Some people are just dyed-in-the-wool gobsheens. Be ruthless.
On the threshold of fifty, Irish Examiner columnist Esther McCarthy turns the birthday tradition of received wisdom on its head, offering deliberately terrible advice as a way of telling a deeper truth: that the permission aging grants us is most honestly spent on irreverence. Her satirical inversions of wellness culture — procrastination as productivity, resentment as longevity, toxic people as mirrors — are less a rejection of wisdom than a reckoning with the exhausting performance of having it. In the long human story of growing older, McCarthy reminds us that self-knowledge sometimes arrives dressed as a joke.
- A columnist approaching fifty seizes her birthday as a license to say the quiet parts loud — and the loud parts louder.
- The wellness industry's gospel of forgiveness, boundaries, and optimised living is the direct target, skewered with gleeful precision.
- McCarthy's inversions create genuine tension: is she mocking bad advice, endorsing it, or confessing that the line between the two has always been thinner than we admit?
- The column lands not as nihilism but as relief — a permission slip for readers tired of being told how to age gracefully and productively.
There is a particular licence that comes with a landmark birthday, and Esther McCarthy, Irish Examiner columnist and self-described insufferable person-in-progress, has chosen to spend hers dispensing advice she freely admits you should not take. She catches herself in mirrors and doesn't quite recognise the woman looking back. The hands, she notes, belong to someone else entirely. And yet, she argues, aging is its own superpower — which apparently obliges you to share what you've learned, even when what you've learned is mostly wrong.
Procrastination, she insists, is underrated. The productivity gurus can keep their systems. McCarthy has built a career on the adrenaline of the last possible moment, when panic somehow alchemises into something close to genius. On the matter of difficult people, she is equally contrarian: the modern obsession with cutting out toxic individuals strikes her as exhausting. These people, she argues, serve a function — they make the rest of us feel comparatively sane. Her mother made her play camogie while menstruating. It was character-building. That's the Irish way.
Her most provocative counsel concerns forgiveness. While wellness culture insists that releasing resentment heals the body and quiets the mind, McCarthy disagrees with cheerful conviction. Bitterness, she argues, is fuel. The fantasy of outliving your enemies is a legitimate motivational tool. You can pursue personal growth and nurse a grudge simultaneously — just make sure you have dessert while you're at it, hot, with ice cream.
Her advice on conversation is perhaps her sharpest: treat children like adults and adults like children. Approach the overwhelmed mother at the family gathering — the one juggling collagen supplements and gymnastics leotards — with the slow, gentle patience you'd offer a seven-year-old. Then ask the actual seven-year-old what the craic is, as if they're running a small conglomerate. It works, she says, because it does.
She closes with a warning about gobsheens — those dyed-in-the-wool disruptors who, like the vinca plant she innocently introduced to her garden nine years ago, will quietly colonise everything if you let them. Be ruthless. Half a century is coming, and McCarthy, already armed and already insufferable, is ready for it.
There's a particular freedom that comes with a birthday, especially one that lands you on the edge of fifty. You get to say things you've been thinking all along, wrapped in the permission that age supposedly grants. Esther McCarthy, an Irish Examiner columnist, used hers to offer a masterclass in how not to live—or rather, how to live exactly as she pleases, consequences be damned.
McCarthy's premise is simple: she's old enough now that people might listen, but not wise enough to deserve it. She catches herself in mirrors and doesn't recognize the woman staring back. The hands belong to someone else entirely. Yet aging, she argues, is its own kind of superpower, and with it comes the obligation to dispense advice—even if that advice is deliberately, unapologetically bad.
Start with procrastination. Forget the productivity gurus and their systems. McCarthy is a believer in delay, in pushing everything toward next week, then riding the adrenaline spike when a deadline looms and miracles somehow materialize. It's a rush, she says, though she admits she's never tried crack cocaine, so take that comparison as you will. The point is simple: some of her best work has arrived at the last possible moment, panic-fueled and somehow perfect.
Then there's the matter of toxic people. The modern world is obsessed with cutting them out, with boundaries and self-protection. McCarthy finds this exhausting. Her mother forced her to play camogie while menstruating; it was character-building, not trauma. That's the Irish way. Yes, everyone talks about narcissists and gaslighting now, but these difficult people serve a purpose—they make you feel relatively normal by comparison. Keep them around. They did their best, allegedly, in a different time.
But here's where it gets interesting: never forgive. While the wellness industry churns out studies about how forgiveness heals you, reduces stress, improves your health, McCarthy calls it nonsense. Resentment, anger, bitterness—these are the emotions that keep you alive. There's nothing quite like the thought of outliving your enemies to fuel ambition. Yes, holding grudges can lead to chronic stress and depression, but only if you're doing it wrong. You can pursue your own growth while simultaneously fantasizing about your enemies getting what they deserve. And always have dessert with it—hot, with ice cream on top.
Her advice on conversation is genuinely clever. Talk to children like they're adults and adults like they're children. At the next family gathering, approach the harried mother—the one chewing collagen gummies, filling out Fair Deal forms, ordering expensive gymnastic leotards for a child who hasn't mastered a forward roll—and speak to her slowly, gently, as if she's seven years old. Ask the actual seven-year-old what the craic is, as if they're running a corporation. It works because it does.
Finally, there's the matter of who deserves the benefit of the doubt. Some people do. You'll recognize them. But others are dyed-in-the-wool gobsheens, and they must be shut down immediately. McCarthy learned this the hard way with a vinca plant she innocently planted nine years ago. It took over the entire garden, choking out everything else with its innocent purple flowers, slowly and insidiously spreading until there was nothing left. Gobsheens work the same way. Be ruthless. Your garden is not for them.
As McCarthy approaches fifty, she's already insufferable, already armed with permission to say exactly what she thinks. Here's to another year of living badly, she writes. Half a century is coming, and she's ready for it.
Citações Notáveis
Resentment, anger, and bitterness are all key emotions to keep you living longer.— Esther McCarthy
I really don't have a clue what I'm doing half the time. I genuinely think I'm like 18.— Esther McCarthy
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
You're giving advice you know is bad. Why bother?
Because the good advice is everywhere already, and it's boring. People know they should forgive, should cut out toxic people, should be productive. What they don't hear is permission to be messy about it.
But you're serious underneath the jokes, aren't you? About resentment keeping you alive?
Not entirely. It's more that I think we've become too tidy about our emotions. We're supposed to process everything, forgive everyone, move on. Life doesn't work that way. Sometimes anger is fuel. Sometimes a grudge is honest.
The vinca plant metaphor—that's about knowing who to trust?
It's about recognizing patterns. Some people look harmless at first. They're just a small purple flower. Then they've taken over your entire life and you can't get rid of them. By then it's too late.
So the real advice is: pay attention early?
Exactly. And don't apologize for being ruthless about it. That's the part nobody wants to say out loud.
What changes when you turn fifty?
Nothing, really. You just stop pretending you're going to change. You accept that you're going to be this way forever, and somehow that's liberating.