As 2023 draws to a close, it’s time to take a breath and look back on another year of highs, lows and memorable moments.
The Hard Shoulder has been with you through it all – and here are some of the best bits from the show this year.
Bertie Ahern tells young people to ‘educate themselves’ on the IRA
Brian Warfield from 'The Wolfe Tones' performs in Belfast, Northern Ireland in August 2015. Picture by: Stephen Barnes/Music / Alamy Stock PhotoAfter the Wolfe Tones performed to the biggest crowd Electric Picnic’s Electric Arena has ever seen this summer, the debate over their Celtic Symphony hit was fully reignited.
Crowds began arriving for the show more than half an hour before the band took to the stage and when it came time so sing, ‘Ooh ah, up the Ra’, the crowd joined in with gusto.
The Hard Shoulder heard several different opinions on the song at the time, including from columnist and pundit Joe Brolly who warned that young people “don’t really understand” what the IRA was all about.
Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern also weighed in on the debate – urging young people to “educate themselves” about the Troubles and the trauma of the past in Ireland.
Fair City’s far-right character ‘a little bit insidious’
After Fair City introduced a new ‘far-right’ character that argued that the pandemic was planned to aid the banks and that the country was ‘full’, The Hard Shoulder welcomed Gript editor John McGuirk and broadcaster Stephanie Preissner to discuss.
Mr McGuirk said the casting of ‘Fergal’ was a ploy by scriptwriters to make his views seem ‘abnormal’.
Ms Preissner, meanwhile, said he was a great addition to the show, arguing that Fair City has always represented the public and, "there are, unfortunately, people like Fergal out there who believe these things”.
The following day we heard from former Fair City star Cillian O’Sullivan who argued that the character was reflective of society, adding: “Agree with those opinions or not, people like that exist.”
Shane MacGowan a 'poet of the downtrodden and the marginalised' - Gerry Adams
Hours after legendary songwriter and Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan passed away, former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams paid tribute to him on The Hard Shoulder.
The pair knew each other for decades and Mr Adams had paid him a visit the day before he died.
Describing MacGowan as a “poet of the downtrodden and the marginalised”, Mr Adams said he was a “very patriotic” and “very republican-minded” person.
He said MacGowan’s songs and poems highlighted his belief in social justice and his burning desire for a better world.
Shane MacGowan of The Pogues on stage at The Stockton Weekender in Stockton-on-Tees, UK. August 2012.Man who dug hole at Portmarnock Beach ‘lost for words’
In September, a "mysterious crater" on Portmarnock beach made headlines – only for it to emerge that two men had dug the hole on a day at the beach the previous weekend.
Virgin Media News ran an item about the "crater" featuring a local astronomy enthusiast who said he was "certain" the hole was made by a small meteorite falling from outer space.
He even pulled a small heavy rock from the hole and promised to get it analysed to prove it was not of this world.
The following day, one of the men who dug the hole joined The Hard Shoulder, telling Kieran he was ‘lost for words’ at the whole kerfuffle.
Seán Quinn: Kevin Lunney wasn’t to blame and shouldn’t have been abducted
Four years after the savage attack that left former Quinn Industrial Holdings executive Kevin Lunney with ‘life-changing injuries’ his former boss Sean Quinn released his autobiography.
On The Hard Shoulder, the man who was once worth up to €4.5 billion said he had written the book to “straighten out exactly what happened over the last 10 to 15 years”.
He said Mr Lunney “knows well that I had no hand, act or part” in his abduction – adding that Mr Lunney had been unfairly blamed by many people for Mr Quinn’s downfall.
Mr Quinn said his family would never have anything to do with kidnapping anybody – and if they did, “it certainly wouldn't be Kevin Lunney”.
