Coldplay couple are nobody's business
Why has the world vilified these two people, mocked them and humiliated them?
What do we know about who they are, and why they make the choices they make? We are all human.
The social media interest that fuelled the virality of the clip intruded in what should have been nobody's business but their own. – Yours, etc,
READ MORE
LEONOR BETHENCOURT,
Drimnagh,
Dublin.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Dear Erin: Why do Irish people love to get annoyed about ‘Oirish' films?
The most popular defence when you have failed to recognise, say, a broad pastiche of Donald Trump on social media is that the reality is now so extreme no parody is possible. Almost exactly 20 years ago, one Nathan Poe made such an argument about people who deny evolution. 'Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is utterly impossible to parody a creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article,' he wrote. This is known as Poe's Law. Anyway, all this is by way of explaining how I – along with others who should know better – briefly fell for a recent jape that didn't quite include a 'winking smiley'. A few weeks ago, ads began appearing on buses for an upcoming feature called Dear Erin. 'She was the Irish goodbye he never forgot,' the tagline read. Peter Coonan , in cloth cap and collarless shirt, writes a letter at a table that also holds a pint of stout and a glass of whiskey. One hand is bloodied. Shamrock spills from a breast pocket. Somehow a rainbow makes it into the collage. A moment's digging unearthed a trailer for the ghastly thing. 'My greatest love? A simple Irish boy from a simple Irish town,' a female American voice trills over glissando strings. Maybe he has now forgotten her? Of course not. Coonan, sitting in his booze-stacked snug, begins a letter with 'Dear Erin' before continuing: 'I've played that night over more times than the Finnegans fought the O'Malleys.' After a bit more shameless blarney, a shadow falls over our hero and we hear, in that same American accent, an uncertain 'Paddy?' READ MORE You might reasonably conclude that only a fierce eejit – no cuter than a donkey's behind – would fall for such a load of aul' cow's muck. But context is all. What was the advertisement doing on the side of a bus? What would Peter Coonan, a Love/Hate alumnus of some distinction, be doing in something that didn't quite exist? This wasn't a post on XformerlyTwitter. There was real money behind it. Moreover, this is surely a case where Poe's Law applies. The deluge of Micksploitation never stops: Far and Away, PS I Love You, Leap Year, Laws of Attraction, Wild Mountain Thyme. No stereotype is too insulting for visiting Americans to exploit. So, for an hour or two, I, and a few other film boffins on the social, could be forgiven (give us a break) for falling into the trap. The parody was a fair one. The clues were right there. What trailer for an apparently imminent title – 'coming this summer' – fails to include a precise release date? Squint and you will see that Paddy's letter is addressed to 'ERIN, AMERICA' – too broad for even the dimmest begorrah aesthetic. I cannot claim to be the first to spot that 'Hugh Forbes', the film's alleged director, shares his name with the character played by Maureen O'Hara's brother in The Quiet Man. We soon all decided that it was a stealth advertisement for something or other. Would Erin soups do such a thing? Not on this occasion. It transpired that the campaign was financed by Epic The Irish Emigration Museum . A longer video, released later, has Coonan break character and snort: 'I'm sorry but who f**king writes this s**t? How are we letting people away with this?' The museum's website , going in big, offers essays on 'the impact of Hollywood stereotypes of Ireland' and 'how to de-stereotype … 'Oirish' films'. This follows (another clue) a campaign from the same organisation that, with predictably hideous results, asked AI to create images of a typical Irishman. Fair enough. The strategy worked. At least one column in at least one national newspaper has now mentioned the prank. The worthwhile question is less why Americans (sometimes still the British) keep doing this – lazy sentimentality? – than why the nation remains so eager to get annoyed about it. It is a little over a year since we all went ballistic over a harmless Netflix title called Irish Wish . Yes, as I then wrote in this place , the Lindsay Lohan vehicle was silly. But was there any need to publish all those 12,000-word treatises on its supposed crimes against the national psyche? [ Planning to hate-watch Lindsay Lohan's Irish Wish? Micksploitation addicts should prepare for disappointment Opens in new window ] There is no easier way of attracting Irish attention than releasing something that shamelessly ploughs the Micksploitation groove. The Epic campaign is correct to bemoan the more egregious tropes. But let us not pretend we wouldn't miss these things if they went away. Baloney such as Wild Mountain Thyme and Irish Wish make us feel noticed. They make us feel righteous. They allow our hearts to beat a little faster. If Americans didn't do this to us we would have to do it to ourselves. As we have just done.
Sunday World
3 hours ago
- Sunday World
Sharlene Mawdsley zooms past ex-hurler in hilarious All-Ireland celebration race
The Irish sprinter got her running shoes on as she soared past a former Tipperary hurler. Irish sprinter Sharlene Mawdsley has dipped into her day job as part of Tipperary's celebrations following their All-Ireland hurling triumph over Cork on Sunday. The Olympian, who hails from Newport, was in attendance at Croke Park to cheer on both her native county as well as her boyfriend Michael Breen. Her partner was part of a sturdy Tipp defence that held the Rebels to a paltry two points as part of a second-half demolition job at GAA HQ. Around the county, the newly-crowned champions have been soaking in the celebrations after lifting the Liam MacCarthy for the 29th time. Irish Olympian Sharlene Mawdsley and hurler Michael Breen. Photo: Instagram/Sharlene Mawdsley Sharlene appeared to get herself in on the action as the festivities roared on with a road race alongside former hurler Bryan 'Buggy' O'Meara. In a video that has surfaced on social media, the former Tipp star was given a sizeable head start but the 400m speedster absolutely soared past him to take the undisputed victory. Her lightning-fast speed down the unnamed housing estate was met with an uproar of laughter from those watching on and filming the one-on-one showdown. The 26-year-old was full of praise for her other half in the wake of the Croker triumph as she posted a picture of the happy couple on social media. "Proud of you every day, but that little bit prouder today', she posted alongside a pic of the two embracing and holding the iconic trophy. The pair 'hard launched' their romance on May 18 following Tipperary's win against Waterford in the Munster Championship. The Olympian athlete shared a photo of herself and Breen from the pitch in their matching county colours, captioning it 'Tippin' on'. The Tipperary woman enjoyed a sensational 2024 on the track as part of the mixed relay team that claimed gold at the European Championships last May. Her year ended on a low note as she was part of the 4x400 team that finished fourth at the Paris Olympics. Sharlene suffered heartache just last month following the sudden death of her father, Thomas 'Tucker' Mawdsley, at the age of 67.
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Dying review: Dark family saga shows living, like dying, is a messy business
Dying Director : Matthias Glasner Cert : 16 Genre : Drama Starring : Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek, Anna Bederke, Hans-Uwe Bauer, Saskia Rosendahl Running Time : 3 hrs 3 mins Matthias Glasner's Dying (or Sterben in the original German) is a film composed like its central musical motif: sprawling, discordant, haunted by mortality and strangely reminiscent of other works. Spanning three hours and five loosely tethered chapters, this dark family saga plays like a collage of recent festival favourites; early, unvarnished scenes of elder care nod towards Vortex and Amour ; a hectic middle section concerning a conductor recalls Todd Field's similarly themed Tár ; a late narrative swerve into assisted suicide intersects with Pedro Almodóvar's The Room Next Door . Somehow, the disparate pieces and maximalist clutter find a rhythm. Glasner's sweeping intergenerational study lays bare the fractures within a German family. Lissy (Corinna Harfouch), an incontinent matriarch dying of cancer; her husband Gerd (Hans-Uwe Bauer), vanishing into dementia; their son Tom (Lars Eidinger), an enigmatic conductor rehearsing a choral piece titled – get it? – Dying; and Ellen (Lilith Stangenberg), their estranged, self-loathing daughter, who works as a dental assistant in the belief that it's a job everybody hates. She sings beautifully, but only when drunk. Her desperate affair with a married colleague marks her out from a clan composed of emotionally distant adults. Tom's marked detachment is signalled by his bizarre domestic arrangements and the dispassionate abandonment of his depressed composer friend. His blank self-concern veers toward blackest comedy: imagine an episode of Peep Show directed by Michael Haneke. READ MORE There's plenty to admire in the performances – Harfouch, Eidinger, and Stangenberg all deliver searing, bravura turns. The film's obsession with finality makes room for bodily fluids of all varieties. Even the film's hook-up scene – Ellen pulling a lover's tooth before kissing his mouth – is bloody. Living, like dying, is a messy business. The script's wandering and overlapping arcs can feel uneven and tricksy, yet there's something utterly compelling in how Glasner stages decay not just as a biological inevitability, but a doomy familial legacy.
