A DIFFERENT VIEW

IT may have escaped your notice – but Galway is, in fact, the best place in Ireland to survive a Zombie Apocalypse, which may or may not have something to do with another recent revelation that we are also the third most papal-obsessed county in Ireland.

Two unrelated ‘facts’ produced by the good people at Legacy Communications in an imaginative – some might say desperate but that would be unfair – way to promote their business and their clients.

The survey on who loves the Pope the most was done to heighten their own profile as Leo XIV took over at the Vatican – and in fairness there was a methodology to their madness.

The PR company used average monthly search data from Google Keyword Planner for ‘Pope’ and papacy-related search terms across Ireland over the last three months.

Legacy – and fair play to the staffer landed with the task, although you fear AI might have been brought into the equation – analysed ten key search terms related to the papacy, such as Pope Francis, the Sistine Chapel, and Papal Conclave.

The figures were then adjusted per 100,000 population using CSO data to ensure fair comparisons across counties of varying size.

Of course, given that this was Galway, perhaps they didn’t allow for the fact that the consumer affairs expert and Irish Times journalist Conor Pope is from Galway and people might just have been looking for help with their Ryanair cancelation.

As an aside, how prescient of the Times to send Conor to cover the installation of his namesake of sorts at the Vatican; nominative determinism at its absolute finest.

The fact that Dublin tops the poll – and that’s where Conor Pope lives – might further suggest that this isn’t just a search for papal updates. Indeed Conor might be just looking up his own name for hours on end and skewing the survey in the process.

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