{"id":868664,"date":"2026-08-23T15:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T15:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/868664\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T15:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T15:18:14","slug":"from-soda-bread-to-knowing-who-leo-varadkar-is-sarah-jessica-parker-gets-more-irish-by-the-day-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/868664\/","title":{"rendered":"From soda bread to knowing who Leo Varadkar is, Sarah Jessica Parker gets more Irish by the day \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More Irish than the Irish themselves: Jack Charlton, certain Anglo-Normans and, in recent years, Sarah Jessica Parker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Donegal<\/a> woman who winters in Manhattan<\/a>, the Sex and the City star recently showed her palate narrowing to Irish specifications by posting to Instagram some soda bread and a hearty brothy soup she had whipped up for herself. <\/p>\n

Parker, not quite at native levels with Irish cuisine, ate the soup and bread for breakfast. \u201cAll I\u2019m missing is the smell of turf,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her recipes came from Kieran McArdle (30), a Newry man who explores traditional Irish cooking on Instagram and TikTok under the name Bitewise. \u201cIt was quite shocking, to be fair,\u201d he told Overheard.<\/p>\n

Parker followed him a week or so before unveiling her culinary endeavours. \u201cI thought it might have been a fake account,\u201d he said. But then a post appeared. \u201cI was just thinking to myself, it looked like the exact same as mine,\u201d McArdle said. <\/p>\n

Confirmation came as Parker wrote publicly in response to his Irish broth video that she had followed the recipe and posted the results. \u201cAnd I made my first soda bread!\u201d she said. \u201cThank you for the inspiration!\u201d<\/p>\n

An exciting moment for McArdle who works full time in mental health in Liverpool, and whose growing audience gathers together the Irish and Irish-inclined around the world. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got quite a few people from the States, saying that they\u2019ve been away for ages and some of the recipes that they\u2019d just completely forgotten about and it reminds them of home or a certain person,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Parker has previously spoken about the dead end she faces in seeking Irish citizenship due to her lack of a suitably Irish granny. Her husband, actor Matthew Broderick, has been visiting Roelough, near Kilcar, since he was a teenager and the couple secured planning permission for improvements to their house a few months ago.<\/p>\n

They even presented the Broderick Cup at a local underage GAA blitz event, which we thought might have been in the Constitution as a path to citizenship, but apparently not. <\/p>\n

A new acquaintance could prove a useful advocate for her cause, however. At the opening night of Ulster American, a play at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin starring Broderick, Parker encountered a local luminary.<\/p>\n

Who? Leo Varadkar, of course. Happier than Enda Kenny after the All-Ireland final, the former taoiseach managed to corner the six-time Golden Globe winner to tell her of the depth of his admiration. \u201cSo chuffed to meet this lady at last,\u201d he said in a post on Instagram. \u201cHave seen every episode of Sex and the City like four times. She\u2019s as fabulous as ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overheard is told by those in the know that four is not that many times to have seen Sex and the City, but he\u2019s been busy at times, to be fair. <\/p>\n

A State visit for Limerick\"BritishBritish king Charles III inspects a Shetland pony. Photograph: Jane Barlow\/PA<\/p>\n

Glad tidings for another frequent visitor to Ireland with the news that Charles III has been invited to Limerick. No reigning British monarch has ever been apparently. <\/p>\n

Seeking to make amends, John Moran, the high-profile mayor of Limerick, has invited his counterpart to come have a look around, with a formal invitation to follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time that you get somebody of the stature of the king coming to an area, it shines a huge spotlight on all the good work we\u2019re doing, on the place that we are, and on the people,\u201d Moran told Limerick\u2019s Live 95 as he launched his charm offensive.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Limerick mayor John Moran wanted to avoid taking \u2018hard position\u2019 on Aughinish Alumina, emails showOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Charles is already expected on this only partly sceptred isle in 2027, thanks to an invitation by President Catherine Connolly, and has been to Limerick on a fishing trip in 1992 in his prior incarnation as a mere prince. He might be tempted back.<\/p>\n

What would he look at? \u201cThere would be plenty of things to show off now,\u201d Moran told the Limerick Leader, adding: \u201cHe needs to come and see King John\u2019s Castle.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not sure a castle will be a novelty to the king of England, but it\u2019s worth a try. <\/p>\n

Ready to rock<\/p>\n

Overheard is as sensitive to signs of the apocalypse as the next column, and given the eclipse, we\u2019re looking for signs of reassurance.<\/p>\n

Earthquakes in particular have been in the news for months now, with damaging tremors in Indonesia, Japan, Colombia and even, this week, Granada. Is something going on?<\/p>\n

Seismology is not our strong suit, so we asked experts. \u201cThe number of large earthquakes per year varies,\u201d Dr Martin M\u00f6llhoff, director of seismic networks at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), said. Earthquakes over magnitude 7 average out at about 16 per year, according to the US Geological Survey.<\/p>\n

\"CracksCracks on a road after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. Photograph: Made Nagi\/EPA <\/p>\n

\u201cI think 11 have been recorded this year so far, which is not far off from this average,\u201d M\u00f6llhoff said. \u201cThe annual rate fluctuates quite a bit; recent extremes were 23 large earthquakes in 2010, and six in 1989.\u201d<\/p>\n

When tremors rock populous areas, we tend to take more notice.<\/p>\n

Prof Chris Bean, head of geophysics at DIAS, said sometimes mega-earthquakes can set off strong aftershocks. \u201cIt can actually take several years for this to smooth out, and for the number of events to go back to \u2018normal\u2019 values.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cInterestingly, on the very long time scale of say two billion years, we will expect fewer and fewer earthquakes, as plate tectonics starts to shut down because the earth is losing heat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Something to look forward to.<\/p>\n

Nothing new under the sun\"AA cuneiform tablet, though not the one in question. Photograph: Murtaja Lateef\/AFP\/Getty <\/p>\n

As Irish farmers call for action from Government over the consequences of the recent drought, Overheard was reminded of one of our favourite Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs to the sesame field, I am not getting water,\u201d carved a farmer into a clay tablet around 3,600 years ago. \u201cThe sesame will die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attempting to alert the Babylonian version of Fine Gael Agriculture Minister Martin Heydon to his plight, the farmer chiselled: \u201cDon\u2019t say \u2018You didn\u2019t write me!\u2019 The key is … to see … that sesame will die.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have written to you (now), (let me hear) what you say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compare Francie Gorman, head of the IFA, this week<\/a>: \u201cThere\u2019s not much point in doing a survey of a house when the house is burnt down. We know the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some things never change. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More Irish than the Irish themselves: Jack Charlton, certain Anglo-Normans and, in recent years, Sarah Jessica Parker. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,53298,301689,47154,57554,8977],"class_list":["post-868664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-king-charles","tag-leo-varadkar","tag-limerick","tag-matthew-broderick","tag-sarah-jessica-parker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}