“It was one of the greatest cultural disasters ever to befall any country, and we did it to ourselves.” What was the archivist Catriona Crowe lamenting back in 2020?

• The Great Famine
• Mrs Brown’s Boys
• The decline of the Irish language
• The destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland at the Four Courts in Dublin during the Civil War

On their 2014 album Live in Dublin, who asked the audience: “Are you humouring me? If these are the crumbs of compassion that you offer to the elderly, I am grateful?”

• Bob Dylan
• Leonard Cohen
• Aretha Franklin
• Tony Bennett

In 1954, which controversial Irish-American politician’s career effectively ended when they were asked: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? "

• Richard J Daley
• Joseph P Kennedy
• Joseph McCarthy
• Tip O’Neill

“This is an abuse of the liturgy. It's sacrilegious … Mass is not for the purpose they used it for.” In 2023, what did Fr Paddy McCafferty of Belfast object to?

• Graham Norton’s wedding
• Conor McGregor’s Baptism
• Shane MacGowan’s funeral
• Bono’s bar mitzvah

In which Oscar-nominated 2025 film did Jack O’Connell lead the patrons of a juke joint singing The Rocky Road to Dublin?

• F1
• Sinners
• Train Dreams
• Marty Supreme

Which of the following Irish stars does NOT feature in Taylor Swift’s 2026 Opalite video?

• Domhnall Gleeson
• Cillian Murphy
• Graham Norton
• Saoirse Ronan

In the 1952 film The Quiet Man, which Irish-Australian folk ballad do local bar patrons sing when John Wayne arrives to Innisfree?

• The Wild Colonial Boy
• South Australia
• Waltzing Matilda
• Van Diemen’s Land

The award-winning Irish actor Jessie Buckley first came to public attention when she appeared on which BBC talent show in 2008?

• The Voice UK
• Fame Academy
• The X Factor
• I’d Do Anything

In which Martin Scorsese movie does the renowned Irish musician Finbar Furey cameo as Satan’s Circus Singer?

• Raging Bull
• Goodfellas
• Gangs of New York
• The Age of Innocence

Who was the first Irish-born author to win the Booker Prize?

• Iris Murdoch
• John Banville
• Anne Enright
• Anna Burns

Complete the title of Manchán Magan’s final book: Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for _____)

• Sleet
• Snow
• Hail
• Sun

In James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, when Leopold Bloom stands at a shop window waiting for a tram to pass so he can break wind, what text does he pretend to read?

• The Communist Manifesto
• Bhagavad Gita
• Robert Emmet’s speech from the dock
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

According to the title of a 1965 novel by Edna O’Brien, which is a “wicked month”?

• April
• June
• August
• October

What did the 16th century English poet Edmund Spenser propose as a solution to his government’s problems in Ireland?

• Limited self-government for the Irish
• Dual monarchy
• The redistribution of Irish land
• A genocide of the Irish people

“Saints be praised!” Which popular American children’s TV show from the 1960s featured a stage-Irish police man named Chief O’Hara?

• Batman
• Get Smart
• The Monkees
• I Dream of Jeannie

The forthcoming Netflix series Grown Ups, starring Adrian Dunbar and Aisling Bea, is based on an original novel by which writer?

• Cecelia Ahern
• Maeve Binchy
• Marian Keyes
• Sheila O’Flanagan

On The Late Late Show in 1999,

Source: The Irish Times March 14, 2026 07:31 UTC

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