Colin Sheridan: Asteroids, AI, and austerity — how do we cope with a world in chaos?

Asteroids, AI, and apocalypse — are we all living through history, or just overwhelmed by it?

Calculations have shown a 3.1% chance of the 2024 YR4 asteroid scoring a direct hit on planet Earth by the end of 2032.

Sat, 22 Feb, 2025 - 00:17

Colin Sheridan is a writer and columnist. A former officer in the Irish Defence Forces he has extensive deployment experience as a peacekeeper with the United Nations, having lived and worked in the former Yugoslavia, West Africa, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine.

“I have lived in important places,” wrote Patrick Kavanagh, “Times when great events were decided.”

The poem from which that line comes from is Epic, a Leaving Cert staple back in the 1990s. Its ubiquity in Soundings, I feel, drastically devalued its genius. An incredible poem from an incredible poet, its closing sentences are among the best written by any Irish poet, and that’s saying something: