I was sent a strange video on WhatsApp at the weekend.
Without going into too much detail, it was of a lady who got out of a car, climbed onto the bonnet, and lay down.
In the background you could hear people laughing and shouting. Everyone, seemingly, thought it was hilarious.
What I have omitted is that the lady was not wearing a stitch of clothing.
According to the caption attached to the video, this occurrence is supposed to have happened outside commercial premises across the border somewhere in Donegal.
To be honest, I doubt that very much.
As far as I could make out, the accents in the background were English, and none of the vehicles in shot had southern registrations.
I am thinking it was somewhere in England, but as there are no details in regard to dates, times and place, who knows.
Whatever the facts, someone took the trouble to not only film this episode, but to put it up on social media where, by all accounts, it has gone viral. The version I got said ‘forwarded many times’.
Now here’s the thing: was this lady high on something, or had she a mental health issue? Or was it simply a dare for a bit of craic?
I haven’t a clue.
But the video footage is so clear that anyone who knows her will have no problem identifying her. And if she has issues of some kind, it could prove to be very cruel.
Why I’m bringing this up is that the thought occurred to me very forcefully that I am truly glad I came of age in a world where we didn’t have mobile phones and cameras in everyone’s pockets.
I am not kidding when I say I still feel a cold sweat coming on when I think about some of things myself and my friends got up to, and thank God no-one ever found out about them.
We made our mistakes, did our stupid stuff when we were young and foolish, but there is no record now for posterity to hold like the sword of Damocles over our heads.
A mistake made today could haunt you for the rest of your life because it’s likely to be recorded somewhere on some device or other.
For the sake of argument, let’s accept this was a video of something that did happen across the border, and it is that thought that brought home to me how much our society has changed.
And it’s not just phones. It’s attitudes probably more than anything. We really have changed big time.
For instance, in 1975 – just to put it into perspective – Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Western Europe. Unemployment was high and emigrants were our biggest export.
Fast forward to 2025 and the Republic, where I grew up, is a totally different place.
Suddenly it’s one of the richest countries per capita in the world, with an expected €8bn budget surplus this year.
It has gone from farming and fishing to being second only to California’s Silicon Valley in the global production and export of hi-tech software.
This is thanks to massive investment by multinational companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft etc.
The south also has the highest percentage of people in the world, 54%, with a primary degree.
Here in the north, our students continually outperform England and Wales in both GCSE and A-Level examinations in the major metrics. So, the days of portraying the island of Ireland as some backwoods bogland populated by stereotypical ‘thick Paddies’ is well and truly over.
But all this has had a massive impact on society and social mores.
Much of the island of Ireland has gone from an inward-looking, rural place with a slow-paced lifestyle and hurtled straight into a modern era of smartphones, broadband, streaming services, online shopping, global travel, and all this almost at the flick of a switch.
And we are paying a price for it.
For instance, I can’t remember the details now, but the other night my wife mentioned something about a place in Spain, and about an hour later the exact same place cropped up on my phone.
Was that coincidence or is there something triggering devices to key words said in conversation?
Social media algorithms are something else too, designed to give us what we want to hear and see to maximise engagement, encouraging addiction to the phone.
According to something I read recently, this has real-life consequences in that it can led to anxiety and depression.
If you walk down the street in any town now you’ll see cameras everywhere. If you think that kind of surveillance is a bit much, what about fridges that can, apparently, record data? I didn’t think that was possible.
And have you travelled abroad recently?
If you have, you’ll have noticed going through airports that facial recognition systems are in place just about everywhere.
It came to mind as I started to write this column that years back I read a book, Mountain Man, which was based on the life of Jeremiah Johnson – the late Robert Redford starred in the film version – who moved higher and higher into the mountains of the American west in the early 1800s because he couldn’t deal with the influx of newcomers.
He wanted his privacy and his anonymity, his right to be free of man-made rules and regulations.
Johnson’s problems, when you think about it, were miniscule compared to what’s happening now. He wouldn’t have a hope today.
How many more out there feel the same way– that our rights to privacy and anonymity are being eroded almost on a daily basis?
Finally, getting back to the lady in the video - I genuinely hope it was her decision, that it was only a bit of craic.