Mick Clifford's A to Z of 2024: A look back at the people who shaped the passing year
Cillian Murphy with the award for best performance by an actor in a leading role for 'Oppenheimer' at the Oscars in March. Picture: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
On August 9, the Tallaght woman finished fourth in the Olympics 400m. She was our biggest hope of a track medal since Rob Heffernan in 2012.
It was still an amazing year for her as she emerged as the major athlete in Irish track and field. An all-rounder, she tried all manner of sports in her childhood, including Gaelic football, camogie, volleyball, badminton, and basketball before settling on athletics.
She now holds the national Irish records in the 100m, the 200m, and in the 400m where she became the first Irish athlete to break the 50-second barrier. Still only 22, she is going from strength to strength, with the prospect of a gold medal hovering over the horizon. Hereâs hoping for more.
On January 21, Ian Bailey died of a suspected heart attack. He collapsed in the centre of Bantry, where he was living, and signalled to passers by that he was in some distress. He was dead within minutes.
Since soon after the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in West Cork in December 1996, the Englishman became a prime suspect.
Each time the conclusion was that there was not sufficient evidence.
Over the decades, the case spawned libel trials, a High Court action, a murder trial in absentia in Paris, a number of investigations into garda behaviour, a much acclaimed podcast series and two television documentaries.
Film director Jim Sheridan, who produced one of the documentaries, is currently involved in a making a movie based on the case.
It has been the hottest year on record, according to the EUâs Copernicus Climate Change Service.
It is also the first year in which average global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period.
The previous hottest year was 2023.
There are hints in this data that maybe we have been messing up the planet since around the time of the discovery of the steam engine. This disregard has accelerated exponentially in the last 30 years but still the world sits on its hands because any genuine remedial action is considered too discommoding.
For a week in November, most of the worldâs countries debated the step in tackling the issue at COP29, which was hosted in petrol-mad Azerbaijan.
Cop29 agreed a $300bn package to keep up the fight against climate change but donât bet on the words turning into enough action to make much of a difference.
Once upon a time, there was a waif of a footballer with a moptop of blond hair and a reputation for being a sleepy head. Duffer the player was thus marked out. He glided through a storied playing career, giving the odd interview where he related how he liked to sleep a lot.
After retirement, he dipped his toes in a bit of the coaching when the legs would no longer carry him. Duffer Mark II was born in November 2021 when he was appointed manager of the League of Irelandâs great underachievers, Shelbourne.
On November 1, Shels lifted their first Premier Division title in 18 years. Duff drove on the team but he also lit up the Irish football firmament. Two parts passion, one part knowledge. Hereâs hoping he stays in Irish football.
On July 27, Edna OâBrien died at the age of 93. She was a one-off, before her time and a serious chronicler of Ireland old and new from the removed vantage of London.
Her first novel, , was published in 1960 and scandalised the echelons of Irish society that craved for scandal to assert their self-righteousness.
In it, she explored the lives of two girls from rural backgrounds displaced to the city. The book frankly portrayed female sexuality and desire, which rendered the author as a wan who was losing the run of herself altogether. Naturally it and other of her subsequent books were banned at the time.
These boys are, well, letâs not beat around the bush, the dogâs bollocks.Â
Two Grammy nominations for their album released in August.
This is their fourth album and shows definite evidence of an upward trajectory.Â
The world is sitting up and taking notice.
The band played two sell-out gigs in the 3Arena in December and announced as headliners of the 40,000-plus Finsbury Park festival in London next year. Stay tuned.
You wait all year for an election, the excitement and the speculation building, and then it comes along and falls flat on its face. On Friday, November 8, Taoiseach Simon Harris shocked the nation when he said he was calling a general election for 29 November.
Just kidding. Every dog in the street was aware it was to be called and the date was no secret.
So it began. Harris took off across the country at the speed of light and kept going, shaking hands, showering promises, and generally being in a hurry to get back into office.
Mary Lou McDonald was in recovery mode and she applied her campaigning skills and her capacity for empathy to the maximum, emerging with a good but not great election under her belt but further away from the corridors of power than she was five years ago.
And then there was MicheĂĄl Martin, the old dog for the hard road. In a sporting context he resembled a Tim Crowley, all deft hands, sharp elbows, and innocent face, getting the job done with the minimum of fuss.
In the end, he walked away with the honours and plaudits although as Roy Keane might have it: âWinning elections? Thatâs his job, isnât it?â
Martinâs Fianna FĂĄil returned with 48 seats, Fine Gael with 38, and Sinn FĂ©in with 39. In contrast to most of the rest of the democratic world this year, the Irish electorate spurned change for changeâs sake and voted for more of the same old, same old. Martin is expected to be elected Taoiseach in the new year.
Last year, Hutch made the A-Z on the basis of his acquittal at the Special Criminal Court for the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016. What did emerge from the trial was a ruling that there was a criminal gang built around Hutch and he had control of three Armalite rifles in the wake of the Regency attack.
In October this year, Hutch was arrested and jailed in Lanzarote as part of a police investigation into money laundering. He was freed on bail on the premise that he was going to run for the DĂĄil in the general election.
The application relied on a European law that people cannot be detained without a conviction if they are running for office. This was designed to prevent autocrats in places such as Hungary from locking up political opponents. Yet now Hutch was able to skip free on that basis.
His election bid in Dublin Central nearly yielded a seat. He garnered over 3,000 votes, mainly but not exclusively from the north inner city, an area of severe disadvantage, neglected for generations.
In the week following the election, Hutch flew back to Lanzarote where he now lives most of the time. The Spanish authorities indicated they will not seek to have him held in remand despite his failure to get elected.
The topic dominated politics here, in Europe, and the US.
Here, immigration is a term used often when referring to the issue of accommodating asylum seekers. This year, around 20,000 people applied for international protection. Around 140,000-150,000 came here, either as returning natives, EU citizens, or under work visas. Yet we are constantly told that it is the small cohort of asylum seekers that is the major problem.
There were serious challenges with accommodation this year.
In June, four councillors out of a total of 949 were elected under an anti immigrant banner.
By the time the general election rolled round, the heat had gone out of their hatred pitch. None were elected to the DĂĄil. At yearâs end, roughly 3,000 asylum seekers were sleeping in tents because the State has been unable to provide them with the most basic accommodation.
On April 18, the jury in the Dublin Coronerâs Court delivered a verdict that 48 young people who died
in the Stardust fire in February 1981 had been unlawfully killed. The verdict followed 11 days of deliberation and was met with cheers and applause, which soon lapsed into tears.
This was vindication for the bereaved, the injured, the traumatised, and the communities in North Dublin which had lived with an injustice through generations.
What a year for the Irish language hip-hop trio from west Belfast. They go by the stage names Mo Chara, MĂłglaĂ Bap, and DJ PrĂłvaĂ. Their music and tours received plaudits everywhere. But it was their eponymous biopic movie that catapulted them into the international arena.Â
The film is a treat, well acted, well plotted, serious where it has be, and hilarious throughout. Michael Fassbender lends it a whiff of Hollywood, but the three members of the group carry it off themselves.
Later it was nominated to follow as an Irish language film for the Oscars.
There is no knowing where these lads will stop as long as they keep the head, even if DJ PrĂłvaĂ might lose the balaclava headgear at some point.
On August 27 , Oasis announced that they would reunite for a tour.Â
Or, to put it plainly, Liam and Noel Gallagher announced a tour in which they will sing Oasis greatest hits together rather than separately as they have been doing for 15 years.Â
Whoopee.
On March 11, Cillian Murphy became the first Corkman to win an Oscar for best leading actor.Â
The award was for his performance in the biopic about the man who invented the atomic bomb.
On the night of his triumph, Murphy described himself as âvery proud Irishmanâ which of course is inaccurate as he is a Corkman first.Â
The 47-year-old bookended what must be the best year of his career with a very different performance in the quiet movie adapted from Clare Keeganâs short story, .
Murphy is the real deal, no question about it.
On January 23, David Norris stood down from his position as a senator, ending 36 years in Seanad Ăireann.Â
The phrase âhe made a differenceâ could justifiably be made about Norrisâs contribution to public life.
Norris, a Joycean scholar, became the first openly gay public figure in the country in the 1970s.
He brought a constitutional challenge against the law criminalising homosexuality and lost all the way up to the Supreme Court. Then he went to Europe where eventually he won in 1988.
There followed a long career that hit highs and lows but always followed a thread in which he attempted to give voice to those who found it difficult to be heard.
A word overused in public life is brave. In the case of Mr Norris, it was never more appropriately applied.
The Games took place in Paris from July 26 to August 11 and the City of Light lived up to its billing for this country at least. Ireland came home with the biggest haul of medals we have ever achieved since first entering the Games a century ago. We took home a total of four gold and three bronze medals.
A gaping sore on the Westâs claims to be civilised.
The destruction of Gaza continued throughout the year, bombs raining from the air, homes being blown to smithereens, the seeds of another generation of violent resistance being sown among the rubble.Â
Even those who have always believed in Israelâs right to exist accepted that living in a hostile region is going to engender extreme instincts of defence, even those who can see that October 7, 2023, represented to the Israelis a flashback to the Holocaust, canât but wonder where they lost their humanity.
There was an exodus from RTĂâs music station over the summer. Jennifer Zamparelli, Doireann Garrihy, Donncha OâCallaghan, and the Two Johnnies all left the station to pursue other interests. Their exits once again raises the biggest question of all about 2FM. Why?
Why is it there anymore. When it opened in 1979 it served a major purpose at the time, but that was all of 45 years ago. Those days are gone, gone, gone as John Lee Hooker â who you wonât hear on 2FM â might have it.
The Two Johnnies went gangbusters after they left with their late night lock-in TV programme. Itâs full of laughs or at least would be if you were in a lock-in which would mean you were most likely locked and would laugh at anything. That, however, is obviously a minority view. The programme is highly popular, fair play to them.
On 8 March, two referendums were held to amend the constitution. They should have been called the How To Lose Friends And Turn People Against You referendums.
One was designed to amend a constitution that deigned that a womanâs place was in the home and the other was a companion piece around gender-neutral caring. What should have been a routine nod from the electorate turned into a complete hames.
Most of the opposition backed the changes but the Government tied itself in knots with terms such as âdurable relationshipsâ and was vague about details. The end result was inevitable. The family poll was lost by 68% no vote and the care one a 74% no. Never have referendums been so hugely rejected.
The aftermath analysis concluded that it was something described as an âanti-wokeâ vote won it. Donât get me started on the abuse of the term âwokeâ and the crowd who jump on it to, well, signal their own virtue in a safe space. Going forward, donât expect to see these issues put back to the people for a long time to come.
On September 24, Sally Rooneyâs fourth novel, Intermezzo, was published. So what? says you. Books find their way into shops all the time.
Ms Rooney is not your average published author, she is rock ânâ roll in literature, a writer with a superstar status. Her previous works have been committed to film and launched the career of Paul Mescal. focuses on two brothers and their lovers or partners and explores issues around grief and the age gap that can appear in relationships. The A-Z compiler has been remiss in not reading it yet but thatâs what Christmas is for.
What more needs to be said? The outrageous thing is that this woman is only 33.
On November 5, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States for the second time. It was the first time in over a century where a sitting president was defeated and ran again four years later and won. Earlier in the year, Trump was convicted of a felon related to campaign finance irregularities.
In May 2023, a New York court found he had sexually assaulted a woman years earlier and awarded her $5m. He was due to stand trial for inciting a riot in 2021 in Washington in which a number of people died or were injured.
He was also due to stand trial for attempting to overturn the democratic election of a president in 2020. All of these matters will now likely be parked and he will walk completely free as president.
He claims the justice system is rigged, that he is an innocent man who is being hounded. He carries his grievances like a weapon. He has promised to Make America Great Again. History will determine where he stands in terms of American presidents but undoubtedly he is probably the greatest snake oil salesman to ever walk the earth.
How does it feel? The latest biopic of Bob Dylan focuses on his role in the 1960s and his decision to âgo electricâ, much to the chagrin of his folkie fans. It was released in the US on Christmas Day and will be here in January.Â
Ordinarily, it would not qualify for a 2024 A-Z but it is supposed to be the pure finest.
The man himself is still touring too, as he keeps on keepinâ on, right to tender threads of this mortal coil.
On July 18, the German politician was elected for another five-year term as president of the EU Commission. All that can be said about it really is that all of the Irish MEPs apart from those who are members of Fine Gael voted against her. Sheâs a serious operator, although her position on the slaughter in Gaza has not won her any friends on this island.
Shameless plug. The book hit the stores in August. It details a period in this countryâs history when the police were given free rein to abuse the law. It also deals with a double tragedy in a close knit community that has resonated down to the present day. I wrote it. Get yourself a copy. Now.
Once upon a time, Twitter was a forum that could turn nasty. In 2022, it turned Musky. This was the year when owner Elon Musk took over the forum, and in 2023 he changed its name to X.
He then adapted the algorithms to push Donald Trumpâs campaign for the presidency.
Musk has an array of businesses and is reputedly the wealthiest man in the world but he still has time to tweet morning, noon and night.
In 2024, revenues and advertising for Twitter tanked and an increasing cohort migrated from the forum to BlueSky, a similar model, minus the madness. Where X goes in the coming year will be interesting to watch.
Meanwhile, even more interesting will be how long the bromance between Musk and Trump lasts.
This has to have been movie of the year. It is loosely based on Martin Amis novel about the life of German Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss. Behind the high walls adjacent to the Hoss family home, unspeakable horrors are afoot in one of the main centres of what came to be known as the Holocaust.Â
The film is understated yet chilling, historic yet contemporary.
And at the end of it all in todayâs world the question that continues to nag is how can a people who survived this horror, and set up their own homeland, treat the Palestinian people with the same level of contempt that was directed at them from the Nazis?
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