Culture Counter: A year of many ups despite the downs

Normal People, two-kilometre walks, Matt Damon in Dalkey, Black Lives Matter, Leaving Cert hell, restaurant no-shows and a pandemic, it’s been quite a year

Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones in lockdown hit series Normal People: Gucci started selling GAA-esque shorts after Mescal’s thighs became a worldwide phenomenon

JANUARY

Oh, what hostages to fortune we were back in January 2020, when the Cats movie catastrophe was the worst thing we could imagine happening this year. The deliciously bad reviews were worth it, though – “frankly mortifying”, “enraging” and “insane”.

Meanwhile, the Netflix documentary Cheer turned us into double tuck gymnastics experts overnight, while the movie Marriage Story gave us one of the year’s first memes: Adam Driver Holding Your Favourite Album.

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