Zoy feed

Echoes of Joy

Irish Republic historical overview by @zoy

A quick overview of The Dublin Horse Show by @zoy

A list of things and activities to do in Ireland

Saint Valentine’s Day history and romantic traditions - a meaning for Dublin and a whole Ireland.

A beloved pub in the heart of Blessington is now seeking new ownership. The Rambler’s Rest Bar & Lounge, a cornerstone of the local community for over six decades, has officially hit the market with an asking price of €585,000. From live music and fundraisers to quiz nights and karaoke, this historic venue has long served as a lively gathering place for locals and visitors alike.

Price: €585,000
Location: Blessington Main Street, Co. Wicklow, adjacent to Lake Drive Road

Ireland stands at a crossroads. Traditional banking’s iron walls are giving way to digital collaboration, where speed, flexibility and customer expectations reign supreme. This is the story of not disruption, but transformation - powered by partnership.

On a rainy morning in Galway, Aoife O’Connor tried to send a payment to her daughter studying in Paris. It was only €200, a small transfer to cover books and rent. She pressed “confirm” on her banking app and waited. Hours passed. Then days. By the time the money cleared, her daughter had already borrowed cash from a classmate.

Aoife’s story is not unusual in Ireland. In an age where messages fly across continents in seconds and food arrives at your doorstep in under an hour, waiting days for your own money feels archaic. For Irish banks, this gap between expectation and reality has become the defining challenge of the decade.

Ireland is a country where narrow roads lead to wide horizons, where music pours out of pub doors, and where rain can transform into a rainbow within minutes. Seven days here is not just a vacation — it’s a small lifetime of landscapes, stories, and songs.

Autumn in Ireland is a season of color and quiet beauty. Forests blaze gold and crimson, tourist crowds thin out, and the landscape takes on a richness that feels almost otherworldly. If spring is for rebirth, then autumn is for reflection, and few countries showcase that seasonal shift as dramatically as Ireland.

When Irish playwright Marina Carr writes, myths come alive not as distant echoes but as living companions. This month, after years of anticipation, her long-awaited two-part theatrical event The Boy finally premieres at the Abbey Theatre as part of the 2025 Dublin Theatre Festival.

The play has already been called one of the most ambitious undertakings in the Abbey’s history. Inspired by Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, Carr’s epic reimagining transforms Greek tragedy into something uniquely Irish, uniquely modern, and deeply human.

Ireland is a land where every mile feels like a stanza of poetry. A trip to Galway and Connemara is not just a tour, but an immersion into the energy of a city, the music of pubs, the silence of mountains, and the magic of Atlantic landscapes.

For more than a decade, the Ryder Cup has been defined by one striking trend: home advantage rules. As Team USA and Team Europe prepare to clash at Bethpage Black in New York, the question is whether Europe can summon the spirit of past miracles — or whether history will once again weigh heavily against them.

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, has been dropped as a patron by several major charities after emails resurfaced in which she referred to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as a “supreme friend.” The decision ends a 35-year relationship with the Teenage Cancer Trust and highlights the fragile balance between philanthropy, reputation, and public trust.

Ireland is a land where music pulses through every street, every valley, and every heart. From the lively pubs of Dublin to the wild cliffs of the Atlantic, the whole island resonates with songs, legends, and melodies passed down from generation to generation.

Some names have become global icons — U2, Enya, Westlife, Boyzone — but Ireland’s musical story is far richer than a handful of superstars. It is rooted in the diversity of its regions, in the authenticity of its local voices, and in a tradition that has bound the Irish people together for centuries.

In Ireland, music is never confined to a stage. It spills out of pub doorways, drifts down cobbled lanes, and gathers people together almost by instinct. To walk into a traditional Irish session is to step into something both timeless and immediate: a circle of fiddles, flutes, and bodhráns, playing tunes passed from hand to hand across generations. Listeners may not know the names of the reels or the jigs, but they recognise the feeling instantly — a pulse that belongs as much to community as it does to rhythm.

What makes this tradition remarkable is not only the music itself but the atmosphere it creates. A session isn’t a performance in the conventional sense; there is no audience separate from the players. Instead, everyone present is part of the experience — musicians weaving melodies, dancers stamping out the beat, and visitors clapping along or raising a glass in time. This is why traditional Irish music is often described as a living heritage. It is as much about memory and belonging as it is about sound, a continuous celebration that makes strangers feel like old friends.

The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon until the end of 2026, with a planned year-long drawdown to follow. For Ireland, whose Defence Forces have served in the region for more than four decades, the decision marks both continuity and closure.

In Dublin today, fashion, theatre, and gastronomy are no longer separate realms but parts of one cultural stage. What happens on the catwalk easily echoes in the theatre, and what is served at a pop-up dinner resonates with both. Ireland is showing how cultural trends increasingly overlap, creating new ways of experiencing art and everyday life.

Just as the United States boasts its legendary Route 66 — a symbol of freedom, adventure, and discovery — Ireland has its own path of myth and memory. It winds not through highways, but through music, dance, and storytelling. That road is brought vividly to life in Irish Celtic, a stage production that blends theatre, dance, and live music into a rollicking celebration of Irish culture.

At the heart of the story stands Paddy, an aging Irish publican who has spent decades running his pub. With a glass of whiskey in hand and a twinkle of mischief in his eye, Paddy is ready to pass the keys to his son, Diarmuid. But there’s a problem: Diarmuid isn’t cut from the same cloth. Carefree and lazy, he’d rather dance than pour pints of Guinness or serve “uisce beatha” — the fabled “water of life” that is Irish whiskey.

Before Diarmuid can inherit the pub, his father insists on a different kind of initiation. Between drinks and laughter, Paddy takes him — and the audience — on a sweeping journey through the history, culture, and legends of the Emerald Isle.

A New Start for Gucci

September 2025 marked an unexpected turning point for Gucci. While the fashion world was waiting for Demna Gvasalia’s debut only in March, the brand suddenly dropped a 28-look collection and the short film The Tiger. This surprise instantly turned the launch into a cultural event: everyone was talking about Gucci again — from fashion insiders to the wider public.

For Gucci, it was a matter of survival. After the departure of Alessandro Michele, the house was searching for a new language. Demna, known for blending shock, irony, and social commentary, offered a solution: pulling Gucci out of crisis through radical reinvention.

Childcare in Ireland has long been a topic of debate — not only for parents struggling with rising costs, but also for policymakers trying to balance public funding and private provision. From Dublin to Galway, Cork to smaller towns, families face very different realities depending on where they live and which type of service they choose.

Community Connect receives boost from the Benefact Group’s Movement for Good Awards

Families across Ireland will benefit from a major act of generosity, as Community Connect, the country’s first Baby Bank charity, has been awarded €5,000 in the latest Movement for Good Awards draw, supported by Ecclesiastical Insurance Ireland.

The charity, with hubs in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, and Athlone, is dedicated to helping expectant mothers and new parents by providing practical support and essential baby supplies. From nappies and clothing to prams, blankets and hygiene products, Community Connect ensures that no child is left without the basics needed for a safe and healthy start in life.

One tweet.
 Not a document, not a law, not a sanction — just a phrase, released into the digital sky where millions of algorithms catch every comma.
 And yet that’s enough for markets to tremble, for an electric pulse of fear to run through the veins of the global economy.

The irony is that the 21st-century economy has become a living organism that reacts not to facts, but to tone.
Not to events, but to the mood of the one who speaks.
It takes only one person — standing at a podium of power or posting on X — to say, “We’re reconsidering trade with China,”
 and billions of digital nerve endings across the planet begin to twitch.

Every trader in London, every investor in Warsaw, every neural network on Wall Street hears that phrase as a command.
And in that instant, as if from the pulpit, the god of modern markets declares:

“Let there be panic.”

And panic comes — not because the world has fallen,
 but because it believed it could.

The Irish property market in 2025 is a paradox in motion. Prices climb, supply shrinks, and demand refuses to slow — yet the country’s housing story is not one of crisis alone. It’s a portrait of migration, adaptation, and quiet resilience.
 Ireland’s suburbs and regional towns are no longer the periphery — they are where the country’s next chapter is being written.