Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers.
As much of southern Europe sweltered in an oppressive heatwave this week, leading to wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes on Sunday, Kevin O’Sullivan explained why Ireland is getting hotter and wetter. “The consequences for us are more likely to be more ferocious storms with abnormal coastal surges, more extreme flooding, interruption to food production, and heightened risk in coming years of inundation of our cities located at the mouth of estuaries,” he wrote.
In his column, David McWilliams wrote about the degrowth movement, which has been advocated as a solution to climate change: “Degrowth is supposed to save the world and it is clear the world needs saving. As usual the incidence of who pays and who is affected are not split evenly between rich and poor. Developing countries suffer most.”
Kathy Sheridan wrote how society is arguing over coffee cups while the world burns: “Will slapping a 20 cent tax on a single-use coffee cup help to slow the gallop towards our own extinction? Of course it won’t. But one thing is certain: the time for climate whataboutery is gone.”
This week saw a historic moment in Irish sport as the Ireland women’s soccer team began their first World Cup, facing tournament hosts Australia on Thursday. “It may have finished 1-0 to Australia’s Matildas, but the 2023 Women’s World Cup co-hosts could have done without these bloody-minded Irish women dragging them through the bush on the opening night of this festival of football,” Gavin Cummiskey wrote. There was a great turnout of Irish fans in Sydney for the first match for Vera Pauw’s squad, with one saying, “you could hear us from every corner”.
In the GAA, meanwhile, Limerick will face Kilkenny in the All-Ireland hurling final this afternoon, vying for a four-in-a-row championship win. Nicky English gives his analysis ahead of the showdown at Croker: “The closer the final gets, the more inclined I am to give Kilkenny a chance.” You can follow the match on our liveblog from 3.30pm today.
Sinn Féin: who are the men and women behind Ireland’s biggest political party? Political editor Pat Leahy has looked at the people who will likely be making the big decisions in the years ahead, as Sinn Féin remains on course to take leading roles in government, North and South. “Sinn Féin is unlike all the other parties in several respects, but two stand out: it is a North-South organisation, and unelected people are prominent and important in the leadership and decision-making processes,” he wrote.
It’s Barbenheimer weekend. Barbenheimer? That’s the term used by film fans across the world celebrating the release of this summer’s most-anticipated new movies: Barbie and Oppenheimer. In his review of Greta Gerwig’s insight into the Barbie world, Donald Clarke writes: “The film is much concerned with a sincere effort to interrogate the continuing frustrations of growing up female amid a still-unapologetic patriarchy.” Meanwhile, in her four-star review, Tara Bady describes Christopher Nolan’s biopic of J Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb” played by Irish actor Cillian Murphy, as “a remarkable feat of engineering and propulsion”.
In his column this weekend, Fintan O’Toole questioned why the State is investing billions in projects that depend on the goodwill of property owners. He used a well-known mountain in Co Mayo as an example of the power land owners hold in Ireland: “Here’s a strange fact: neither pilgrims nor any one other visitor has any right to walk that punishing path up to the summit of Croagh Patrick. In principle, the climb could be stopped and the path blocked.”
In this week’s On the Money newsletter, Conor Pope shares how to save hundreds, if not thousands, of euro on your health insurance policy, as “Irish people are cumulatively wasting over €150 million every single year by not shopping around”. Sign up here to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox every Friday.
As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews, tips for the best restaurants in our food section and all the latest in sport. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.
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