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New York Times
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘The Weir' Review: A Few Pints to Help the Ghost Stories Go Down Easy
There's hardly a better escape from the city's heat right now than the Irish Repertory Theater's excellent staging of 'The Weir,' its fourth since 2013. The company's intimate Chelsea space is blissfully air-conditioned, and Conor McPherson's eerie 1997 drama, set in a rural Ireland of near-empty pubs and howling winds, is appropriately chilly. The production's entire creative team, along with some of the cast, are return players, but there's not a whiff of trotting out the same old. Instead, they render the play's talkative yarns as heartily as a few rounds with old friends. That sense of familiarity (and the awareness that they are such close-knit revivers) even helps the play, which is essentially a hangout piece with a hazy supernatural charge. Its tight 90 minutes track an evening at a pub owned by the 30-something Brendan (Johnny Hopkins), and frequented by the older Jack (Dan Butler) and Jim (John Keating). How regular are their visits? Jack's first move onstage, one he often repeats, is to breeze behind the bar to pour himself a pint. Unlike his also-unmarried patrons, and as played by Hopkins with homey charm, Brendan seems content with his mundane lot but is not yet resigned to it. There's a kinship, then, with the recently arrived Valerie (Sarah Street), who's being shown around town by Finbar (Sean Gormley), an older gent with a self-conscious Ian Fleming style. The men's hospitality, as they fill Valerie in on the area's lore, gradually turns into a series of ghost tales. Through offhand conversational cues ('What was the story with…?' or 'Where was that?'), McPherson is skilled at making reminiscences' jump into communal folklore feel both inevitable and necessary. It's typical campfire fodder — frightened widows and apparitions — and each story can be waved away, chalked up to nerves or having had one too many. But neither McPherson, nor the director Ciarán O'Reilly, leans on obvious spooks, though the production's lighting (by Michael Gottlieb) and sound design (by Drew Levy) supply the requisite dimming lights and stormy hums. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Irish Times
14-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
One in four pubs have closed since 2005, with further 1,000 at risk in next decade
More than 2,000 pubs have closed since 2005, with 1,000 further establishments expected to close over the next decade as part of a 'pattern of pub closures', a new report has found. A total of 2,119 pubs have shuttered their doors in 20 years, amounting to one in every four Irish pubs, a report commissioned by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) has found. Based on data of the register of alcohol licences compiled by the Revenue Commissioners ,in 2005-2024 the number of publican licenses fell by 24.6 per cent from 8,617 to 6,498. The report was compiled by DCU economist and associate professor, Anthony Foley, who noted the figures show a 'pattern of pub closures across Ireland, particularly in rural Ireland in recent years'. READ MORE 'The addition of profound economic uncertainty through US trade tariffs and reduced levels of inbound tourism further threaten the financial foundations of family-owned pubs across the country,' he said. 'In the absence of Government intervention, we are likely to see a further 600-1,000 pubs close over the coming decade.' An average of 112 pubs closed every year across the period, with all Irish counties recording a decrease. Dublin saw the fewest pubs close, losing just 1.7 per cent of its public houses. Meath lost 9.5 per cent of its pubs, with Wicklow losing nearly 11 per cent. Limerick had the biggest drop at 37 per cent, with Offaly at 34 per cent and Cork at 32 per cent. Roscommon lost 32 per cent, Tipperary was down 32 per cent, with Laois, Longford and Westmeath seeing more than 30 per cent of its pubs close. DIGI secretary Donall O'Keeffe noted that the closures were 'due in large part to the high costs imposed by the State' and that 'once closed, such pubs rarely reopen'. Mr O'Keeffe called on the Government to act 'now, before it is too late' and to 'improve commercial viability overnight by cutting excise by 10 per cent'.
Al Jazeera
09-06-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
Photos: Climate action clashes with tradition in Ireland's peat bogs
As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat – the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century. The painstaking work of 'footing turf', as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell. But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon dioxide into one of Ireland's biggest sources of planet-warming gas emissions. As the European Union seeks to make Dublin enforce the bloc's environmental law, peat has become a focus for opposition to policies that Smyth and others criticise as designed by wealthy urbanites with little knowledge of rural reality. 'The people that are coming up with plans to stop people from buying turf or from burning turf … They don't know what it's like to live in rural Ireland,' Smyth said. He describes himself as a dinosaur obstructing people who, he says, want to destroy rural Ireland. 'That's what we are. Dinosaurs. Tormenting them.' When the peat has dried, Smyth keeps his annual stock in a shed and tosses the sods, one at a time, into a metal stove used for cooking. The stove also heats radiators around his home. Turf, Smyth says, is for people who cannot afford what he labels 'extravagant fuels', such as gas or electricity. The average Irish household energy bill is almost double, according to Ireland's utility regulator, the 800 euros ($906) Smyth pays for turf for a year. Smyth, nevertheless, acknowledges that digging for peat could cease, regardless of politics, as the younger generation has little interest in keeping the tradition alive. 'They don't want to go to the bog. I don't blame them,' Smyth said. Peat has an ancient history. Over thousands of years, decaying plants in wetland areas formed the bogs. In drier, lowland parts of Ireland, dome-shaped raised bogs developed as peat accumulated in former glacial lakes. In upland and coastal areas, high rainfall and poor drainage created blanket bogs over large expanses. In the absence of coal and extensive forests, peat became an important source of fuel. By the second half of the 20th century, hand-cutting and drying had mostly given way to industrial-scale harvesting that reduced many bogs to barren wastelands. Ireland has lost more than 70 percent of its blanket bog and over 80 percent of its raised bogs, according to estimates published by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service, respectively. Following pressure from environmentalists, in the 1990s, an EU directive on habitats listed blanket bogs and raised bogs as priority habitats. As the EU regulation added to the pressure for change, in 2015, semi-state peat harvesting firm Bord na Mona said it planned to end peat extraction and shift to renewable energy. In 2022, the sale of peat for burning was banned. An exception was made, however, for 'turbary rights', allowing people to dig turf for their personal use. Added to that, weak enforcement of complex regulations meant commercial-scale harvesting has continued across the country. The agency also said 350,000 tonnes of peat were exported, mostly for horticulture, in 2023. Data for 2024 has not yet been published. The European Commission, which lists more than 100 Irish bogs as Special Areas of Conservation, last year referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to protect them and taking insufficient action to restore the sites. The country also faces fines of billions of euros if it misses its 2030 carbon reduction target, according to Ireland's fiscal watchdog and climate groups. Degraded peatlands in Ireland emit 21.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, according to a 2022 United Nations report. Ireland's transport sector, by comparison, emitted 21.4 million tonnes in 2023, government statistics show. The Irish government says turf-cutting has ended on almost 80 percent of the raised bog special areas of conservation since 2011. It has tasked Bord na Mona with 'rewetting' the bogs, allowing natural ecosystems to recover, and eventually making the bogs once again carbon sinks. So far, Bord na Mona says it has restored approximately 20,000 hectares (49,421 acres) of its 80,000-hectare target.
Reuters
06-06-2025
- General
- Reuters
On Ireland's peat bogs, climate action clashes with tradition
CLONBULLOGUE, Ireland, June 6 (Reuters) - As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat - the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century. The painstaking work of "footing turf," as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell. But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon dioxide into one of Ireland's biggest emitters of planet-warming gases. As the European Union seeks to make Dublin enforce the bloc's environmental law, peat has become a focus for opposition to policies that Smyth and others criticise as designed by wealthy urbanites with little knowledge of rural reality. "The people that are coming up with plans to stop people from buying turf or from burning turf... They don't know what it's like to live in rural Ireland," Smyth said. He describes himself as a dinosaur obstructing people that, he says, want to destroy rural Ireland. "That's what we are. Dinosaurs. Tormenting them." When the peat has dried, Smyth keeps his annual stock in a shed and tosses the sods, one at a time, into a metal stove used for cooking. The stove also heats radiators around his home. Turf, Smyth says, is for people who cannot afford what he labels "extravagant fuels," such as gas or electricity. The average Irish household energy bill is almost double, according to Ireland's utility regulator, the 800 euros ($906) Smyth pays for turf for a year. Smyth nevertheless acknowledges digging for peat could cease, regardless of politics, as the younger generation has little interest in keeping the tradition alive. "They don't want to go to the bog. I don't blame them," Smyth said. Peat has an ancient history. Over thousands of years, decaying plants in wetland areas formed the bogs. In drier, lowland parts of Ireland, dome-shaped raised bogs developed as peat accumulated in former glacial lakes. In upland and coastal areas, high rainfall and poor drainage created blanket bogs over large expanses. In the absence of coal and extensive forests, peat became an important source of fuel. By the second half of the 20th century, hand-cutting and drying had mostly given way to industrial-scale harvesting that reduced many bogs to barren wastelands. Ireland has lost over 70% of its blanket bog and over 80% of its raised bogs, according to estimates published by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service, respectively. Following pressure from environmentalists, in the 1990s, an EU directive on habitats listed blanket bogs and raised bogs as priority habitats. As the EU regulation added to the pressure for change, in 2015, semi-state peat harvesting firm Bord na Mona said it planned to end peat extraction and shift to renewable energy. In 2022, the sale of peat for burning was banned. An exception was made, however, for "turbary rights," allowing people to dig turf for their personal use. Added to that, weak enforcement of complex regulations meant commercial-scale harvesting has continued across the country. Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency last year reported 38 large-scale illegal cutting sites, which it reported to local authorities responsible for preventing breaches of the regulation. The agency also said 350,000 metric tons of peat were exported, mostly for horticulture, in 2023. Data for 2024 has not yet been published. Pippa Hackett, a former Green Party junior minister for agriculture, who runs a farm near to where Smyth lives, said progress was too slow. "I don't think it's likely that we'll see much action between now and the end of this decade," Hackett said. Her party's efforts to ensure bogs were restored drew aggression from activists in some turf-cutting areas, she said. "They see us as their arch enemy," she added. In an election last year, the party lost nine of the 10 seats it had in parliament and was replaced as the third leg of the centre-right coalition government by a group of mainly rural independent members of parliament. The European Commission, which lists over 100 Irish bogs as Special Areas of Conservation, last year referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to protect them and taking insufficient action to restore the sites. The country also faces fines of billions of euros if it misses its 2030 carbon reduction target, according to Ireland's fiscal watchdog and climate groups. Degraded peatlands in Ireland emit 21.6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, according to a 2022 United Nations report. Ireland's transport sector, by comparison, emitted 21.4 million tons in 2023, government statistics show. The Irish government says turf-cutting has ended on almost 80% of the raised bog special areas of conservation since 2011. It has tasked Bord na Mona with "rewetting" the bogs, allowing natural ecosystems to recover, and eventually making the bogs once again carbon sinks. So far, Bord na Mona says it has restored around 20,000 hectares of its 80,000 hectare target. On many bogs, scientists monitoring emissions have replaced the peat harvesters, while operators of mechanical diggers carve out the most damaged areas to be filled with water. Bord na Mona is also using the land to generate renewable energy, including wind and solar. Mark McCorry, ecology manager at Bord na Mona, said eventually the bogs would resume their status as carbon sinks. "But we have to be realistic that is going to take a long time," he said. ($1 = 0.8828 euros)
