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Coronation of King Charles III ‘a giant signifier with very little left to signify’

IT Sunday: ECB rate rises impact boomtime buyers: ‘They are being hit by the sharpest rise in interest rates in recent history’

Britain's King Charles III wearing the Imperial state Crown, and Britain's Queen Camilla wearing a modified version of Queen Mary's Crown wave from the Buckingham Palace balcony after viewing the Royal Air Force fly-past in central London on Saturday, after their coronations. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

Sun May 7 2023 - 08:57

Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers.

Much of the weekend has been dominated by the coronation of King Charles III across the water. We have plenty coverage of our own with Fintan O’Toole putting his finger on the problem with the hullaballoo. “The problem with the coronation, though, is less that it is a show than that it is only a show, a giant signifier with very little left to signify.”

London Correspondent Mark Paul reported from Saturday’s coronation and describes his day outside Westminster Abbey (a day of “big guns and gold coaches”) for King Charles’s coronation, here.

Sinn Féin’s leader in the North Michelle O’Neill attended the ceremony, along with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and President Michael D Higgins, marking a significant milestone in the party’s relationship with King Charles. Former Northern editor Gerry Moriarty charts that peculiar journey from conflict to coronation.

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Interest rates were raised by the European Central Bank once again this week, with rates now a 3.75 per cent, and there’s no sign of it stopping just yet. In his Smart Money column, Cliff Taylor focuses on the plights of a particular cohort on tracker mortgages who are especially exposed. While in his weekend column, he says those who were worst hit are those who borrowed during the boom and survived negative equaity. “Now that their homes have finally reached the price they paid for them – or maybe they sold them in the meantime and took the hit – they are being hit by the sharpest rise in interest rates in recent history.” he writes.

One way homeowners could potentially save a bit of money, is by installing their own solar panels, albeit at a hefty upfront costs. In this week’s On the Money newsletter, Dominic Coyle goes through the costs involved and how much you can expect to get back through grants and savings. Sign up here to receive our personal finance newsletter every Friday.

But for those who don’t own their own homes, the lifting of this eviction ban continues to hit those of all ages. ‘I’m 78 and by the end of this month, I will be homeless’, writes Micheline Walsh. She and her son-in-law UCD politics professor David Farrell, describe what happens after the notice to quit lands.

Elsewhere Mary Carolan speaks to barristers struggling to make ends meet. ‘I earned more as a taxi driver,’ says one.

For those entering the workforce for the first time Deloitte and PwC started providing extra coaching to their youngest UK staff after noticing that these recruits have weaker teamwork and communication skills than previous cohorts. Colin Gleeson spoke to new graduates and employers. “If you haven’t had an office job before, you don’t really know what work interactions are like. You have only experienced them over a computer.” says one woman. Separately Gleeson explores the impact of artificial intelligence on the workplace and which jobs are gonig to be replaced first.

This week also saw the second US presidential visit in the space of a month, this time the former, Donald Trump who played golf at his Doonbeg resort. He revealed to reporters in a four minute diatribe that he’s planning to call it Doonbeg on the Ocean because ‘we have the ocean and nobody else does’. Colm Keena dug into the accounts of the resort which showed losses of €16.7 million since 2014. Trump also told reporters in Co Clare that the civil rape case he is facing in New York is a “political attack”. In this piece Niamh Jiménez says Donald Trump’s response to civil rape trial is to hurl insults at his accuser.

And finally, Roe McDermott hears from a man whose wife died 18 months ago. “There are still mornings when I wake and struggle with fully comprehending that I will never see her again,” he writes but has started to wonder should he date again.

As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews, tips for the best restaurants in our food section and all the latest in sport. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.

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