Artistic influence has long been a powerful force in Irish culture. As early as 1902, William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory harnessed its power in “Cathleen ni Houlihan,” a one-act play that championed nationalistic sacrifice and remains one of the most significant texts in Irish history. More than eight decades later, the Dublin-native rock band U2 reimagined one of the grimmest events of the Troubles in their 1983 track “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” It was an instant hit, and the band’s next album, “War” (1983), topped the U.K. charts.
Today, Irish art may be better represented internationally than ever before. 2022’s Oscar-nominated “The Banshees of Inisherin” exposed audiences to the violence of the Irish Civil War. Meanwhile, in 2024, the critically acclaimed “Kneecap” took audiences on a journey through Northern Ireland, featuring glimpses into the Irish Republican Army (including a cameo by accused former leader Gerry Adams), the modern Gaelic language revival and a whole lot of ecstasy. It doesn’t stop there. Castlebar’s Sally Rooney earned another New York Times bestseller with “Intermezzo.” Additionally, “Romance,” the newest title from Dublin’s latest rock sensation, Fontaines D.C., was named the best album of 2024 by both Time Out and Independent.
Yet, a different arena has proven just as influential in thrusting the island into the international spotlight: social media. It’s a widespread, internet-driven phenomenon that ranges from “splitting the G” when drinking a Guinness to the short shorts of “Aftersun” (2022) leading man Paul Mescal.
Many commentators attribute this movement to the way the world — especially the United States — views the stereotypical Irish person: They have a distinctive accent, they’re happy (in fact, the happiest Europeans) and, most importantly, they’re seen as political progressives. For the population of white 20-somethings who have become influential in pop culture through internet spaces like X, it’s a no-brainer to become aligned with Irish personalities.
To be clear, this support is not simply superficial and self-serving. Known for their anti-colonial attitude — which is notably a rare attribute for European nations — Irish voices have been some of the loudest critics of the Israel-Hamas war. While Rooney refused to translate her last two novels into Hebrew, Kneecap frontman Móglaí Bap called out the “bombing [of] Palestinians from the sky” from the main stage at the 2024 Reading Festival.
As Sarah J. Mass, a professor of Irish history at Tufts, explained, it’s not surprising that Ireland has found itself wrapped up in an anti-occupation movement. “Ireland and Palestine share a history of partition,” she mentioned. “They also share that with India and Pakistan. So there’s a particular experience of a nation somehow being severed that all of those people and all of those national movements share.”
While Irish stars have been widely and publicly celebrated for this stance, domestic issues have been comparatively overlooked. Among them, immigration has been particularly hotly contested. In November 2023, an anti-immigration protest in Dublin turned into one of the country’s worst riots in the 21st century, with 60 police officers suffering injuries and up to €20 million in property damage. This xenophobia stems from a public unsettled by a housing crisis, where a 27% increase in wages from 2012–22 was met by a 75% increase in residential property prices and a 90% increase in rents. If that isn’t enough, the nation is suffering from its worst homelessness crisis in history, and Dublin is ranked last for public transit out of 30 European capitals. Northern Ireland has recently been plagued by public labor strikes, as well as debates between nationalist and unionist political entities.
Overall, it appears that the Irish receive attention primarily when engaging in meme-worthy actions or making loud political statements on international matters. Importantly, this lack of coherence on national issues may stem from crucial moments in Ireland’s past.
Though the Great Famine of the mid-19th century is today most often seen as the butt of a joke, the exodus of almost 2 million people (or nearly 25% of the population at the time) from 1845 to 1855 continues to impact the nation today. With such a sizable portion of the population immigrating to areas such as the United States, Australia and England, Irish culture was largely preserved by individuals living thousands of miles away. Today, more than 30 million people in the United States alone claim Irish heritage — more than five times the population on the island itself.
Now, many of the people who celebrate and promote Irish pop culture have little incentive to understand its domestic issues. Take Ayo Edebiri, the star of “The Bear” (2022–) who has jokingly identified herself as Irish. It’s a long-running joke that originated during a 2023 red carpet interview with Letterboxd for “Bottoms” (2023), when the Boston native quipped that she had played the donkey in “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022). Harmless and well-received by the general Irish public, Edebiri’s joke also highlights a broader phenomenon: attention on Ireland that has little actual connection to the island or its discourse.
Further, there are ties between Ireland’s religious past and its political present. For Ireland, it took until 1972 for the Catholic Church’s role in the constitution as “guardian of the Faith” to be eliminated. After this move toward industrialization and church-state separation, Ireland experienced a rapid period of modernization. One of the foremost changes was tax cuts for major corporations. From 1996 to 2003, the tax rate was reduced from 40% to 12.5%. Today, American companies including Meta, Apple, Microsoft and hundreds of others have set up operations in mainland Ireland.
“The genie is basically out of the bottle in terms of making Ireland incredibly attractive to these multinationals,” Mass noted. “But it means that there is a real strain on resources and questions about economic citizenship and social citizenship, and what the Irish state should provide, and to whom.”
Just as Irish celebrities are both aided and hindered by an international community, the nation’s economy is too. In 2022, the Republic of Ireland collected €22.7 billion in corporation taxes. Almost 60% of it was paid by U.S. corporations.
In racing to recreate itself as a modern society after the fall of the Church and the Troubles, it seems as if Ireland missed one important step: creating a new national identity. That’s not to say that there isn’t a clear view of what makes someone Irish both on the island and abroad, but rather that Ireland is still stuck in limbo between modernity and its past.
Now, it’s up to the generation deemed “ceasefire babies” by Maynooth University’s Fionntán de Brún, to reconcile this disconnection. And while a lot of work must be done, they are trying. From the strong depiction of the Irish language movement in “Kneecap” to Mescal’s advocacy for Irish authors like Rooney and poet Derek Mahon, many Irish celebrities are trying to bring the spotlight back on the island and its most pressing issues.
It will always be the artists’ work that draws international attention, but how the Irish harness their nation’s “trendiness” is of equal importance. For a place that gives so much both artistically and economically, Ireland asks for very little comparatively. Maybe it’s time the rest of the world starts paying their fair share.
