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1 week ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
Did you ever enter a contest to see who could lift a corpse? No? Not recently? Maybe you wrestled over a corpse then, or played cards, handing the deceased their own hand. No? Not that one either. Ok, last one - did you ever hide under a corpse, shaking it to scare the incoming mourners - especially the kids. No? Well, don’t worry. It’s not you, it’s me. In truth, these questions would only make sense to someone who lived in Ireland 100 years ago.
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2 weeks ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
The poor man started quoting Seamus Heaney to comfort us. ‚ÄúHeaney used to say a poetry reading is a success once there‚Äôs more people in the audience than on stage.‚ÄĚ It haunted him ten minutes later ‚ÄĒ with three of us, two poets and himself, scanning a crowd of two, one being my husband.
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3 weeks ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
A friend messaged that she was “sick” watching Housewife of the Year, the documentary, on RTÉ. “I’m turning it off.” Horned emoji. “Housewife of the Year in 2025, I can’t believe it,” said another, unaware that it’s a documentary, now running on the RTÉ Player, about the contest.
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4 weeks ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
The criticism has been rolling in against Bono online, in response to his recent speech when receiving one of songwriting’s highest honours – Fellowship of the Ivors Academy. Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr are the first-ever Irish songwriters that the academy has inducted into fellowship during its 81-year history. You’d think we’d be happy to celebrate with them, but this criticism of Bono’s speech has overshadowed any possibility of national pride.
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1 month ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
It’s depressing to hear people as wonderful as Blindboy joining the assault on mainstream media. First things first — I’m an ardent fan of the man. I relish walking my dog friend Nero, listening to Blindboy's highly articulate, crafted, sometimes glitteringly beautiful, exploration of critical issues.
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1 month ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
I hit the bullies where it hurt. “Ya, well I’m going on holidays to France!” Holidays were a big deal in the 80s — a decade when pasta was an exotic dinner choice. “And we’ve two cars!” Thankfully my bullies never sat inside our second ‘car’. It had a giant hole in the bottom, through which I once lost a shoe. My bullies, a band of boys, were relentlessly cruel. Their parents’ bank balance was fair game. How times have changed.
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1 month ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
I met Jimmy in the summer of 2001 in a bar in Newport, Rhode Island. I was on my J1, four months stretching ahead of me — a glorious sense of summer. It was a love affair wrapped inside a love affair. The cultural romance between Ireland and America back then created a separate, magnetic attraction. He loved Irish girls, just as I loved American boys. style, the force was with us.
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1 month ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
“Where we don’t settle, terror grows.” The speaker, a man who left New York for Israel at the age of nine, is talking to Louis Theroux at the start of his documentary, . The gun slung around the New Yorker’s shoulder extends beyond his knees. He uses the word "right" more than once. Louis Theroux, and his friend Adam Buxton, are among my constant (podcast) companions. Reminiscent of many of the English boys I taught abroad, they are quick-witted, kind, and funny.
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2 months ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
Battle lines are often drawn around "normality". Activists in Britain have been fighting to protect it for some time. And now they have it — a Supreme Court ruling that only individuals born biologically female can enter female-only spaces. The straightforwardness of the verdict is appealing.
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2 months ago | 
irishexaminer.com | Jennifer Horgan
I felt nauseous watching footage of Katy Perry in Bezos‚Äô Blue Origin rocket. Holding up butterflies, teddy bears, a daisy, chanting, ‚ÄúTake up space‚ÄĚ, the all-female crew‚Äôs 11-minute spin was certainly branded as feminism for little girls. Sure, Katy, I get it. Only 14% of people who have entered space are women, but can we sort out Earth first? Starting in countries where female literacy is as low as 18%.
