WELCOME TO SURREALING in the Years, a weekly feature that seeks to capture Ireland’s immediate social and cultural climate in 800 words.

Sifting through each day’s news as it unfolds, it’s not easy to know in advance which moments will be the source of either fond or dreaded communal reflection in the years and decades to come. Hopefully by maintaining this archive, we will create a record of sorts for the strange goings on in this small country.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the rights to any of Steely Dan’s back catalogue, but if you want, you can open Spotify or your music streaming app of choice and put Steely Dan on shuffle as you read this piece.

The week ending 1 June, 2023

In a spot of good timing, this week saw the Central Statistics Office publish the results of last year’s Census, whose headline figure saw us reach 5.15 million in population.

It is the first time in 171 years that Ireland’s population exceeded the five million threshold, proof that not even a famine exacerbated by centuries of colonialism can hold us down for long.

Among the headline details was the news that levels of Catholicism have fallen to 69%. While this is a drastic decrease on the 79% recorded in 2016, we can also all agree that 69% is the funniest amount of Catholic that it is possible for Ireland to be.

We still have only 189 Satanists, disappointing news for those of us who are surreptitiously using our positions in media to do the bidding of the Dark Lord.

In news that will surprise nobody, rental prices increased by 37% between 2016 and 2022. We have long been told that housing is not a problem that can be solved overnight — a maxim that apparently holds true no matter how many nights there are.

‘Remember the housing crisis?’ is something we’ve all been very much looking forward to saying for the last seven or so years, but there is no sign yet that Ireland’s catastrophic home and rental prices will be consigned to memory any time soon.

The latest Daft.ie report found that new homes at a price point of €400,000 and €500,000 saw a huge surge in demand of 1783% since last year. 

Department of Housing statistics, released this week, showed that there were 12,259 people in emergency accommodation last month. Elsewhere, the Residential Tenancies Board confirmed that it had received over 4,000 eviction notices for the third quarter in a row. 

While an ever-worsening housing crisis does not lend itself to Lovin’ Each Day by Ronan Keating, and does not necessarily possess the visual qualities necessary for an exciting, short, TV package, it is the story that defines the current moment in Irish life more than any other.

These latest figures do not feel like a watershed moment, however. There is no election immediately looming, and while the crisis is deepening, it is doing so by increments. 

When we look back on this week in Irish history, we won’t say “That was the moment everything changed!” Instead we’ll say “That was one of a long line of moments in which things continued to get worse.” We’re also going to miss our climate targets. 

Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency attributes this forecast to a lack of policy underpinning the stated goals of our climate commitments. To be fair, it does stand to reason that we would have better time at addressing our crises (housing, climate, et al.) if we did have what the nerds refer to as “policies” to deal with them.

Phillip Schofield using a disposable vape literally during a BBC News interview feels like its own separate watershed moment pic.twitter.com/TpJRdLwv1j

— Nick Walker (@nickw84) June 1, 2023

In popular culture, this week saw HBO’s smash-hit Succession draw to a close, sticking the landing better than perhaps any other drama of the last five years. Unfortunately, Jesse Armstrong’s masterpiece has had to share the limelight with the prolonged descent of former This Morning host Phillip Schofield. 

Schofield, who resigned his position following what he called an “unwise, but not illegal” affair with a much younger member of staff, has been chucking out interviews to beat the band this week, doing what he can salvage what remains of his reputation. 

One particularly desperate image shows the 61-year-old using a disposable Lost Mary vape – the kind that will almost certainly eventually be made illegal – during an interview with the BBC in which he claimed to have “lost everything”.

Would such a thing make the final cut of Reeling in the Years 2023? Almost certainly not. Phillip Schofield simply doesn’t have that kind of cachet. Is it good enough for this significantly more granular analysis of the present moment in time? You bet it is.

If some future generation is reading this entry in search of some good news however, they can rest assured knowing that this was the hottest week of 2023 so far, with temperatures hitting 26 degrees in some location. 

Though, depending on how far into the future this piece is read, we should be cognisant that rising temperatures are possibly no longer something to be celebrated.