“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
By Marc C. Johnson (Oct. 2, 2026)
(Photo – The Wild Atlantic Way near Clifden, Ireland)
Like much of the rest of the world, there are housing shortages and affordability issues in Ireland. The problems, as in the US, seem most acute among young people.
As the national broadcaster, RTE, reported recently:
Almost seven in ten young adults are considering moving abroad for a better quality of life, according to new research from the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI).
The survey found that 68% of 18-24 year olds are considering moving abroad, while 71% believe they would have a better quality of life outside Ireland.
NYCI has commissioned similar polling over several years.
Housing and affordability remain the main concerns, but worries about employment have increased year on year.
Nine in ten young adults said it is becoming harder to find secure, well-paid work.
Irish young people, including medical students, are thinking seriously of relocating to Canada or Australia. They might think about the United States, but I’m guessing that option isn’t an option for most. You know why.
Seems the all-Irish dream is going the way of the all-American dream. The idea that today’s parents will create a wealthier, healthier, happier society than the one they inherited is as old fashioned as a peat fire. And an old story dictates picking up and going.
Or, if you have bucks enough – or Euros aplenty – you might think like Mark Zuckerberg, the META billionaire, and buy an Irish country house or better yet a castle. Who wouldn’t like one of those?
There is no castle shortage, particularly if you have the scratch.
According to Forbes, the magazine that keeps track of such things, Zuckerberg ranks sixth on the world’s richest list. He’s reportedly worth just under $250 billion. That will buy a few castles.
Even so Zuckerberg has been on a losing streak of late, most recently losing a second lawsuit in New Mexico that could cost the company nearly $1 billion. That follows an earlier $18 billion settlement over privacy violations. As the Independent reported of the most recent case:
The incident involved an external personality quiz app that harvested information from around 87 million profiles.
That data was subsequently sold to Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm that created targeted advertisements, counting the 2016 Donald Trump campaign among its clients.
Those of us fascinated (is that the right word?) about how Cambridge Analytica, a British firm, ended up all wrapped around Donald Trump’s “Russia, Russia, Russia” scandal of 2016 may never know the full story of that mystery.
Read about it here. And wonder.
The involvement of Facebook (Meta), Zuckerberg, a shadowy UK company, etc., may prompt you to wonder – no conspiracy theory here – about what social media (and AI) are doing to pervert the upcoming election.
You’d be right to wonder.
But I digress. Let’s have a pint and celebrate the new Zuckerberg castle in County Waterford in the Blackwater Valley of southern Ireland.
Why not?
As The Guardian reported:
It stretches the definition of pied-à-terre but Mark Zuckerberg now has a pad in Ireland: Strancally castle.
The Meta chief executive and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have bought the gothic-style mansion and its 178-hectare (440-acre) estate in county Waterford to use as a base during visits to Ireland.
“Mark and his family are excited to continue caring for this historic home and look forward to spending time in Ireland, where Meta maintains its international headquarters,” a spokesperson said on Thursday.
The price paid in the off-market deal is not known but the Irish Times, which first reported the sale, estimated a value between €20m (£17m) and €30m: approximately 10% of the cost of his 387 ft superyacht.
In fairness to Zuck, pal of the president, AI advocate, data center builder, he’s not alone in grabbing an available Irish property here and there.
The Blackwater valley contains other historic estates, including Ballynatray House, which the entrepreneur James Dyson bought in 2024. Further north, John Collison, a co-founder of the technology platform Stripe, bought Abbey Leix, an estate in County Laois, in 2021.
Our gilded age
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Rendering of a Meta data center that recently opened in Idaho
There is a certain perfect irony that a billionaire who owns a social media company that has been accused over and over again of misusing our data in the cause of making human “connections” is kind of a socially clueless dude. ¹
Zuckerberg has always struck me as the kid in high school last chosen when the kids divided up for dodgeball. Billions can buy you a castle in Ireland or a really big superyacht, but money can’t make you cool, or even very self aware.
I wouldn’t have even known about the new castle had I not seen a story a few days ago concerning the Zuckerberg’s “generous” gift to local Irish sports clubs near his new digs. Here’s the BBC story:
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is taking a step into Irish sports by giving three Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) clubs in County Waterford €150,000 (£129,000).
The clubs are the three closest located to Zuckerberg’s newly-purchased Strancally Castle.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, plan to give the clubs – Shamrocks GAA, Tallow GAA and Lismore GAA – €50,000 (£43,000) each, with donations to be paid over a two-year period.
A spokesman for Zuckerberg said the couple were “aware of the very significant role that the GAA plays in local communities in Ireland” and as new members of the community, they “wanted to support” the clubs.
It is their first Irish philanthropic donation since they bought the property in August.
Wow.
What a generous guy. Because this is Ireland the local clubs were “hugely welcoming” of the Zuckerberg gift that will be parceled out in two installments over the next two years because, well, one presumes cash flow for the family budget what with the new expense of a castle in Ireland and all.
Don’t get me wrong I can only imagine the local sporting clubs really can use the cash. You don’t look askance at a gift from a billionaire, even if he’s a rather cheap billionaire. This is a gift that will be lost in the rounding errors of the Zuckerberg family checkbook.
It’s probably just a wild coincidence that a few days after Zuck got a ton of free publicity in Ireland for his sporting club gift the New York Times broke another rather preposterous story about Meta.
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta’s A.I. push is a tremendous success. “Our investments in A.I. are accelerating every major part of our core business,” he has told investors. “Every sign that we’re seeing in our own work and across the industry gives us confidence in this investment.”
But when Meta files its taxes, it tells the Internal Revenue Service a different story. It claims that its A.I. data centers are a giant experiment that could fail, according to four people with knowledge of the company’s operations.
It does this so it can tap into a tax credit intended for research and experimentation. It’s an aggressive interpretation of the tax break, which Meta embraced to claim billions of dollars in tax credits for data center expansion.
The Times calculates that Meta stands to save $4 billion on its federal tax bill applying this creative approach to a questionable tax credit.
What is it they say? The rich get richer? And Irish young people look across the sea – again.
The credit has become the second-most expensive federal corporate tax break, behind only the reduced rate applied to offshore profits. In its most recent estimate, the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation projected the credit would cost the government $32.1 billion in 2025. Meta alone would be responsible for more than a tenth of that.
Mark Zuckerberg controls more than 60% of the voting stock of Meta. He’s the chairman and CEO. He owns a bunch of stuff, now including a castle in Ireland. Good for him, I guess.
You could be excused for thinking he’s got more than enough, but nothing succeeds like excess so here’s wishing good luck to the Waterford County GAA clubs upgrading their dressing rooms thanks to the Man from Meta.
Better dressing rooms does sound, after all, like something of real social value. Maybe it’s a start of more to come.
I doubt it.
Time for a pint.
It’s difficult to be an optimist in today’s world and I’m not all that optimistic, but I do focus on realism and try to populate my writing with solid sourcing and not merely opinion. I write these pieces to offer a perspective based on history and particularly American political history since 1900.
These essays are free, but a financial contribution helps support my writing and research, including a new book in progress.
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Many thanks.
1) – Not to pile on, but why not. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik, offers a scathing takedown of Meta’s new AI app – Muse.
“Two major issues have already surfaced among Muse’s early users. One is why anyone living a normal life needs a bot to perform such quotidian tasks as reading and writing emails, placing appointments on a calendar or calling a plumber.
“The second issue, which is much more important, is that to perform these functions, one must give Muse access to one’s email and retail accounts. Let’s start with that. The opinion of privacy advocates who have weighed in on this requirement generally boils down to: Anyone doing this should have their head examined.”
