MAMMYNOMICS AND ARE We Addicted to Bad News? are just two of the shows in the upcoming Kilkenomics festival which will see economics discussed with a healthy dose of Irish humour.
Returning for a third year, the five-day festival will run from 1-4 November, featuring familiar faces David McWilliams, Paul McCulley, Max Keiser, Des Bishop and Colin Murphy.
The event aims to remove the jargon, political squabbling and elitism usually involved in economic debate, with organisers promising “cautious optimism and laughter” as an antidote to the “horror of the last few years of bank bailouts, spending cuts and being monitored at work by Angela Merkel”.
McWilliams said, “We want to remove the depressing tone from the debate.”
One person hoping to achieve this is the creator of the hugely popular @irishmammies Twitter account, Colm O’Regan, who brings the woman back to life with his 60-minute show Mammynomics.
“She remembers when you hadn’t an arse to your trousers, she didn’t know where you heard that bad language from, and wondered how on earth you could spend that much on a handbag. Like Silvermints, a broad tax base, and Live At 3, the Irish Mammy was cast to one side during the boom as we forgot everything we learnt and paid with everything we owned,” he says.
McWilliams, along with Max Keiser, Damien Kiberd, Fintan O’Toole, Neil Delamere and Brian Lucey, will discuss Ireland’s seeming “relentless negativity” in Are We Addicted to Bad News? on 3 November.
Paul McCulley, the man who coined the phrase the ”shadow banking system” and the “Minsky Moment” and who as the former chief economist and managing director of PIMCO, will give the Raymond Crotty Lecture also on 3 November.
All of the debates and discussions will feature comedic interludes from Des Bishop, Neil Delamere, Colm O’Regan, Colin Murphy, Kevin Gildea, Barry Murphy and Karl Spain.
Tickets are on sale now.
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