Ten things that cheered us up

Baby giraffes, Brian O'Driscoll, and bare facts about Brian Cowen: FRANK McNALLYon people and events that livened up a bleak year – and they weren't all Irish

1 THE PATTER OF TINY FEET

Ireland’s worst recession in living memory has coincided with a baby boom, and even Dublin Zoo got in on the act with a giraffe born in the first week of the new year. After a public competition, the long-necked infant was named “Neema”, which means “prosperous” in Swahili.

Meanwhile, as the CSO announced that 75,000 human babies had been born in 2008, the appalling prospect arose that when many of these spoke their first word in 2009, it would be “Nama”. This was the name given to the Government’s bank-rescue agency, details of which might as well have been in Swahili for all anyone understands how it will work.Apparently Nama may also mean “prosperous” – but not for at least 10 years.

2 ICELAND FOR IRISH PEOPLE

Iceland belied its name in 2009 by, heart-warmingly, being in even deeper trouble than we were. Opinion is still divided on whether the closure of all its McDonald’s restaurants was a further blow to the island’s prestige, or a step towards recovery. Either way, the Icelandic word for recession is “kreppa”. And although kreppa may be what our Minister for Finance was talking when he claimed we had turned the corner, Iceland still seemed gratifyingly worse off than Ireland at year’s end.

4 DRICO’S BRILLIANT CAREER

Amid the general heroics of our rugby team in 2009, one man stood supreme. This was the year that Brian O’Driscoll, merely brilliant until now, achieved greatness. The upturn in his career trajectory recalled one of those old Apollo moon rockets shedding its preliminary boosters for another surge to take it out of the atmosphere. Drico’s superhuman talents saw him score a crucial try in every Six Nations match except one, in which he made a crucial tackle instead.

And he was still at it in the autumn, diving in for a game-saving score against Australia and then throwing himself kamikaze-like in the path of a South African attempting the same trick against us.

He was the man in the gap this year. Apart perhaps from Amy Huberman’s debut novel, everything he touched in 2009 turned to gold.

4 SIMPSONS GO BRAGH

Sensing our need for a laugh, the producers of The Simpsonsset their March 17th episode in Ireland, and even premiered it here: a first outside the US. The show had something for everyone, estate agents included. On their return to the old sod, Homer and his father got drunk and bought a pub. These were about the only circumstances in which such a transaction could have happened in 2009.

5 BIFFO – THE BARE FACTS

In most years, the National Gallery’s shortest exhibition is of the Turner watercolours: traditionally shown for only a month in mid-winter, when their delicate tones will be least damaged by daylight. This year brought a new development, however, when an uncommissioned portrait of the Taoiseach hung for only an hour.

Then it was quickly removed and stored in a dark place amid fears about the effect of its harsh glare on delicate skins in Government Buildings.

6 POLITICIANS’ EXPENSES

It was typical. You wait 300 years for a parliamentary speaker on these islands to be forced out of office, then two such oustings arrive together.

The issue of politicians’ expenses caused amusement and outrage during 2009. Most of the amusement – at least in Ireland, where it hadn’t cost us anything – derived from stories of British MPs claiming for moat cleaning and ornamental duck houses.

But the ducklings came home to roost here eventually, knocking Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue off his perch. Mr O’Donoghue resigned with a statesmanlike speech – although given that his love of horse-racing had been a big feature of the scandal, a flying dismount from the speaker’s chair might have been more appropriate.

7 THE MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON

Even as the term “soft landing” had begun to disappear from our vocabularies in January, the story of US Airways flight 1549 gave renewed cause for hope. The plane had just taken off from New York when a flock of geese on a suicide mission knocked out both its engines. Prospects looked bleak. But step forward Capt Chesley B Sullenberger, a hero of the old school (US Air Force Academy). His superb piloting skills saved the passengers’ lives and, in the process, provided the world’s economy with an optimistic metaphor.

Sadly, the effect did not last long in Ireland. Only a few weeks later our Minister for Bad Luck, Martin B Cullenburger, had to make a less heroic landing when a door fell off his helicopter. It was a sign of things to come.

8 BATTLING BERLUSCONI

The incorrigible Italian prime minister was easily the world’s most entertaining leader in 2009 and, incidentally, also gave us the year’s most misleading headline. When breaking news services reported “Berlusconi Hit by Model” recently, many us wrongly assumed he had been involved in a fight with a member of his cabinet. It emerged that the model in question was instead a tourist figurine of Milan Cathedral. This was not the first time in 2009 the prime minister had come under church attack. But when he was assailed by the Vatican earlier this year, luckily for him, the reprimand was only verbal.

9 BOB’S CHRISTMAS CAROLS

Reactions to Bob’s collection of favourite Christmas carols have been mixed. The album has outraged some Dylan fans, and fans of carols are not all happy either. But if it doesn’t make you cry, the record can only cheer you up. Not since Ebeneezer Scrooge has an ageing eccentric been so unexpectedly seized by the Christmas spirit.

10 GRACE AFTER GRANDAD

A ceremony on a small Pacific island in early December restored faith in the goodness of human nature. It involved an apology by local tribespeople to a 65-year-old British man for the wrong done by their ancestors, back in the 1830s, when they ate his great-great-grandfather. The victim had been attempting to convert the cannibal tribe to Christianity. A local anthropologist explained that the perceived crime would have had a spiritual element too: “[Cannibalism] was practised in a very ritualistic way and was considered [...] a very sacred activity,” he said.