fairies”, should be taken away and killed. While satire makes us l...