The Gist

I have been thinking about Bullshit, in its official categorisation.

What if...

As readers will know, in the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Act 2026 the Irish Department of Justice is trying to drive a coach and four through the EU AI Act's limits on police surveillance.

Fadó fadó in Éirinn, becoming the leader of Fianna Fáil was the same thing as becoming the Taoiseach.

The Irish State has spent most of its 100-plus years as both a startling success and an embarrassing failure.

This week Jim O'Callaghan, the Minister for Justice, stood up and explained why his plan to give the Garda Síochána powers to use AI to surveil the public didn't need the safeguards set down in EU law.

In the classic detective story, a rumpled investigator paces a crime scene, notebook in hand, squinting at a cigarette butt or a smudged fingerprint.

"Riverrun past Eve and Adams from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation to Howth Castle and Environs -James Joyce" When I was younger, the Irish ten pound note had the opening lines of Finnegan's Wake by James Joy…

Let's start at the very top of this story.

The Lorrymen got lucky.

Once upon a time, there was a country filled with religious extremists, willing to take violent action at home and abroad against anyone they declared their enemy.

The past few months have seen a strange dynamic in public discussion.

After two Gists in quick succession on the abuse factory that is X dot com, I thought I'd leave that subject, to return to it when a number of the various investigations, assertions and ineffections have reached some sort of conclusion.

Hello there!

In Dublin, on Fenian Street, there's a factory that makes child sex abuse material.

There are so many reasons to hate AI that my first piece along these lines from last year barely scratched the surface.

One cool thing about the classics is that their adaptations tell us a great deal about the moment of their creation.