I HAD lots of ‘wise’ words in my last column about taking life as it comes and valuing all the important things in the world, taking nothing for granted. Then the house was hit with some version of flu or covid (no, we don’t bother testing anymore) and so we’ve had a few fairly challenging weeks of coughing and spluttering and I won’t say it hasn’t taken a little bit of the joy out of it.
The worst part of it all was having to try to practise some of my advice from my last column, to keep the head while all around you are losing theirs, and I was certainly losing mine. The last thing a columnist wants from Christmas, ladies and gentlemen, is to have to follow their own advice and I’m sad to report that I failed utterly.
Nevertheless, 2025 awaits and as ever, there is potential in the air and the promise of renewal in the veins. In the TV business we had a phrase called ‘survive ‘till ‘25’ which was the motto called into action for companies having to weather the crisis in TV commissioning in recent years. At the end of the year, this was promptly and quietly updated to ‘survive through ‘25’. God knows where we will be by next December but here’s a few rash and wild predictions that you can hold me to next year once it’s Santy’s turn to come around again.
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and their coterie of gene pool independents (as well as a handful of non-genetically modified hangers on) will lead the next government. The first job will be to appoint a Spending Tsar, someone who can figure out a way to spend the billons in multinational taxes before the well runs dry. It’ll be like Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, only the exact opposite. The new appointee’s first task will be to install a thousand new bike shelters across the country.
With France at a political stalemate and Germany due to have a massively contentious election, keep an eye on the Euro and whether another full-blown crisis might be on the way. Sacre bleu!
Trump will enter office early in 2025. Literally anything can happen from here. A war with Iran. Tariffs on all the pharma money fuelling our own massively inefficient healthcare system. Selling off NPR to the Russians. The deportation of millions. One thing is clear - it will be all about the Donald. I would advise that you all consider embarking on some focused breath work this year.
Expect more global weirding. After the shockingly mild Christmas, I guess we’re looking at an All-Ireland final on ice and storms all the way through June? The people in Bantry know that this is no laughing matter, of course, and let’s hope that the progress made on climate matters during the last government terms can be maintained and ramped up for the next term. Here’s looking at you, Christopher!
Cork to win The Double! I’m calling it folks. We’re going to win in the Dairy and the Drystock category in the Macra Young Farmer of the Year Awards in 2025.
In markets, expect BitCoin to continue its rise under Trump. Expect the S&P 500 to keep hitting historic highs. Remember, it is likely Trump will break all sorts of fiscal rules to keep the markets happy, and will likely find a way to borrow even more money and raise the US debt ceiling even more. A hard rain is likely gonna fail after what has been years of unbroken gains and rallies. But when?
In entertainment, Ireland’s star will continue to rise. Expect lots more sightings of Paul Mescal in supermarkets across West Cork looking for more and more elaborate produce. At the Oscars, as with the footballers, it’s the hope that kills you. After Cillian’s huge triumph last year, is it too much to expect a kneecapping in 2025?
Galway will finally sink into the sea under the weight of its own self-importance. It’s a big and fairly random call this, I realise, but after decades of arts festivals that go on for months and fellas in dreads banging on about Yeats, the city will finally lose the will to support itself, physically and spiritually, and slump into the ocean in a gloriously poetic and fitting finale.
This year it was all about the ‘brat’ summer. Of course, anyone who grew up in West Cork in the ‘80s knows all about brat summers - they usually involved falling asleep on leather seats in crowded pubs after 20 bottles of orange and a 100 fizzy cola bottles. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, this is now frowned upon and considered ‘illegal’. So we’ll all have to make do with the Charli XCX version of brat again in 2025. And I frankly don’t have a clue what that means.
All in all, I say expect 2025 to feel chaotic because that is the current global mood. But remember all these things pass. We will still be on a spinning rock in the middle of a vast universe at the end of 2025 and likely into 2026. The seasons will come and go. Cork footballers will continue to disappoint. Houses will not be built fast enough. I predict that at the end of this trip around the sun, we’ll be a year older and maybe a small bit wiser but not much. Some of us might even end 2025 more stupid than we started it. So I reckon we buckle up, enjoy the ride, smell the roses and eat the salty chips when they present themselves. We’re only in it for one go so let’s make the most of it. Are ye ready to spin the wheel?
