Even if the order of colours on his St Patrick’s Day sash jarred with some (was this the Ivorian or Irish national day?), New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and his team clearly did their homework before speaking to an Irish audience this week.
In a break from the traditional pleasantries about construction workers and green things, his comments spanned centuries, touching on fifth-century colonialism, famine, solidarity with Palestine, supermarket workers opposing apartheid, hunger strikes and footballer Troy Parrott.
Mamdani also namechecked Roger Casement, James Connolly, Patrick Pearse and Eavan Boland, and quoted St Patrick’s despair in imploring the soldiers of British warlord Coroticus to stop laying waste to the Irish countryside. “All I can do is what is written, ‘weep with those who weep’.”
Mamdani said: “As we know, it was on Irish soil that the British empire developed their colonial project,” at a breakfast organised in honour of former president Mary Robinson at his residence. “And yet, when I think of the Irish, I do not think first of oppression. I think of resistance; I think of unity; I think of corned beef and 96th-minute Troy Parrott goals and the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York.”
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Mamdani, a Muslim who has been criticised over his support for Palestine, said solidarity may often have been “withheld from the Irish”, but it is not withheld by the Irish when it comes to “the downtrodden and forgotten”. He praised Robinson for standing “steadfast alongside the people of Palestine” at a time when many have been silent while a “genocide” unfolds.
In response, the Catholic League accused Mamdani of allowing his obsession with demonising Israel to “hijack” the St Patrick’s Day celebrations “by turning them into a radical Muslim rant”.
“He fooled no one by inviting the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, to be there,” said the group’s president, Bill Donohue. “She is a hard-core leftist who not only sides with the enemies of Israel, she sides with the enemies of the Catholic Church on matters sexual.”
‘Visionary’ sought to lead on ‘ethical and transparent’ AI use
Get your jargon ready – the Government is seeking a “visionary person” to serve as chief executive of the soon-to-be-established Artificial Intelligence Office of Ireland.
The job comes with a starting salary of €169,819 (rising to €194,262 over the five-year term) and an expectation that the appointee will play a “pivotal role in establishing Ireland as a European and global leader in trustworthy AI”.
Reporting to an independent board, the person will provide strategic leadership and regulatory oversight to ensure “the ethical, transparent and innovative use of AI in Ireland”.
They will “work alongside key stakeholders including government departments and agencies, competent authorities and fundamental rights bodies to deliver on the effective implementation of the EU AI Act in Ireland”.
Not to plant a seed with would-be candidates, but Overheard asked Microsoft’s AI programme CoPilot to assess the ad, identify ideal candidates and write a short pitch. It said naming names would create privacy and ethical concerns, but the following seemed like a “crisp” and “natural” pitch for a candidate.
“I bring strategic leadership, deep AI governance insight, and a proven record of building high‑impact organisations. I excel at uniting stakeholders, shaping responsible innovation, and delivering measurable outcomes. I’m committed to establishing the AI Office as a trusted, world‑leading authority ensuring safe, ethical, and transformative AI adoption.”
The closing date for applications is next Thursday (March 26th) and the office is due to be up and running by August.
‘Lá Fhéile Jessie’: RTÉ’s Oscars hyperbole doesn’t disappoint
Congratulations to Jessie Buckley, Richard Baneham and all those who did their countries proud at the 98th Academy Awards.
In advance of Sunday’s ceremony, RTÉ issued a press release under the heading “Lights! Camera! Action!”, which set out how it would be “championing” the Irish nominees’ causes.
Monday’s RTÉ News: Nine O’Clock covered events at the Special Criminal Court and in Iran before turning to what happened on Sunday night in Hollywood and cranking up the hyperbole. If there was an Oscar for overstatement, RTÉ had it in the bag.
Buckley’s Best Actress win and acceptance speech followed, before a detour to her native Killarney, where RTÉ’s southern editor Paschal Sheehy had been busy. He spoke to the actor’s extended family at their Arbutus Hotel, where “weeks of pressure and anticipation finally gave way to relief, joy and ecstasy”.
“Already,” Sheehy said, “talk is turning to Jessie’s homecoming... Kerry already holds the Sam Maguire as All-Ireland football champions, and there have been some mighty homecomings for that in the past. But there are predictions that Jessie Buckley’s homecoming, whenever it happens, will be even bigger...”
Back in Hollywood later, a beaming arts and media correspondent Evelyn O’Rourke said she “had been thinking” about how, if Tuesday was “Lá Fhéile Pádraig, well today feels like Lá Fhéile Jessie. It really feels like a celebration that has rung out around the world.”
Provider of hairdressing classes sought for Dóchas Centre
The Irish Times recently reported on the bleak conditions in the State’s largest women’s prison, the Dóchas Centre in Dublin’s Mountjoy complex. In early March, 227 women were being detained in the 146-bed facility, with 37 sleeping on mattresses on floors.
An unpublished visiting committee report criticised a “willingness to warehouse people in degrading and inhumane conditions”, and noted many women were serving very short sentences. These were too brief for meaningful rehabilitation, it said, yet long enough for prisoners to lose their accommodation or job prospects.
Although the Irish Prison Service (IPS) declined to comment on the unpublished report, it is seeking ways to upskill inmates. It has issued a €480,000 tender for the delivery of hairdressing classes in the Dóchas Centre over the next four years.
The contractor will be required to run four full-time courses each year, each lasting 10 weeks and catering for up to seven students. The provider must, it says, be able to teach shampooing and conditioning, curling and finger waving, blow drying, setting and styling, cutting and colouring, as well as providing career planning and job-seeking advice and a simulation of commercial salon operations.
The objective, the IPS says, is to prepare participants to City & Guilds Entry Level/Level 1 standard or equivalent.
“The Irish Prison Service places a strong emphasis on the provision of vocational training activities for prisoners and seeks to ensure that persons in custody have access to meaningful and constructive training,” the tender states.
Some may question the price tag but, based on potential benefits, the IPS clearly believes it’s a snip.
