France will have the honour of being the first foreign team to play a non-Gaelic sport in Dublin's Croke Park, when their rugby team takes on Ireland in the Six Nations' Championship in February 2007. A revolution indeed!

Bliss you

Ireland is now the happiest place in the world to live, and France grumbles in 25th place. That is what a recent report surveying 111 countries from the Economist Intelligence Unit, part of the Economist group in London, says. Luckily, despite all that heady economic success, the Irish still have a grain of modesty to go with their humour, and the news was greeted with a chuckle. “A great place, but what about the traffic, the cost of living, the weather?” is how many folk reacted.

Bricks and Porter

A new buzzword has entered the Hiberno-English lexicon, sidling in between Beautiful Ireland and Dear Old Dirty Dublin: Rip-off Ireland. The Irish have a gift for coining phrases, but this one is an import. I heard it often when living in London in the 1990s, and now, living in the pricey French capital, sometimes wonder whether Paris Pas Cher is not just a bad blague. The cost of food, houses, cars, medical attention, child care: return-ing to Dublin recently gave me a sense of déjà vu all over again.