COLUMN: Lessons learned from 2025 and hopes for 2026

As another year closes behind us, it’s tempting to rush headlong into resolutions and predictions. But it’s worth pausing to ask what the year just gone has actually taught us, here in Mayo and far beyond county lines. It feels clear to me that this year, more than ever, we have had to draw on our resilience daily, and quietly, to respond to the world around us.

In Mayo, we witness that resilience in communities facing relentless pressures: a cost of living that never quite eases, health services stretched thin, devastating storm damage, ongoing energy uncertainty, and a growing housing emergency treated as nothing of the sort. Young people are trying to build futures while simply getting on with plans. Under a constant bombardment of news, at global, national and local level, it can feel like death by a thousand cuts. It does not feel like our government has a firm hand on the wheel. Local government is not even permitted to see it.

Yet communities continue to show up for one another through voluntary groups, sports clubs, schools, and small acts of neighbourliness that never make headlines but hold places together. They prove that social fabric is not maintained by policy alone, but by people who decide to care. Often these qualities emerge during crisis, but if years like 2025 have taught us anything, it is that we must notice small acts of kindness, decency and generosity, be grateful for them and amplify them. When everything feels beyond our control, we can still choose how we act in our own circles, how we carry ourselves, and how we contribute locally. These small acts remain among our most powerful responses to inequality and injustice.

Beyond Mayo, the wider world has felt more uncertain than comfortable. Conflicts, climate shocks, war, egotism, political division and economic unease have become steady background noise. We have learned that distance does not equal detachment. Global instability finds its way into local conversations through energy bills, mental health struggles, and fear about the world younger generations are inheriting. The idea that “it’ll be grand” has been severely tested and now feels more like desperation than reassurance.

One of the most important lessons of the year has been about wellbeing, not as a buzzword but as a necessity. More people are openly acknowledging burnout, fear, anxiety, stress, loneliness and isolation. That honesty is progress, but awareness without action only goes so far. Self-care is not about expensive skincare routines or spa days. It is about putting down our phones, getting enough sleep, removing ourselves from toxic relationships, nourishing ourselves and connecting with the people around us. We are reminded that support systems matter, and that access to timely, affordable and local supports matters even more. Progress is being made, but in 2026 we must push harder to fund, staff and prioritise the services that underpin our health.

The past year has also taught us about participation. When people feel listened to, they engage. When they feel ignored, they disengage, quietly at first and then completely, or worse, turn towards anger and exclusion. Mayo has a proud tradition of local involvement, yet for too long it has been excluded from decisions that shape its future. Our aspiration for 2026 should be to strengthen democratic spaces rather than hollow them out further. Decision making with communities builds trust. As we witness our government lurching to the right and blaming migration for problems delivered by its own failed policies, it is up to us to demand better.

And on that note, 2026 should be about choosing long term thinking over short term fixes. It means planning for housing that young families can afford, transport that connects rural areas, and climate action that recognises rural realities while facing environmental truths. It means valuing culture, sport and the arts not as extras but as essentials. Endless focus on election cycles will not deliver this, however and would require political bravery, something seen far too rarely, but something that is respected.

Progress does not arrive all at once and it rarely announces itself. PR launches of recycled plans should be consigned to the past. Progress shows up in consistency, fairness and the courage to change when old ways fail. It shows up in delivering, step by step, on commitments already made, monitoring progress (or lack of) and communicating it. As we look to 2026, the aspiration should not be perfection but purpose and progress. It is up to us to demand it.

There is another lesson worth naming, one that should underpin all others. The past year has shown us that hope and optimism, when grounded in realism, is not naïve but necessary, and is deeply powerful. Cynicism offers the comfort of low expectations but drains energy from communities. Hope, by contrast, is active. It asks for effort, patience and compromise. It demands that institutions earn trust, that leaders explain decisions clearly, and that citizens stay engaged even when outcomes disappoint.

As we move toward 2026, Mayo and Ireland alike should aspire to a quieter kind of ambition: steady improvement rather than dramatic gestures, cooperation rather than culture wars, and care rather than constant crisis management. If the last year has taught us anything, it is that the future is shaped less by slogans and more by the choices we repeat every day, especially when nobody is watching, and particularly, in our own small circles, where we have the power of choice.

It also reminds us that leadership matters at every level, formal and informal. How we speak to one another, how we resolve disagreement, and how we model fairness and empathy all shape the tone of public life. None of this is abstract. It is practical, daily work and a responsibility we all share, individually and collectively, in homes, workplaces, councils, and in Leinster House. It begins locally, quietly, imperfectly, but persistently, with choices made again tomorrow that we cannot afford to postpone, delegate or dismiss, if we genuinely want the next year to be better for everyone, everywhere. Wishing all readers everywhere a safe, peaceful and happy new year.

READ MORE: COLUMN: Optimism on rise after Andy Moran’s opening Mayo games