It’s become somewhat of a tradition before Oasis even takes to the stage that they have start to entertain the crowds. The night before gigs, a drone show (if you can call a floating Oasis logo a show) takes place in the area of the event.
Sure enough, the show has already kicked off in Dublin. Organised by drone specialists Celestial, the light bright Oasis logo could be seen outside of Croke Park, posted by several fans on social media.
You can check it out over on the Beat 102 103 social media account:
🎤 Check out the Oasis drones lighting up the skies of Dublin near Croke Park tonight, ahead of the highly anticipated reunion of Liam and Noel Gallagher this weekend. #oasis#crokepark
If you’ve paid a small fortune for your tickets, you should take a good long look at the display to make sure you get your money’s worth from the full weekend!
I think it’s fair to say we’re counting down the days to Football Manager 2026 now that Sports Interactive has released the first teaser for the long-awaited next game in the much-loved football management simulation series. But just when can we expect the game to be fully released?
With a sprinkle of speculation, here’s how things are lining up for the Football Manager 2026 release date.
What is the Football Manager 2026 Launch Date?
Update: I’ll leave the speculation below, but it’s confirmed that Football Manager 2026 launches on 4th November 2025. Here’s the Steam page. But from here on out, it prior to confirmation speculation.
The only 100% honest answer here is that we do not know the official date Football Manager 2026 will launch. However, we can make an educated guess.
Many hoped that following the cancellation of Football Manager 2025 due to the transition to Unity amongst other challenges, we’d have the next game in the series earlier in the 2025/2026 season that we’ve ever had it before.
But it wouldn’t make sense for the game to emerge until at least the transfer deadline has closed, at least not in my opinion.
The teaser video emerging in mid-August has set a bit of an expectation that Sports Interactive are somewhat confident of hitting at least their traditional timeline. And that means we should have Football Manager 2026 be the first week of November. Here’s why.
Historical Launch Dates of Football Manager
Football Manager first came into the world in 2005 with a first week of November launch. For a couple of years, the game bounced around between mid-October to mid-November launches until Football Manager 2015. Since then, nearly all Football Manager games have launched in November.
Typically, Sports Interactive has released a limited Beta demo of the game 2 weeks before launch. The Beta lets you play up until the January transfer window. Pre-order customers usually got priority early access.
Given Sports Interactive has started talking about Football Manager 2026 already, in mid-August, I believe we’re at least back to normal, and looking at a launch in the first week of November. Despite some concerns that the game still isn’t quite finished.
It may be a cut feeling, it may be due to Myles reappearing on social media again after a year in the wilderness.
Take all of this with a pinch of salt, but I have a feeling (just a feeling) we’ll be gaming well in time for Christmas. If you think that sounds good, you can check out our early speculation on FM 2026 required specs.
People are generally changing their phones less often. For many years, phone companies had everyone convinced that a two-year contract means changing your phone every two years too. As technology advances and becomes more reliable, people are changing less than ever. But there’s a lot more to consider that “when” you change phone. You should also be considering what plan do you want to get, because bill pay contracts rarely offer the best value.
In this article, I’ll bring you through the pros and cons of all the options you have to buy a new phone, show you the costs and give you a handy calculator to help you with your own purchase decision. My hope is that armed with this information, you’ll be able to save yourself a small fortune on your next phone purchase.
How to Buy a Phone from a Network
When you buy a phone from a phone network, you generally have two options. You either buy the phone on prepay or bill pay.
Buying a Phone on Prepay
On prepay, the network you buy with usually gives you a small discount on the phone versus what it would be to buy outright from a manufacturer like Apple or Samsung. This is usually between €20-€50 off the full price. The network will “lock” the phone to their network until you’ve spent a certain amount on phone credit.
Once you’ve topped up by enough, you can unlock the phone and away you go. You can unlock the phone and buy a plan from any other network offering a great deal.
Buying a Phone on Bill Pay
On bill pay, you are making a much bigger commitment and will likely pay more monthly. Typically, it’s a two-year commitment but in return, you pay significantly less up-front for your new phone. This makes it a relatively popular option for high-end flagship smartphones like iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S-series.
However, being enticed by a lower up-front cost can cost you a lot more throughout your two-year agreement. Often, networks will tempt you with “Free” pricing up-front to distract you from the long-term cost involved in a 24-month agreement.
There are alternatives to you that can save you money.
Alternatives to Buying a Phone from a Network
It’s not that long ago that to get a phone really would have meant the phone shop on the high street was your only choice. Today, you have a plethora of options.
Straight from Apple, Samsung and More
Phone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung would gladly cut the phone networks out of their deals with you, the shopper. And in recent years, they’ve done just that setting up online stores and bricks and mortar stores in for you to shop with. The phone you buy from the manufacturer will be a SIM-free phone with no SIM lock whatsoever.
And they offer an enticing option too.
Let’s take a look at a practical example of this. The iPhone 16 on an Irish network today would cost you €399 up-front and about €50 per month for 24 months. Overall, you would spend over €1500 over those 24 months.
Alternatively, you could buy the same phone directly from Apple online for €979. But let’s not forget, you’ll still need a plan. Ireland’s best value sim-only plan right now is 48, at €12.99. In this scenario, you would pay just €1290 over 24 months for the same phone and similar service. That’s a saving of over €200.
Now, I know what you’re thinking – “I can’t afford €979 up front”, and I’ll come back to that in payment methods later.
SIM-Free Retailers
Another growing market in Ireland is SIM-free retailers. These are your big electronics retailers like Harvey Norman, DID and Currys. Just like buying from the manufacturer, these are SIM-free phones, and you will need to go buy a plan elsewhere, like the 48 plan I mentioned earlier.
Oddly, some of these retailers can offer you better prices than the manufacturer, even Apple. I can’t begin to explain how hard it is to get discounts on Apple products. At the time of writing, the iPhone 15 was just €879 with all of the retailers I mentioned; that’s Harvey Norman, DID and Currys.
That makes your savings with this route even greater at €478 versus buying the same phone from a mobile network.
I’m not done yet with how much you could save.
Refurbished Phones
People are less fussy about their new phone being completely “new”. Refurbished phones have become an extremely appealing option for people seeking out a new phone. These phones have already had one owner and gone through a refurbishment process to make them “like new”. This means if the battery was old, it was replaced along with some other parts. Sometimes, these phones were purchased and returned within 14 days because shoppers just changed their minds.
Let’s get back to our iPhone 15 example. Even though this phone is current, you can still find them refurbished from Apple or from companies like Refurbed.ie, which I’ve reviewed before.
A refurbished iPhone 15, which granted isn’t brand new like the one from the network, would set you back €722. Once again, assuming you take the 48 sim-only option, you are now saving €635 in total over 24 months versus buying new from the network on a 24-month contract.
Amazon.co.uk
I can’t ignore the online shopping beast that is Amazon. The e-commerce giant will be opening an Irish store in 2025, but you can already buy that same iPhone 15 online today for just £699. After exchange rates, import charges and everything else, this route to your new iPhone 15 will cost you €850.
Let’s not forget that Amazon Prime Day 2024 is just around the corner too. So by shopping during these days, during another Amazon sale and by using Revolut, you could save even more. But buying that iPhone 15 on Amazon today would save you €507 versus the Irish network on a 24-month contract.
Payment Methods
Earlier, I did say I understand that not everyone will have this kind of up-front cash lying around. Mobile networks have relied on this scenario for years, but the options for you, the consumer, have changed dramatically, but you do need to be careful.
If you look at buying a phone as credit, or hire purchase, it makes weighing up your options a lot easier. Buying the phone from the network would work out at about 13% interest.
Now, you can look at how much other options cost. A credit card with 18% interest would give you the buying power to buy the iPhone 15 from Apple and pay it off over 24 months for less than €40 per month would cost you around €150 interest in total. A fraction of what it would cost with the network.
There are still even better options too. If you’re a Revolut customer, you can also use Pay Later. This lets you split up your purchase into three payments. For the privilege, you pay a 1.6% interest and the iPhone 15 costs you three payments of €331.
With all of these options, it comes with a massive caveat. These are riskier credit options than a phone contract with a network. You need to be confident that you can manage your finances. But once you plan it out properly and make your payments, you could save a small fortune by purchasing your phone from one of the methods I’ve outlined here instead of a 24-month contract from a mobile network.
Bill Pay vs Prepay Calculator
It can be hard to know what the best value is for you, depending on what phone and plan you’re thinking of buying. So I’ve built this calculator to help. You’ll need to pick the phone you’re interested in buying, look up the price it costs on a network (both upfront and monthly) and the price with another retailer like Harvey Norman or Refurbed.ie.
Once you input all of this below, the calculator will tell you how much you could save by buying from a non-network retailer.
Check out how much the phone you want will cost from your network, including the up front cost, monthly price and contract duration and populate the calculator. Next, find out how much the phone costs without network support and which SIM-only plan you want to go with. Once all of this information is in the calculator, you’ll see what’s better value for you; bill pay or SIM-only.
Bill Pay Calculator powered by goosed
Network Contract Details
Choose a predefined plan or select custom to enter your own details
Type to search for your phone model
Select the contract duration in months
This is how much you pay, up front to your network, for the device.
SIM-Free Option
Enter the cost of buying the phone outright
Enter the monthly cost of your SIM-only plan
Click to compare your options and see the results below
Comparison Results
Contract Total
€0.00
This is the total amount you'll pay to your network over the length of your contract.
SIM-Free Total
€0.00
Total up-front cost for your phone plus SIM-free plan over the provided contract term.
We’ve learned Football Manager 2026 is officially on the way thanks to long awaited signs of life from Sports Interactive. The ill-fated Football Manager 2025 was cancelled as the game shifted towards a new Unity Engine foundation. That new engine brings excitement for a series that probably didn’t need a generational refresh. But that excitement should also bring some concern, depending on the specs your laptop/gaming PC is running.
Update: It’s official. Football Manager 2026 is coming on 4th November 2026 and we have confirmed specs.
Below, I’ll keep all the pre-confirmed speculation, but these next two sections will cover Windows and Mac confirmed minimum and recommended specs. And yes, it does look like Mac will be ready at launch without a later launch timeline.
Football Manager 2026 Confirmed Windows Specs
Minimum
Recommended
Operating System
Windows 10 (with updates 22H2), Windows 11 (with updates 23H2)
Windows 11 – with updates (23H2)
Processor
Desktop: Intel Core i3-530 or AMD FX-4100 Laptop: Intel Core i3-330M or AMD A6-5200 Requires SSE4.2 & SSSE3
Desktop: Intel Core i5-9600 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Laptop: Intel Core i5-1035G7 or AMD Ryzen 7 3750H
Memory
4 GB RAM
12 GB RAM
Graphics
Desktop: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon R9 380 or Intel HD 530 Laptop: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M or AMD Radeon R9 M375 or Intel HD 530 512MiB VRAM
Desktop: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT Laptop: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile or AMD Radeon RX 6600M
Direct X
Version 11
Version 11
Storage
20 GB available space
20 GB available space
Both requires a 64-bit processor and operating system.
Football Manager 2026 Confirmed Mac Specs
Minimum
Recommended
Operating System
11 Big Sur, 12 Monterey, 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia – with updates
13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia – with updates
Processor
Apple M1 or Intel Core M
Apple M1
Memory
4 GB RAM
12 GB RAM
Graphics
Desktop: Apple M1 or NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M or Intel HD Graphics 5000 or AMD FirePro D300 Laptop: Apple M1 or NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M or Intel HD Graphics 5000
1GiB VRAM, Apple M1
Storage
20 GB available space
20 GB available space
Football Manager 2025 Gave Us Clues at Least
Until now, Football Manager had the unique benefit of being able to run on older machines. You just had to accept it might be a little slow and that an underpowered laptop would likely burn the thighs off you while sounding like a 747 taking off.
But it would work. It’s one of the few democratically available games to most regardless of your hardware, even if you were running Mac. I’m a MacBook user and Football Manager has been a go-to game for me when travelling or staying away from home for a while.
I’m afraid that might change quite dramatically with the move towards the Unity Engine. Now, to be clear, at the time of writing there is no official announcement on Football Manager 2026 required specs. We do, however, know what the recommended and minimum specs were for Football Manager 2025 before it was cancelled.
Football Manager 2026 Will Likely Need Higher Specs
While Sports Interactive has yet to release official specs for Football Manager 2026, early previews and comparison with the unreleased Football Manager 2025 suggest a clear shift: the series is saying goodbye to ultra-light hardware.
FM 2025 proposed minimums include an Intel Core i3-530 (or AMD FX-4100), 4 GB RAM, and a GTX 960 or equivalent. This would only cater to the lowest settings and while it would run, it would likely not be utterly enjoyable. The game’s recommended specs called for an i5-9600 class CPU, 12 GB RAM, and an RTX 2060 GPU.
From the FM 2026 teaser, it’s clear that Sports Interactive wants to set an expectation that the in-game graphics experience is going to be significantly different to that of previous games in the series.
While FM 2026 won’t demand a bleeding-edge GPU, it places significantly more emphasis on processor muscle. In practice, gamers with PCs or laptops from the past five years, especially those with dedicated GPUs and mid-range CPUs, will likely be fine. I’ve taken a look through the Steam Survey and generally speaking a minority of gamers are facing spec issues.
But if you are running a truly budget or decade-old hardware that coughs and splutters through leagues in FM 2024, it might be time for upgrades.
If, like me, you are a Mac Manager, seasons should be a breeze, especially if you have Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3). That’s more than capable of handling the new 3D match engine at high settings.
The only potential bottleneck is older Intel-based Macs from before 2016, which may struggle or miss out entirely if macOS version support moves past Big Sur.
What Laptop Should You Buy for FM 2026?
Right now, this is impossible to say for sure. Sports Interactive has yet to reveal the final specs for the game. If you are buying with just FM 2026 in mind, you’re going to have to wait.
If I was a gambling man, most decent machines from the past few years with a fairly respectable integrated graphics card, will be ok. But we’ll have to wait and see for sure.
This follows a raft of changes in the internet landscape, for example Google Search introducing AI Overviews, Boards.ie has lost significant volumes of traffic. As a result, the platform shifted towards showing ads, which can be removed by paying a fee.
Over a month into their efforts, progress towards their self-imposed revenue goals have slowed.
Interestingly, the website also includes the number of days remaining, suggesting there is a deadline of Friday, 7 November 2025. It’s not clear whether this is just a random date in the future because it adds suspense and increases donation count, or that Boards.ie has a genuine line in the sand with serious consequences.
Should that deadline be quite real, Boards.ie needs a significant uptick in paying subscribers to keep the site alive. It is possible that incremental revenue generated from ads being added to the site has not been factored into forecasts, and that the goals will be supplemented by this revenue too.
Still, without a renewed effort to attract subscribers, it seems that the fundraising efforts are some way behind where they need to be.
I’ve reached out to the team behind Boards.ie for comment.
This is dangerously close to being a sports article for a tech site. But given the wild summer of transfers in the Premier League, and particularly for me as a Liverpool fan, it’s hard for it not to be on the brain. Sprinkle the excitement of Football Manager 2026 being teased on top of all that “in the know” transfer gossip and you’ve got me in full fledged transfer mode. One of the biggest “in the knows” making a comeback in 2025 is Indykaila. I’ve been left wondering just who is behind the account that “reveals” so many transfer storys?
What is Indykaila?
Indykaila is the social media account on Twitter backed by 5 “elite reporters”. The account has over 630k followers; followers who are either seeking the latest transfer rumours, or rumours that border meme-tier. The account could be classed as an “in the know” account. “In the know” accounts claim to be football’s insider knowledge experts. The most famous of this is Fabrizio Romano, with over 25 million followers.
Obviously, Indykaila pales in comparison to Romano, arguably owing to a how often the accounts misses, rather than hits. The account churns out a relentless stream of transfer updates, “inside information”, and breaking news. It’s less enticing to football fans because posts tend to be vague, cryptic, and packed with dramatic language and emojis.
Here’s a good example from the Liverpool, Newcastle, Isak transfer drama:
It would be unusual if the likes of Romano posted saying a bid would come in 72 hours. The Indykaila account has just taken a swing at this, and missed.
Despite this, one of the accounts biggest wins was when it received a tip of the hat from top sports journo David Ornstein from The Athletic.
Speaking on The Sports Agents Podcast, Ornstein said lots of people asked him why did he credit Indykaila. Ornstein said a few people had said they’ve met “the guy” behind the account, that it’s “credible” and “there are some people working on it”.
Adding to fuel to the fire, leaving me asking who runs the account and is this a laugh or not?
Who Runs Indykaila?
The account’s own bio, which I’ve used above, claims to be a “team of 5 elite reporters” which makes sense given the varying style and accuracy of posts. I think what confuses me the most is when I try to work out if the account is pure parody, or a genuine attempt at being “in the know”.
The people behind the account have remained a mystery, despite racking up significantly more followers than many reputable sports journalists. Yet, some rumours surrounding the account are just ridiculous.
One persistent rumour is that the original person behind the Indykaila account worked at KFC. Football fans and online communities have joked that Indykaila was run by a KFC employee, some even speculating the account was started during their shifts and later sold to the current owners.
True or not, it’s all now part of the myth or legend that is Indykaila, with one Redditor posting under the Ornstein story, “the KFC guy is a legit source, that’s crazy”. The Liverpool subreddit uses a tier system to classify transfer rumour credibility, with Indykaila getting “Tier Zinger”, a KFC reference, to indicate this rumour should be taken with a fist of salt.
Indykaila Rumour Misses
Ornstein giving credit to Indykaila was a massive coup for the account. But it shouldn’t be forgotten how many misses the account has had. A famous miss in 2014 stoked a direct response from former Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva:
@indykaila so you giving wrong information to your followers.
Another famous miss was when the account suggested Wayne Rooney was moving to China. Wayne Rooney did not play in China.
So whether the account is an actual “in the know” or just about for a laugh, 2025 has been a good year for Indykaila. Whether or not it’s been a good year for fans trying to get accurate sports news and rumours, well that’s another question entirely.
The long awaited release of Football Manager 2026 is edging closer. To put into context how long it has been, the most recent release in the series is still Football Manager 2024 where my current save is in 2037 and I’ve brought Wrexham from the Vanarama to the Premier League. I’ve gotten my monies worth out of that game, for sure. But the great news for Football Manager fans is that we finally have signs of life from Sports Interactive after a teaser trailer just dropped.
Football Manager 2026 Teaser Trailer
5 Things We Learn from the FM2026 Teaser Trailer
Here’s what we’ve learned from it so far.
1. Football Manager 2026 Might Launch in November
The biggest reveal from the teaser for me is that we may be on for Football Manager 2026 launching in November. The teaser emerging in mid-August means the full launch trailer could very well come in early September. This would put Football Manager 2026 back on the same schedule as FM 2023 and FM 2024.
Music to the ears of fans who have been waiting patiently. However, not all signs from the teaser are massively positive.
2. Sports Interactive Still Has Lots to Do
The story of the teaser is a little disjointed in my opinion. It starts out at Brighton’s AMEX stadium (the last stadium I visited myself in 2025 to see Liverpool lose!).
It appears that the footage of the AMEX is real video footage, before cutting to some great looking Premier League branded shots (more on that in a bit). This footage is tagged as “Actual Game Footage – Not Final”. Which is a tale of two halves. It looks great, but is still work in progress, leaving plenty of space for nerves and doubt to creep back in.
The video then cuts to real world footage at what appears to be Bournemouth and Everton before cutting back to in-game footage. Here we see fully animated players and officials emerging from the tunnel with an animated crowd.
What’s worrying me here, isn’t the in game footage, but the cuts back to real-world footage for anything that would require seeing actual players or officials. The only sight we have of these players has heads out of shot for example. This might be worth a whole point on it’s own.
3. The In-game Graphics Engine Gets a Massive Overhaul
It would appear that the in game graphics is set to have the biggest upgrade in Football Manager (and even Championship Manager) history. This generation of Football Manager heralded the move towards a new Unity Engine. With that came a world of new graphics options and improvements.
The teaser suggests to me that the match experience will be closer to a slightly older FIFA game (which would be awesome), but that those graphics are someway away from being fit for public display.
This leaves me questioning my first point.
It would appear that we will get 3D players for the in-game match engine animation. But I’m left utterly confused by what expectation Sports Interactive is trying to set here. Because cutting to the real-world footage of teams emerging sets the expectation that this is the goal for the pre-match experience.
Hopefully they are just tweaking the final bits, but I do wonder how close to being ready some features are.
4. Peter Drury May Be the Voice of Football Manager 2026
The voice of modern football is Peter Drury. He’s a poet of the game. Him featuring on the teaser is incredible as he delivers a level of drama you’d expect from him: “The wait has been long. The buildup impossible to ignore. So much has changed, but that feeling… it never left”.
I initially thought this would only be a guest appearance in the trailer, but the more I think about it, the more possible it is that he wil feature as a commentator. EAFC has had a long term commitment to it’s commentary team which includes Guy Mowberry et al. So Peter Drury, while iconic in the sport of football, doesn’t have a digital home.
If the game is to get the graphical overhaul that Sports Interactive seems to be hinting at with this teaser, that same experience would be awful without a voiced commentator. Sports Interactive are surely savvy enough to know after the failure to launch of FM 2025, managing expectations of fans of the series is quite important.
All of this; just speculation on my part.
5. Premier League Licensing and EAFC Sponsorship
As I mentioned, a big thing for FM2026 is official Premier League licensing. Now, fair enough. You might not be learning this for the first time given it was supposed to be the big news for the “never saw light of day” Football Manager 2025, which Sports Interactive shelved due to time constraints. But Football Manager 2026 has finally secured the official licensing rights for the Premier League.
This means the proper club names, logos and more. It should add realism, depth and immersion to the gaming experience. Many will argue that this depth was easily added by add-ons easily obtained online, something I’ve done every year. But to have this out of the box, simply improves the overall gaming experience for everyone.
6. Match Day First Look Coming Soon
We are going to learn a lot more from the full match day first look video which the teaser highlights is coming soon. Sega, the game’s publisher, is at Gamescom in Cologne next week. As am I, so I’ll be chasing down some contacts to see if there’s anything to happening.
I expect that new match day trailer to have either right or wrong some of the speculation I’ve made above.
If the game is back on track for a November launch, I’d fully expect that new match day trailer to emerge in the next few weeks ahead of an early September full launch video. Things could start moving quite quickly from here on out. I’m staying positive even after the pain of FM 2025.
OpenAI has announced the latest iteration of ChatGPT; GPT-5. GPT-5 Will roll out globally, including Ireland, in the coming hours. Parent company, OpenAI, said there will be a staggered release to ensure continued stability for all users. Here are several key updates and new functionality.
During today’s keynote launch (that notably gets the same excitement as phones used to) OpenAI’s Sam Altman highlighted improved reliability and accuracy: The model is designed for enhanced reliability and is expected to provide more accurate answers, with a reduction in instances of “hallucination.”
GPT-5 promises to bring improvements in writing skills, aiming for greater precision in results and an increased ability to adapt to contextual nuances.
For you “vibe coders” out there, GPT-5 claims to be OpenAI’s most capable model for coding applications. Even better news is if you’re using Cursor for your AI-powered coding, GPT-5 is already integrated and ready to go.
Rather surprisingly, OpenAI openly mentioned medical and health related queries being vastly improved. For years, these kinds of queries were dealt with great sensitivity thanks in search engines like Google. It’s not somewhere you want to make mistakes, and Search Engines had to take extra steps to surface the right information.
OpenAI bravely, or perhaps foolhardily, outlined how GPT-5 is the company’s most effective model for questions you may have about your health. I’m really interested to see how this works, what it says and how it frames medical advice. This is often highly regulated.
One of the biggest shifts for OpenAI is full Google integration with Gmail and Calendar. I’ve used Gemini several times to find old receipts in my Gmail that traditional search just can’t find.
There are several other minor changes, or at least changes that right not appear minor to me. For example, GPT-5 will prioritise delivering safe completions in response to prompts, rather than declining them and also follow-up questions when additional context is necessary to improve output quality.
Arguably the most interesting announcement in the keynote was that GPT-5 would be available to everyone; all subscribers including those on the free tier, with usage levels varying by subscription type.
Trump Media & Technology Group has begun public beta testing of Truth Search AI, an AI‑driven search feature on the browser version of Truth Social, powered by Perplexity AI. We’ve previously reported on Perplexity as a free benefit for Revolut customers. Truth Search AI uses Perplexity’s Sonar API to deliver summarised, cited answers to user queries. However, unlike Perplexity’s wider search platform, Truth Search AI appears to source responses primarily from conservative‑leaning outlets such as Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, The Washington Times, and The Epoch Times.
Further scrutiny of the partnership has raised concerns due to Perplexity’s past legal disputes. The company faces allegations of scraping content without authorisation, including using stealth crawlers that ignore websites’ robots.txt directives, and multiple copyright infringement lawsuits from major publishers like Dow Jones, the New York Times, and the BBC.
Ireland’s dedicated subreddit, r/Ireland, has just been forced into lock down. This comes as a result of what the r/Ireland Mod Team is calling “DEFCON 2”, restricting the sub to no new posts, and comments only from established users. The Mods have stated that the “brigading seems to be coming from accounts spreading disinformation/hate”.
What is r/Ireland?
Most countries have a dedicated subreddit on Reddit to discuss everything and anything relating to that country. What makes Ireland’s subreddit somewhat unique is the high number of users versus the country’s population.
Partially because Irish people love Reddit, but also because we have a massive number of people who claim to be Irish (glares at USA).
Some of the most popular content discussed by the subreddit’s 1.2 million users news, culture, and memes with r/AskIreland taking up advice and questions instead.
There have been several posts to r/Ireland in the past few days following emerging news of attacks on people of Indian descent, living in Ireland. Prior to the lockdown there was also an article shared relating to a Syrian national attacking a woman out jogging in Dublin.
Why is r/Ireland Locked?
Both the attacks and the assault have brought wide condemnation from people around Ireland and indeed in the comments on r/Ireland.
However, shortly after the most recent article was shared, r/Ireland was locked down, with the mods citing brigading
What is Brigading on Reddit?
Brigading, in terms of Reddit, refers to a coordinated effort by a group of people to manipulate voting, comments, or other interactions on a post or subreddit. Often with the intent to promote a specific viewpoint, silence dissent, or harass other users.
Essentially it’s a form of online harassment where a “brigade” of users targets a specific post or user, usually by downvoting, flooding with negative comments, or engaging in other forms of disruptive behaviour.
In this case, the term relates to a subreddit or perhaps a race of people. The actual details have not been shared.
The r/Ireland Mod Team decided around 12am to lock the subreddit from new posts, and limited comments to regular posters, stating “the brigading seems to be coming from accounts spreading disinformation/hate”.
In the event that Reddit believes a mod team is not effectively moderating hate, disinformation, or brigading, Reddit admins can take further action against the r/Ireland subreddit. This includes, but isn’t limited to, issuing warnings, forcing changes, restricting, suspending or banning the subreddit.
The r/Ireland Mod Team has also referenced some posts being created from “bad actors”. These are relatively new accounts “posting rage bait”, posing as “as immigrants asking questions on housing”.
Does this Matter?
As I said, r/Ireland has over 1.2 million users. Many internet users, myself included, have jumped ship from sites like Twitter and Boards.ie has, by its own admission, struggled in recent years. Reddit is a massive source of news and it one of Ireland’s biggest online communities.
r/Ireland is often home to real-time reactions to news, social issues, and cultural moments in Ireland. While the lockdown seems to be temporary, we’ve lost that platform of discussion for now. Seemingly, because of a hate-fuelled targeted attack. Something which seems to be growing as a regular occurrence these days.
I do expect to see r/Ireland back up and running in no time, but it’s worth us all inspecting these events., Who is behind these targeted attempts to divert or distract our attention. This post about Galway is very interesting, showing how WhatsApp groups from certain groups can influence people.
Update 07/08/2025: Restrictions appear to have been lifted.
