Irish Examiner view: Olympics gave us much-needed positivity in a bleak year
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It would be interesting to learn how many readers subscribed to the old Irish custom last night of opening the front door at midnight.
This was traditionally done in order to usher out the old year and to let in the new: The thinking was that all the trials and tribulations associated with the old year would disperse through the open door. Those would be replaced in turn by the energy and anticipation being brought by the new year.
Will 2025 be an improvement on last year?
Such were the trials and tribulations witnessed in 2024 that readers’ wish for positivity is understandable. In the last 12 months there has been no shortage of horror, and in some cases the long, drawn-out narratives have surely taken a toll on our sensitivity.
Twelve months ago we could barely have guessed that the savage death toll in Gaza would continue to rise and rise, for instance, with examples of shocking inhumanity occurring on an almost daily basis.
The danger of such ongoing reports is that they may deaden us to the seriousness of events, gradually making us accustomed to scenes of children and doctors being massacred.
The experience was somewhat similar in the case of Gisèle Pelicot, where a court in France heard how her husband drugged her and then enlisted men to rape and sexually abuse her while she was unconscious.
The fact that 51 men were eventually found guilty of some form of sexual assault was both a victory for Ms Pelicot and an endorsement of her bravery. But this was also a frightening glimpse of depravity, made all the more depressing because it was so unexpected.
All the more reason, then, to point to brighter events in the past 12 months.
For a few weeks in the middle of the summer we were uplifted by the performances of our athletes in the Paris Olympics, when they showed their brilliance in a range of disciplines.
At a time when Irish identity is routinely weaponised by provocateurs, the athletes showcased the best of us: Competitive high achievers representing Ireland with pride and skill.
We are likely to face any number of challenges as a nation in the coming years and the example set by Paul O’Donovan, Rhasidat Adeleke, Daniel Wiffen, Kellie Harrington, and others is well worth following.
Best wishes to all readers in 2025.
There has been no shortage of speculation on the case.
Last January, Ian Bailey, the prime suspect in the case, died in Bantry. He was questioned twice by gardaí in connection with the murder but was never charged in Ireland. In 2019, he was convicted of murder in absentia by the French authorities but the following year, the High Court ruled he could not be extradited to France.
With grim symmetry, Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s father Georges Bouniol died this week in a Paris hospital at the age of 98, having spent over a quarter of his life campaigning to bring his daughter’s killer to justice.
For many years, he and his wife Marguerite travelled to West Cork at Christmas time with their son Bertrand, and Sophie’s son, Pierre-Louis, to attend an anniversary Mass in memory of their daughter.
This case has been the engine driving so much coverage — ‘content’, in the parlance of our time — over the last 28 years that it would be easy to forget the pain of the family at the heart of the case.
Recently, an uncle of Ms Toscan du Plantier said: “[The family] are so heartbroken that they still cannot move on with their lives. They’ve been waiting so long for justice and know they will not be around forever.”
It is shameful that Mr Bouniol went to his grave without getting that justice.
Every year, at this time, the release of previously classified State papers can be relied upon for some light relief.
Take the case of the Villa Spada in Rome, bought by the government in 1946 as the residence of the Irish ambassador to the Vatican.
When the villa’s swimming pool was refurbished in the early 1990s, there were issues, including the possibility that chlorine would have to be added manually to the water rather than automatically. Which rather underlines the status of the Vatican as the plushest appointment available in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Not quite as funny was a revelation from 2000 about the workings of loyalist paramilitaries — that “racketeering is just a fact of life in Belfast”.
To give substance to the allegation, the Terrorist Finance Unit, set up by the British authorities, reported that both loyalist and republican paramilitaries were being funded by gaming machines, taxis, social clubs, armed robberies, commercial opportunities, fraud, overseas contributions, extortion, the construction industry, smuggling, and video piracy.
The last option may have been overtaken by modern technology, but no doubt it has been replaced by other revenue streams.