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The week severe flooding became depressingly familiar

Food Month kicking off at The Irish Times and the fallout from the Rugby World Cup final among the events of the week

Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service pumps water from flooded premises in Downpatrick town centre this weekend. Photograph: Peter Morrison/PA Wire

Sun Nov 5 2023 - 09:24

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

Coming a short time after Storm Babet battered the south of the country, heavy rain this week saw homes and businesses across a number of counties grappling with significant damage caused by “unprecedented” flooding. Newry was under water after the city’s canal broke its banks on Monday night, while significant flood damage was also reported in Carlingford, Co Louth, and Dundalk, and a bridge outside Riverstown collapsed amid rising water on the Cooley peninsula.

The flooding once again raised questions about Ireland’s flood preparedness, an issue echoed elsewhere. In a timely article as part of our The Liffey: Source to Sea series this week, Kevin O’Sullivan examines the flooding risk in Dublin Bay as a result of locked-in sea level rises, with one expert saying it’s only a matter of time before a storm surge hits the region.

Molly Martens and her father Thomas Martens returned to court in the US this week over the killing of Limerick man Jason Corbett, in hearings that included harrowing testimony and sensational claims. The daughter and father have agreed a plea deal with prosecutors to accept a lesser manslaughter charge over the killing in North Carolina in 2015, thus avoiding a retrial after their 2017 convictions for second-degree murder were overturned on appeal. Martin Wall has summarised this week’s hearings, which saw Jason Corbett’s children, Jack and Sarah, now aged 19 and 17, seated in the front row of the public gallery. Next week, the North Carolina court is likely to hear from defence witnesses before the judge makes a ruling on the sentences to apply to Molly and Thomas Martens.

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The dire situation in Gaza arising from the Israel-Hamas conflict continued to worsen this week, with Palestinians saying this weekend that an Israeli air strike killed at least 15 people in a UN-run school being used as a shelter. In his latest column, Fintan O’Toole writes about how Israel can have no exit strategy in Gaza, “not just in the immediate political and military sense, but in the plain, banal facts of geography. The terrible atrocities inflicted by Hamas on Israelis on October 7th dramatised a simple and inescapable truth: proximity.” He notes: “Palestinians cannot be made to disappear, so close proximity remains Israel’s destiny. It has to decide what kind of neighbours it wants. It has to decide what peace looks like. At the moment, there seems to be no clue.”

David McWilliams, meanwhile, writes this weekend about the global reactions generated by the Israel-Palestine question, and how they differ from responses to other conflicts. He writes that “people are taking sides to an extent unseen in other significant conflicts ... The possible reason for this asymmetry of indignation, concern and outrage is that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides have long sought to internationalise their local land war.” He examines how this reaction manifests in an Irish context, noting how “in postcolonial Ireland, we have the most pro-Palestinian population in Europe”, while also having the most “pro-American economy in the world”. You can read the full column here.

The reaction to and fallout from the Springboks’ victory over the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup final last weekend continued this week, with a number of our writers examining South Africa’s strategies and what they mean for the game in general. In his column, Matt Williams argues that, although South Africa are a magnificent rugby nation, the fact they won this year’s World Cup despite having such low possession of the ball was a “damning condemnation of rugby’s laws and how they are being refereed”. He adds: “What other game on the face of the earth would allow such statistics to be created by their World Championship-winning team?” Meanwhile, Gordon D’Arcy also notes that attacking play in the Rugby World Cup peaked in the quarter-finals, and that while “South Africa’s unbreakable mental strength was a decisive factor through the knockout stages of the World Cup, but it would be remiss not to mention that Lady Luck bestowed her favours on the Springboks.” He also looks at the increasingly intense battle for the Ireland number 10 jersey in the post-Sexton era.

Amid all of this analysis there was some good news for Ireland however, with the announcement that Andy Farrell had won World Coach of the Year in the World Rugby awards.

November is Food Month at The Irish Times. Over the coming weeks we’ll bring you daily affordable recipes, great value places to eat in Ireland, restaurant and takeaway reviews and much more. You’ll find all the winter food content you need on irishtimes.com throughout the next month.

This weekend, we introduce our new recipe columnist Mark Moriarty, who describes his cooking in one word: “comfort”. We also have tales from Ireland’s food service lifers, and we ask the question: is it ever okay to drink white wine with beef? And don’t forget to check out our list of 100 great restaurants, cafes and places to eat in Ireland. You can also sign up to our Food and Drink Club newsletter, offering exclusive competitions and restaurant offers as well as food reviews and tips, here.

Speaking of reviews, this week our restaurant critic Corinna Hardgrave visited veteran Dalkey venue Grapevine. Opened by Gabriel and Pamela Cooney almost 25 years ago, the venue offers what Hardgrave describes as a crowd-pleasing menu and an interesting selection of wines. She concludes that, for the most part, “Grapevine is what you want in a neighbourhood restaurant”.

In the latest edition of Tell Me About It, a reader seeks guidance from our advice columnist Trish Murphy on navigating their relationship with their mother. The reader writes: “I have an elderly mum who’s currently living by herself. We’ve always had a difficult relationship due to her controlling and manipulative personality. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a good person, but at home she made my childhood and teenage years as painful as she could.” The reader adds: “She’s very difficult to live with and I have to keep an emotional distance for my own mental health. But it doesn’t prevent me from feeling guilty.” Read what Trish Murphy has to say here.

In this week’s On the Money newsletter, Joanne Hunt writes about how the key to a happy marriage is, in fact, a joint bank account. She notes research that shows that a couple’s financial arrangements can tell a lot about the relationship in general, and offers tips for couples about how to address financial issues and arrange fiscal matters to avoid tensions in this regard. Sign up here to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox every Friday.

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

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