Hot Press 40th Anniversary: Cultural Events That Changed The Face of Ireland (40 - 31)

40. This Sporting Life
We have had many triumphs in the sporting arena over the past 40 years. Who’d have dreamed of the euphoria of Ireland qualifying for World Cups under Jack Charlton and Mick McCarthy, and the extraordinary memories those journeys created? For some, the victory over England in Stuttgart in 1988 was the sweetest moment – but from a footballing perspective, the game that we lost against Spain in Japan may well have seen our best ever footballing performance. We have had majestic performances and world titles won in their different sports by Sonia O’Sullivan, Barry McGuigan, Ken Doherty, Katie Taylor, Conor McGregor, Bernard Dunne, Michael Carruth, Annalise Murphy and the O’Donovan Brothers, among others, to light up our lives. And then there was Ireland’s rugby Grand Slams, with the 2009 Six Nations providing the peak moment. There have been low points too. The joy of Olympic gold for Michelle de Brún gave way to sadness as her career foundered on accusations of using performance enhancing drugs. In 2002, Roy Keane divided the nation from faraway Saipan; some of us still bear the scars. And the then-Taoiseach Charlie Haughey made us all cringe by jetting over to Paris to steal Stephen Roche’s thunder after the latter won the 1987 Tour de France. But we survived the embarrassment. Just about...

39. Gerry Ryan
He was a trailblazer in Irish radio – and a vital part of changing the social landscape here in Ireland into a more open-minded and tolerant one. His death in April 2010 blew a hole in the schedule at RTE 2fm, which they are still battling to fill. The reason: he had bigshoes. We miss him still.

38. The Rise of Graham Norton
He may have started out as a stand-up comedian doing Mother Teresa impressions, but the man from Bandon – oh alright, Clondalkin! – began to make an impression when he starred in three episodes of Father Ted. He went on to host his own TV show on Channel 4 before moving to the BBC in 2005. Openly gay and Irish, he is one of the biggest stars in British television, hosting The Graham Norton Show, which attracts huge audiences, as well as major blockbuster programmes like Eurovision and Children In Need. With two volumes of memoir behind him, his fiction debut Holding has been widely acclaimed. A character who is further from the suffocating climate into which Hot Press was launched in 1977 you could not get.

37. Punk Made Our Day
The punk/new wave movements of the late ’70s had Irish musicians right in the thick of it. The Boomtown Rats, The Undertones, Johnny Rotten, Elvis Costello, Stiff Records, Good Vibrations, The Blades – there was so much to love! At home, spurred by the genius of Philip Chevron, The Radiators vented their rage with acerbic songs like ‘Enemies’, ‘Sunday World’, and ‘Television Screen’ that still resonate. And then came The Pogues...

36. More Than A Woman's Heart
Released in 1992, the compilation album A Woman’s Heart spawned an international multi-million sales phenomenon. With a title song by Eleanor McEvoy, the album helped make McEvoy herself, Mary Black, Dolores Keane, Sharon Shannon, Frances Black and Maura O’Connell into international stars whose popularity continues to the present day. The album is the biggest-selling in Irish history.

35. ENYA SWEEPS TO GLOBAL SUCCESS
We knew about the unique project on which Enya had embarked for some time beforehand. Hot Press was given a privileged early hearing of the Watermark album in Nicky and Roma Ryans’ house in Artane, on the Northside of Dublin, in 1988. It was clear from the outset that something special was happening here. But no one could have predicted what transpired. The album was released in September 1988. The first single from it, ‘Orinoco Flow’, a magnificently catchy track, went to No. 1 in the UK, knocking U2’s ‘Desire’ off the top spot. It was a No.1 hit in Ireland and subsequently topped the European Hot 100. A top 30 hit in the US, it ultimately helped to push album sales there to 4 million. That performance was repeated all over the world. Effectively an album from an unknown artist, Watermark sold an astonishing 11 million copies. It was the perfect start to a remarkable career, during the course of which the Enya team of Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, Nicky Ryan and Roma Ryan have sold 80 million albums, and raked in the awards, including an Oscar nomination for ‘May It Be’, as well as Brits, Grammys, Ivor Novello and World Music Awards to beat the band.

34. Madame President
Mary Robinson became our first woman President in 1990, bringing a level of intelligence, status and eloquence to the post that it had hitherto lacked.

33. The Write Stuff

When John Banville’s The Sea won the Booker Prize in 2005, there were many who celebrated his win. But it was no surprise. You could fill an entire library with top-notch Irish novelists alone, including Banville/Benjamin Black, Edna O’Brien, Colm Toibin, Neil Jordan, Emma Donoghue, Sebastian Barry, Anne Enright, Joseph O’Connor, Roddy Doyle, John Connolly, Colum McCann, Clare Kilroy, Sara Baume, Mike McCormack, Conor O’Callaghan, my own near neighbour Cat Hogan, Kevin Barry, Eimear McBride, Donal Ryan et al.

32. Mrs Brown's Boys

...and then there’s the programme that has taken the entire UK by storm! Having been voted the top TV comedy series of the century, Mrs Brown’s Boys is what you could only describe as a phenomenon. As popular abroad as it is at home, it has made it main-man Brendan O’Carroll a fortune. And you know what? We don’t begrudge him, even for a minute.

31. Did you hear the one about the Irish comedians?
We’ve come a long way from the comedic bluster of Hal Roche, to the point where Irish comedians – and comedy writers – seem to be everywhere. Well, except on RTÉ, as one wag just guffawed. Tommy Tiernan, Dara O’Briain, Deirdre O’Kane, Ed Byrne, Jennifer Zamparelli, Mario Rosenstock, Jason Byrne, Sharon Horgan’s Catastrophe, Dylan Moran’s Black Books and Moone Boy all spring to mind. And we haven’t even got to the punchline yet. Forty shades of grin, anyone?