We’re not in the World Cup, but we Irish are happy out. Scotland’s football fans have stolen Boston’s old Irish heart from us with their bagpipes and ballads about wee birdies and the bloomin’ heather, but Ireland just keeps smiling through.
Hard to believe if you’re a fan of the Dáil’s Leaders’ Questions or RTÉ Radio 1’s Liveline whine-line, but ours is the second-happiest English-speaking country in the world. Only New Zealand is more content in the anglophone sphere; an advantage, surely, of being cast adrift from the rest of the noisy planet.
The World Happiness Report for 2026 places Ireland 13th overall with a score of 6.9 out of 10. Compared to happiest-of-all Finland and its 7.74 score, we’re not exactly delirious, but we’ve climbed from 15th place last year and from 17th in 2024, suggesting we’re getting ever more sásta. As the rankings use respondents’ subjective assessments of their own country’s state of contentment, Ireland – champion moaner and ologoaner – might even be happier than it realises.
Self-assessment can be an unreliable measure. If the report’s compilers – the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, polling company Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network – gave marks for positivity, Israel would win. Despite waging wars on several fronts and living under an Iron Dome, it is eighth in the 2026 list and was fifth in 2024, the first full year of Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
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The happy league does not rely solely on self-assessment, however. It also takes account of economics, psychology and sociology. If we are to believe the rankings, Ireland is faring rather well for a country with blighted youth mental health services; homelessness; traffic jams; crazy prices of houses, coffee and insurance; increasing numbers of women being murdered; and children facing parlously long waits for spinal surgery.
While “greatest” lists are best consumed with a grain of salt, they should not be dismissed. We can learn from considering what makes the Finns, stashed up there under Earth’s dark and icy roof, so blissed out. It can’t be all that sweating in saunas and rolling starkers in the snow. Once you’ve seen the aurora borealis, you’ve been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and, anyway, the Irish winter sky has green and blue streaks, too.
The Finns drink more alcohol than we do and reside next door to nuclear enemy Russia. It’s dark for so long even Santa Claus makes a mad dash out of the place every Christmas. The 2026 World Population Review, a privately operated demographics monitor, shows Finland’s suicide rate (15.88 per 100,000 population) exceeds Ireland’s (8.34) and, according to UN Population Fund data for this year, life expectancy for men there is a year shorter than Irish men’s 81 years.
So are the Finns utterly deluded in believing themselves to be the happiest people on earth? It must make them even happier to think they are and, yes, the metrics of any greatest-this-or-that list can be disputed, but it’s no accident the Nordic country has been topping the annual World Happiness list since 2018.
Finland has reasons to be cheerful. Its people pay high taxes, but in return they get an enviable, heavily subsidised childcare system, universal free healthcare, low levels of crime and a reliable public transport service. Ireland, on the other hand, is stressed out from healthcare queues, increasing numbers of violent assaults on women (according to crime statistics for the first quarter of 2026), unaffordable housing, profligate public spending on white elephant projects and the apoplexy-inducing phenomenon of the ghost bus that now is coming, now it’s not.
Finland has a good work-life balance and, despite its climate, a lifestyle immersed in nature, but the contrast with Ireland is about more than picnicking in the woods. It’s a thing called social capital. Remember Bertie Ahern had a stab at it when he was taoiseach. He invited Robert Putnam, the US academic who wrote Bowling Alone, to address Fianna Fáil’s parliamentary party think-in more than 20 years ago. Putnam, whom Ahern hailed as “an extraordinary genius”, promoted the theory that countries with active civic participation and high levels of trust fare better than those impelled by individualism and monetary wealth.
He was preaching to the converted here. The spirit of meitheal springing out from co-ops, parish networks and voluntary charitable and sports organisations was flourishing. Since then, the Catholic church has lost its dominion, the country’s population is on the verge of doubling and urbanisation has created chronic time-poverty that eats away at those social networks.
A European Commission survey found Ireland had the highest level of loneliness in the EU with 20 per cent of people here saying they felt lonely most or all of the time; a whopping gap with the 13 per cent recorded for all Europeans polled. It is an ironic twist in the Irish psyche that the more the economy depends on tax revenue from big tech, the more social media use compounds discontent. Studies have found a distinct link between internet activity and lower life satisfaction.
Public trust has taken a battering too. A recent Central Statistics Office report showed we were more likely to trust individuals than political parties and not even half of those surveyed trusted the national Government, the media, the Oireachtas or local government. Distrust feeds cynicism, a breeding ground for reactionary politics.
Still, this country has reasons to be cheerful. In yet another global list, Ireland lies second in The Good Country Index, published by the World Population Review, for its contribution to “peace and world order”. Plus, we’re seventh in the 2026 Global Passport Index.
Social capital is about shared values and togetherness. There are elements, both among us and stretching from the White House to Silicon Valley, trying to divide us by whipping up negativity and loathing. We will let them win at our peril.
Finland prides itself on its enjoyment of nature and the simple pleasures, but there are more ways to feel happy than by hugging a tree. Acknowledging what’s good about our country is one. We should do what the Finns do and give ourselves a clap on the back for all that is good in this country of ours.
