Aoife Barry is a journalist, podcaster and the author of the new book Social Capital,
Social Capital is a real-life David and Goliath story about Ireland's role as prime real estate for the world’s largest tech multinationals, and the considerable impact it has had on us as individuals - read an extract here, and Aoife talks to Brendan O'Connor below:
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We asked Aoife for her choice cultural picks...
FILM
I recently watched the Irish film Lakelands - I was really impressed with how it told a story from the midlands that took in GAA and masculinity among young men. More stories from across the island of Ireland please! Speaking of which, Sinéad O'Shea’s excellent documentary Pray For Our Sinners made me feel both upset and angry over our country’s shameful history - but hopeful about the fact there are always people who will resist the status quo. I’m dying to see Return to Seoul, as I hear great things - and later in the year, Celine Song’s film Past Lives is on my must-see list. I feel like it will be this year’s The Worst Person In the World for me (i.e. a film I get totally obsessed with and bang on about to anyone who’ll listen).
MUSIC
I’ve the UK musician Nabihah Iqbal’s new album Dreamer on repeat right now - I hear Cocteau Twins, Jeff Buckley, Boards of Canada and New Order when I listen to it… and even a smidgen of trance, if I dare say. It’s immersive and eclectic. Avalon Emerson & The Charm is another new record I’m taken by - as any fan of Arthur Russell and the Cocteaus would be! I’m also very excited to hear Beverly Glenn-Copeland has a new album out in July. His rediscovered record Keyboard Fantasies is an all-time classic.
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BOOK
I recently read Elaine Feeney’s gorgeous second novel How to Build A Boat, which brings together themes including neurodiversity, fertility, marriage, Catholic schools and bullying - and creates a moving, witty and pin-sharp narrative with them. Falling Animals by Sheila Armstrong is absolutely excellent: it is ostensibly about the discovery of a man's body on a remote beach in Sligo, but each chapter is about a different person connected to the incident. The characters are so fleshed out and almost tangible. And I’ve just started Carmel Maria McMahon’s In Ordinary Time: Fragments of a Family History, which is a hybrid memoir that so far is telling a devastating story about Ireland and generational trauma.
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THEATRE
I’m really looking forward to Fun Home when it lands at the Gate on 1 July - it’s based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. (The Bechdel Test is named after an old comic strip of hers). The last play I saw was also at the Gate - Arthur Miller’s The Price. Though it’s set in the 1960s, the themes - family, grief, greed - are just as pertinent today.
TV
It’s all about Yellowjackets and Succession for me right now. Yellowjackets (on Paramount+) is so juicy: a group of teen girls get stuck in the wilderness after their plane crashlands while on the way to a soccer game. A group of them manage to stay alive, and eventually get out of there after 19 months - but as the series is partly set in the present day, we also know that whatever happened during their disappearance was strange, disturbing, and left them all with lingering trauma. Slowly, what happened is revealed. It’s by turns emotional, thrilling and funny, and series two has an unreal 90s/early 2000s soundtrack.
Succession, meanwhile, makes me feel sick when I watch it due to the godawful behaviour by literally everyone in it, but I still love it.
GIG
I can’t wait to see Lankum again - the last time I saw them was right before the pandemic, scarily enough. I’m also hoping to see Kelela when she plays in August - I loved her mixtape Cut4Me back in the day. It’s actually shocking to me that the mixtape is nearly 10 years old. It still sounds amazing.
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ART
I adored the Patricia Hurl retrospective at IMMA - such vital works showcasing how awfully Ireland has treated women. It’s incredible to note the dates of her work and to see how she was pushing back against the system in such a deeply personal way. I particularly loved getting to see her sketchbooks, as it’s always inspiring to witness an artist’s process. I’ve also been taken lately by Anne Truitt’s captivating sculptures as I’ve been dipping into her book Daybook: The Journal of an Artist.
PODCAST
Every week I devour Who? Weekly - they provide me with celebrity gossip in a fun and smart way. I adore them and they’ve been a balm whenever I’ve been having a hard time.
one of THE most bone-chilling moments in Selling Sunset S6 is when Christina on the Coast's daughter calls Heather a better mom pic.twitter.com/sLUuhHdllg
— Who? Weekly (@whoweekly) May 26, 2023
I also really enjoy Hard Fork from the New York Times for a good take on tech, and The Watch for an 'inside baseball’ take on the TV/film industries in the US. I could listen to film/TV podcasts all day, they’re like a little treat for my brain. And Nialler9 and Andrea Cleary always have great takes and info on what’s happening music-wise on the Nialler9 podcast.
TECH
Despite writing a book (Social Capital) about some of the evils of social media, I can’t stay off it - but one of my fave apps is BeReal. I follow about 10 people on it, and only have to interact with it once a day, but it brings a little burst of joy to see what my pals are up to.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
On a trip to LA recently I noticed that adaptogens were everywhere. I’m always fascinated by the latest food and wellness trends, as they tell us a lot about what people want to change about themselves or what they feel is missing in their lives. This in turn reflects the pressures that are placed on people throughout wider societies.
The thing about adaptogens is they are supposed to be good at helping your body deal with stress, so perhaps it’s no surprise people are reaching for them in this post-pandemic breakout, productivity-obsessed world. In LA ,adaptogens were shoehorned into everything - chocolate, tea, etc etc. As Ireland tends to follow where the US leads, expect wellness influencers to be pushing these our way next. I’m sure there’s some goodness in adaptogens, but as soon as a food becomes a trend I get suspicious… overall, I do think culturally we are obsessed with being ‘busy’ and productive. Jenny Odell’s latest book, Saving Time, is great at analysing where a lot of our notions about how to use our time came from (hint: capitalism). So while it’s good to look after ourselves (and did I pick up a tea with adaptogens in it while in LA? Yes), it’s also important to realise when burnout and overwork is caused by the system, not the person.
Social Capital is published by by HarperCollins Ireland
