Stop Panicking: stop panic buying, and stop stockpiling food!

Stop Panicking: stop panic buying, and stop stockpiling food!

To anyone who, before now, didn’t fully understand the concept of “the tragedy of the commons”, look around you to what is happening in Ireland during the spread of Covid-19, which the World Health Organisation has recently classified as a pandemic.


It sounds scary when something is classified with a word as powerful as “pandemic”. Add a tense movie-thriller-sounding qualifying word to pandemic, such as Covid-19, and there is plenty of reason to let your thoughts disappear down a movie script dystopian style rabbit hole of horror scenarios.

The irony of the situation is that the only horror that is likely to occur form panic-driven stockpiling of food and (bizarrely) toiletries will be to the old, sick and vulnerable in society, who are the ones that we must surely try our hardest to protect. They are after all the ones most likely to suffer most during the pandemic.

Social Power and Privilege in Society.

Development Perspectives Workshop: Hosted by Stephanie Kirwan and Bobby McCormack.

On Thursday October 26^th last, Stephanie Kirwan and Bobby McCormack, of Development Perspectives, hosted a fascinating workshop in the Carmelite Centre in Dublin City. The workshop focused on ‘power’ and ‘privilege’ in society, specifically the invisibility of power and privilege, and how it creates and maintains particular sets of norms and conventions which sustain unequal access to social capital, and resources.  Under guidance from Bobby and Stephanie, the conversation developed quite organically taking us down an enlightening rabbit hole of issues surrounding topics such as education, social status, language, discourse, rights, duties, obligations, privileges, and responsibilities etc.

There was a broad range of people from different backgrounds in attendance bringing multiple perspectives to the table.

The event inspired me to write about power and privilege in society. So here it is…

(As a quick disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Development Perspectives and the views in this article are entirely my own)