People are reaching for the cigarettes once again after years of seeing them become less popular, but what has contributed to them becoming popular once more?
It appears that smoking, which has long had an image problem associated with addiction and ill health, is making something of a comeback among younger people here in Ireland.
Celebrities such as Paul Mescal, Charlie XCX and Madonna have recently been spotted smoking cigarettes, and modern TV shows, such as Heated Rivalry and Euphoria, have featured their characters smoking more often than before.
To discuss this rising trend, The Pat Kenny Show asked Stephen Murphy, Asst Professor, Marketing, at Trinity College Dublin to help explain why we're suddenly seeing this increase of use in the country, which he described as a "tricky" task.
He shared: "I think it's a tricky one to explain. From the outset, nobody really gets into smoking for rational reasons. If you have your first cigarette, I think it's something nobody enjoys. You've got to labour through it, and you kind of have to practise to like end up enjoying smoking.
"And I think maybe what that signals is that there's something going on that's about more than the rational or just the enjoyment of cigarettes. And I think that pushes us in the direction of what a lot of the young people were talking about there, that cigarettes carry a deep symbolism and that people are using that as a form of self-expression.
"That's something in today's consumer culture; the idea that we don't consume for rational reasons, but we consume to express ourselves. [It's] why we have to think about the symbolism of the cigarette and what it represents in this specific moment in time."
The team also spoke to some young women who shared their opinions on why smoking is seen as "sexy" once more, highlighting the celebrity aspect as a huge influence for people.
One woman highlighted: "I think maybe 10 years ago or so, you wouldn't see the likes of celebrities openly smoking, either in paparazzi photos, or we just saw this infamous photo of Connor Storrie, Charlie XCX, and Madonna sitting at the side of a fashion show at the Spring Summer Collection, and Madonna was smoking, and it did look quite cool.
"I think people are openly smoking more, and cool people are openly smoking, which maybe makes people think it's cool, and it's so weird.
"Now, we know all the health risks of it, and we've known this information for generations at this stage. We don't have the excuse that my grandparents would have had of 'smoking is safe', but I do think it has had a bit of a rehabilitation of its image.
"You see it cropping up more in movies and TV shows, less as part of the plot, or even a huge part of a particular character, more just generally."
Another woman added that even the likes of Love Island removed showing the contestants smoking cigarettes from the broadcasts and the thought that smoking is "cool" goes back as far as old Hollywood and James Dean.
However, even as a smoker herself, she doesn't want to promote it, but can see why in this day and age, people are turning to it as a way of rejecting "any sense of morality".
She added: "We've been told for our whole lives that the world is burning, so why not just light up a cigarette every now and then?
"There is this youthful exuberance and this rejection of any sense of mortality, and I think every generation has that, but I think it's more so now because it does feel like there's so much chaos around us all the time."
Main image: Actress Lily-Rose Depp smoking a cigarette in her new TV series The Idol Image: LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo
