Séamas O'Reilly: Hope is not just the radical option — it's the only one

I’ve tried to sugar the medicine, adding what insight I can, what hope I can muster, and what jokes I’m allowed. It’s been a true joy to discover I was allowed pretty much everything, and for that I have the Irish Examiner to thank.

Zohran Mamdani speaks enthusiastically into the microphone at a rally at Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn New York on May 4 2025. (Photo by Madison Swart / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP) (Photo by MADISON SWART/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)

I awoke on Wednesday to the cheering news that Zohran Mamdani had won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York. 

That I cared one way or the other about this might strike some of you as strange. This time last year, it would have seemed preposterous to me as well.