Ireland is a small nation but with no small contribution to the arts from Galway residents, we pack a mighty punch.

Irish culture is experiencing something of a global moment and it’s becoming easier to notice the vast impact this little island is having on the world.

“The Luck of the Irish.” (CC BY 2.0) by Breezy.Luik”

Around the world

The spread of Irish culture throughout the world was historically down to Ireland being a nation of travellers. The sheer number of Irish citizens that have left The Emerald Isle in search of a life abroad is staggering and the list of countries influenced by Irish emigration is long and varied. With the advent of the internet, we no longer need to spread our wings to steer the world towards our unique and incredible culture. While Irish writing, music and performances are rightly praised, it’s the concept of our luck that is most prevalent.

It might seem an outdated cliché that the people of Ireland are lucky, but it still abounds. While luck and lucky charms feature in most cultures, the concept seems to align tightly with outside perceptions of Ireland and the Irish. It’s no surprise, then, that Irish symbols feature heavily in casino games, which are either largely luck-based or a mix of skill and luck. For dice games like craps, for example, you can read about strategies to increase your chances of success. These usually revolve around placing the bets that most reduce the house edge. Slots, instead, are almost always exclusively about luck as the outcome is based on the mechanics of a random number generator. 

It is slots that are most likely to feature Irish luck iconography – the need for background imagery and symbols make the characters of Irish luck an obvious choice for slot game developers and the spinning reels often feature leprechauns, little green hats, The Shamrock and harps. The luck of the Irish has been used so often by casino game developers that a scroll through the arsenal of games offered by one of the major sites will relevel all kinds of games, luck or skill-based, with a distinctly Irish theme.

“The Pot Of Gold At The End Of My Rainbow” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by DaPuglet”

Historical criticism

Most will be aware that the association of Irish people being lucky didn’t originate in Ireland, but was coined during the great American gold rush. A feature of this immediate influx of fortune seekers to the location of recently uncovered gold deposits was Irish miners proving to be more capable and successful than their contemporaries from other nations. This mining triumph being attributed to luck rather than skill or perseverance carried with it certain derision and was just one feature of the anti-Irish sentiment that lasted so long.

While local residents may roll their eyes when hearing about the luck of the Irish from a visiting tourist – and remind them that there’s plenty more to this beautiful country! – it’s not a term that has offended. There are worse things to be associated with and it’s just incredible that this little Ireland gets so much attention.

From the earliest days of the internet, the goal was always to break down barriers. The pioneers of the World Wide Web were vocal in their desire to see a digital space wholly unconstrained by national borders and geographic distance, where people anywhere could be brought together through a connection to the information superhighway.

While the era of the borderless internet may no longer be what it once was, we should not diminish the paradigm-shifting ways in which the internet actually did achieve those early goals. Let’s take a look at some of the ways the internet has broken down international borders and continues to do so. 

Source: Unsplash

Global cultures

Nowhere has the border-erasing impact of the internet been made more apparent than in the realm of popular culture. Thanks to the internet, people everywhere can consume culture from a specific part of the world, bringing artists who might have remained unknown outside their country into the realm of global superstardom. For example, the phenomenon of K-Pop superstars would simply not have been possible without the internet. The same goes for the likes of Olivia Rodrigo or PinkPanteress, who turned their social media videos into global pop careers virtually overnight. 

Global competitions

A more surprising way that the internet has broken down borders concerns certain events and competitions once considered to be strictly domestic affairs. Nowhere is this clearer than in the realm of the lottery. This game was once considered to be inextricably tied to its national context, no matter where you were. However, thanks to international lottery platforms such as Lottoland, you can play the lottery of any country anywhere and check the official lottery results from your smartphone.

Source: Unsplash

Global payments

One of the greatest impacts of the internet that is still unfolding is the impact it has had on the global financial system. Before the internet, sending money from, say, the UK to the US was a time-consuming and very expensive affair. However, the internet has enabled the rise of borderless payment apps such as PayPal, Revolut, Monzo, and Venmo, through which anyone can send money anywhere in any currency, often within seconds and without spending a penny. 

Borderless friendships

Once upon a time, your friends were the people in your immediate physical surroundings. Friends came from our workplaces and our local social scenes, and only those with a pen pal or who spent time living abroad could claim to have friends in other countries. However, that has all changed forever. Nowadays, the majority of people have friends in other countries, many in places that they have never even visited. This is all thanks to the internet, with social media and blogging platforms allowing anyone to find connections, unconstrained by the old limits of geography. 

It is difficult to quantify the impact that the internet has had on our lives. Of all the things that it has enabled, its ability to make our world a much smaller place is probably the most impactful.