Charlie Smyth’s foot-perfect NFL debut has put Tadhg Leader’s kicking programme on the map
Charlie Smyth of the New Orleans Saints kicks a field goal during an NFL preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in August. The Charlie Smyth average is 100 per cent. [ Charlie Smyth scores 56-yard field goal on first career NFL start for New Orleans SaintsOpens in new window ]The numbers won’t last. Daniel Rooney, Pittsburgh Steelers Director Business Development & Strategy, and Tadhg Leader of Leader Kicking at Sport Ireland campus in Dublin in April. Charlie Smyth in action for Mayobridge.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 10:30 UTC
The 50 best films of 2025 – a full list in reverse order
There were some hopeful signs in 2025 that Hollywood could make money out of good films that did not spring from established franchises. The 50 best films of 202550. In this German‑language family drama, two ageing parents with severe health problems and their estranged children confront mortality, grief and neglect in a darkly comic, deeply human portrait of familial breakdown and bad dentistry. Trier risks invoking Ingmar Bergman with his tale – out on St Stephen’s Day – of a film director (Stellan Skarsgard) attempting an autobiographical work. A long-time collaborator with Sean Baker – who co-writes and produces here – Tsou returns to her native Taiwan for a hectic family drama.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 10:06 UTC
Woman and young boy killed in Co Offaly house fire
Garda headquarters said no further information is available. Photograph: Alan BetsonA young boy and a woman in her 60s have died in a house fire in Co Offaly, gardaí have confirmed. Another woman (50s) is receiving hospital treatment for serious injuries following the fire. Garda headquarters confirmed the two fatalities in a statement on Sunday morning. It said gardaí in Tullamore are investigating the cause of the fire and have appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 10:06 UTC
Would the fighting spirit that defeated the Nazis be possible now? You’d have to worry
Every year Herself and a friend embark on what she deprecatingly calls an old lady holiday, though it’s not really that. This year they visited Bletchley Park, the home of the second World War codebreakers. Of course, the project would never have happened without them, but the main bulk of the labour was carried out by people who didn’t know what they were doing. In those days Bletchley wasn’t close to any towns (Milton Keynes wasn’t created until decades later), so everyone lived onsite. Herself and her friend were told about a married couple who had both worked in Bletchley before they met.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 09:01 UTC
Thalidomide: A shock finding in the Irish State archives
But she has come across files in respect of other Grünenthal drugs where the company was negotiating their distribution with State departments. Document dated September 1956 concerned with the sale of Grünenthal products Paratebin and Prevecillin in the Republic. As the long-time spokesperson for the Irish Thalidomide Association, she is anxious to stress that others have much more debilitating deformities than her. “Thalidomide products remained in medicine cabinets in homes and even on pharmacy shelves for years,” Cassidy says. [ Thalidomide survivors: ‘Having no arms is an unusual disability, there’s no guidebook.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 09:01 UTC
Irish dancehalls then and now: reviving a cultural cornerstone in Donegal
Dance crazes can be mini social revolutions designed to cause rifts in generations and, if successful, become measurements of time. So too in 1930s Ireland, where the dance crazes of the day caused division among the generations. Edwina Guckian's The Devil in the Dancehall blends theatre and dance. Now we’re married 42 years’Opens in new window ]For Guckian, the starting point for the project came from looking at Ireland’s 1935 Public Dance Hall Act. Today it’s not just dance crazes that mark time but also campaigns to repeal dance acts.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 09:01 UTC
Downsizing in Ireland: ‘It was horrific stuff. There has to be an easier system’
The implication is that these so-called empty nesters should just move into smaller homes and leave the youngsters to get on with their lives. Making the move to a smaller property in retirement is not always motivated by the costs and efforts involved in maintaining a larger one. We can sell our house tomorrow but can’t afford to buy a smaller house in town – the cost is higher. “We can sell our house tomorrow but can’t afford to buy a smaller house in town – the cost is higher,” she says. The paper found that Ireland had a rate of 67 per cent – more than twice the European average.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 09:00 UTC
The Michelin awards ceremony is coming to Dublin. Why aren’t we milking it?
The 2026 Michelin Guide ceremony for Britain and Ireland will be held on February 9th at the Convention Centre Dublin – its first time on Irish soil. Given Tourism Ireland’s all-Ireland remit, and Fáilte Ireland’s newly announced remit, the Michelin ceremony offers scope for a joint North-South initiative. The Convention Centre will host the 2026 Michelin Guide Ceremony for Britain and Ireland on February 9th. Despite overlapping responsibilities, no State body – Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland, Bord Bia or DAFM – carried a direct mandate for restaurants. The arrival of the Michelin Guide ceremony with high-profile chefs and journalists from Britain and Ireland should have been an all-Ireland opportunity.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 08:33 UTC
Ireland dodged a bullet this year. But there’s a caveat – The Irish Times
The Irish economy dodged a bullet this year. Back in April, we were trying to count the cost of Donald Trump’s tariff threats and his demand that American multinationals relocate production to their home market. This week, official Irish figures showed that we have so far got away with it. The 10 per cent plus annual growth in Irish GDP recorded this week by the CSO will be rightly written off across Europe as more “leprechaun economics”. But 2025 was another decent year for the Irish economy.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 08:32 UTC
No generation is the best. None is the worst. We are all great. We are all appalling – The Irish Times
“Is Gen X actually the greatest generation?” The New York Times asks this week. The New York Times goes on to mention cultural markers such as Friends, Pulp Fiction and ER. I come to praise Amanda Fortini, author of the New York Times piece, not to harangue her. “President Obama is arguably the United States’ first president who is a member of Generation X,” Harvard Business Review noted in 2010. After Gen X came the Millennials, Generation Z and (the Latin alphabet now exhausted) Generation Alpha.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 08:10 UTC
India’s Goa state orders inquiry after nightclub fire kills 25
The shell of Birch by Romeo Lane club in the west Indian state of Goa stands bare following a fire that broke out overnight, killing 25 people. “Today is a very painful day for all of us in Goa,” said the chief minister of Goa, Pramod Sawant. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said he had spoken to Sawant and offered condolences to the bereaved families. According to government data, about 5.5 million tourists visited Goa in the first half of this year, with 270,000 visiting from abroad. In 2024 at least 24 people died after a fire broke out at a packed amusement park arcade in the western state of Gujarat.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 07:59 UTC
Driving test waiting times climb again, with one centre averaging 22 weeks
The average waiting time for a driving test has been creeping up in the past three months and now stands at 12.22 weeksDriving test waiting times are increasing once again, having just hit the 10-week target in September after years of continuously rising. The average waiting time has been creeping up in the past three months and now stands at 12.22 weeks, up from 11.44 at the end of November and 9.57 in September. A total of 35 of 57 car driving test centres across the State have longer waiting times than the 10-week standard. Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin has the second-longest waiting time, at 21 weeks, followed by Raheny at 20 weeks. Fine Gael Dublin West TD Emer Currie, who raised the issue via parliamentary questions, said that, while the official waiting time in Mulhuddart is 22 weeks, “I have constituents now waiting 36 weeks.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 07:35 UTC
Greenman Open takes a breather but, as Ivan Yates told us, investments can go either way
Many potential investors would have learned of the opportunity on a podcast called Path to Power, hosted by Matt Cooper and Ivan Yates. As recently as March of this year, he told People magazine that he has “maybe a thousand pigeons” across a number of lofts. Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell, with his wife Susan and US president Donald Trump at the White House. The goal is suitably capitalist: to give a stake in the economy and a feel for investment to the masses. “You think about the compounding effect of a programme like this in 10, 20, 30 years on millions of children.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 07:31 UTC
In Ireland, the ‘working poor’ will determine future elections
These questions were sparked when an internet storm was triggered by an American substack post calling into question the metrics underpinning the poverty line in the US. For a household of two adults and one child, the official poverty line is around €645 a week, or €33,643 a year. Cross that income line, and by our definitions you’re not poor. Now, think back to that official poverty line: €33,600 for this household type. In Ireland, this group, “the working poor”, will determine future elections.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 06:47 UTC
A Mayo family’s first Christmas in their new home: ‘We’re so excited to be spending it here’
But when you have a toddler who has just discovered Christmas, it promises to be even more fun. When Ola and Mark Jordan moved into their new home in Castlebar, Co Mayo in August, she was already looking forward to decorating the house for Christmas. “We’re so excited to be spending our first Christmas in this house,” she says. “Oh, I love Christmas. When I grew up, Christmas was very colourful with the reds, greens and golds but throughout the years the trends changed.
Source:The Irish Times
December 07, 2025 06:17 UTC