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Irish kids' rap song 'The Spark' is the empowering summer anthem we didn't know we needed

There's no mistaking where these tweens are from when you hear them rap.

The Kabin Studio/YouTube

"The Spark" video has had 350 million views across social media in its first month.

What do you get when you combine an infectious beat, an empowering message and a bunch of energetic tweens with delightfully thick Irish accents?

You get "The Spark," this summer's bangin' anthem that people around the world can't stop playing.

The young rappers from Cork and Lisdoonvarna—cities on opposite coasts of Ireland—came together to create this absolute banger for Cruinniú na nÓg, a national day of celebrating youth creativity in Ireland, which takes place on June 15.

The song and video were released as part of the Rhyme Island youth rap initiative created for the event, with kids ages 9 to 12 participating. It almost immediately began to spread on social media, with people raving over how catchy and fun it is. (People have been clamoring for a month for the song to be released on streaming, and we're thrilled to share that as of June 14, you can officially find "The Spark" on Spotify.)

Watch:

The comments on on TikTok pretty much sum it up:

"I'm about to be screaming I SEARCHED FOR MY SPARK AND I FOUND IT all summer."

"AI SHERCHED FOR ME ShPARK AN A FEUND EHT!!!!"

"If the clubs aren't playing this song this summer then I'm leavinggggg."

"This has no right to go this hard."

"The Cork accent has found its calling."

Even the Duracell battery account weighed in with "This is the kind of energy we live for."

Many people shared that they love that the kids look like kids and not little adults. And with lyrics like this, how can you not walk away with a little extra spring in your step?

I searched for my spark and I found it

Everybody in the crowd start bouncin!

If we see a dream you know we’re gonna chase it

So get over any fear you have just face it!

You can do it like we do it, don't doubt it

Any obstacle we find a way around it

If you're proud of who you are and what you do, shout it!

The kids worked with local producer GMCBeats and The Kabin Studio, a music and creativity-focused nonprofit in Knocknaheeny, a suburb of Cork, to create the song.

“The response has been amazing,” said Garry McCarthy (GMCBeats), the creative director of the Kabin Studio and co-producer of “The Spark.” “The kids’ energy and positivity have inspired people worldwide. It’s been all over TikTok especially. It’s bonkers, we’ve never seen something like this!”

Dancers on TikTok have been coming up with dances to go along with it, so here's one to try if you get the urge to get up and dance with the kids:

The Kabin Studio shared the hope that the song's popularity will result in more people supporting young artists:

"'The Spark' is more than just a tune; it’s a celebration of creativity, resilience, and the unbreakable spirit of youth. As it continues to inspire listeners worldwide, The Kabin Studio hopes to channel its success into furthering their mission of supporting young artists locally and in direct provision."

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Education

5 fun facts about St. Patrick's Day to wow your friends and family

Saint Patrick wasn't Irish and neither is corned beef.

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Several St. Patrick's Day traditions didn't originally come from Ireland.

Shamrocks, leprechauns, corned beef and cabbage, pinches for those who forget to wear green—St. Patrick's Day is filled with traditions that have passed down from generation to generation. What began as a religious holiday in Ireland over 1,000 years ago to honor Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, has morphed into a raucous celebration of all things Irish here across the pond.

Ironically, however, some of those traditions and "all things Irish" didn't actually come from Ireland—including Saint Patrick himself.

If you want to impress your friends with some interesting St. Patrick's day trivia, here's a handful of fun facts to put in your pocket.

1. Saint Patrick wasn't actually Irish. He was British.

Born in Britain in 386 A.D., St. Patrick was captured by pirates and brought to Ireland at age 16, where he was sold as a slave. For six years, he worked in the fields, tending sheep and praying. One night, he dreamt that God was directing him to a boat that would take him home, and in 408 A.D., he escaped Ireland. Then, after being ordained as a bishop in 432 A.D., the Pope sent him back to the Emerald Isle to spread Christianity.

"Patrick became inflamed with the desire to help alleviate the suffering of the Irish people who were burdened under the yoke of slavery, brutal tribal warfare and pagan idolatry," Matthew Paul Grote, a Catholic priest with the Order of Preachers, shared with USA Today. Saint Patrick incorporated pagan rituals into Christian worship practices to ease the resistance to Christianity. Even when he was attacked and captured by Irish clans, he would respond with non-violence and share his Catholic faith peacefully, always treating non-Christians with fairness.

He is credited with the spread of Christianity in Ireland, but he himself wasn't Irish.

2. The legend about St. Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland? Literally impossible.

Legend has it that St. Patrick was fasting for 40 days on a hilltop when he was attacked by snakes. With a sermon and a wave of his staff, he drove all the snakes in Ireland out to the sea where they all drowned, which is why, according to the lore, there are no snakes in Ireland.

Except there were never any snakes in Ireland, according to the fossil record. The cool climate and being part of an island make Ireland uninhabitable for snakes. Scholars today generally view the snake story as a metaphor for driving paganism out of Ireland.

3. St. Patrick's Day was not traditionally a festive holiday.

Parades filled with floats, pubs filled with festivity, parties filled with frivolity—all of that fun, celebratory St. Patrick's day revelry is fairly new. For the vast majority of the holiday's history in Ireland, it was a somber, quiet religious holy day spent in prayer. It wasn't until Irish immigrants to America began celebrating their Irish pride in the 1700s with parades and such that the holiday became more of a festive occasion.

According to History.com, the invention of the television let Irish people see how the U.S. celebrated the holiday, which led to the party atmosphere making its way to Ireland.

4. The traditional color associated with St. Patrick was blue, not green.

St. Patrick's Day is all about green green green, from the shamrock shakes to the leprechaun coats to the Irish flag. But the color Saint Patrick himself was actually associated with is blue. The earliest depictions of the patron saint of Ireland show him in blue garments, and according to The Smithsonian, when George III created the Order of St. Patrick, a new order of chivalry for the Kingdom of Ireland, its official color was known as "St. Patrick's Blue."

Green is more of a political color than a religious one, as it became the color of Irish nationalism in 1789 with a series of rebellions against the UK. And really, green makes the most sense as a symbol for a place known as The Emerald Isle. The shamrock helps, too. (Another fun fact: The green, white and orange flag of Ireland was officially adopted in 1937 and points directly to the contemporary history between the Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity in the country.)

5. The tradition of eating corned beef didn't come from Ireland, either.

For many Americans, a St. Patrick's Day meal simply must include corned beef and cabbage. Traditional Irish fare, right? Nope.

Though the Irish produced some of the world's most sought-after corned beef in the mid-1600s, they didn't eat it themselves. Due to England's oppressive laws, Irish people couldn't afford beef, and when they could afford meat, they ate salted pork or bacon. (The reason they produced corned beef was due to some complicated history with the UK and cattle shipping restrictions.)

Two centuries later, Irish immigrants who had a bit more money started buying kosher beef from their Jewish immigrant neighbors in America. According to The Smithsonian, what we consider Irish corned beef today was really Jewish corned beef tossed into a stew with some cabbage and potatoes—truly an example of the American immigration "melting pot."

In Ireland today, you'd most likely be served lamb or beef stew for a St. Patrick's Day feast. (However, much like our St. Paddy's Day revelry, the American tradition of corned beef has slowly made its way into Ireland's celebrations as well.)

It's a wee bit funny to dive into the history of St. Patrick's Day and find that many of the things we typically think of as old Irish traditions are neither particularly old (compared to Saint Patrick himself) nor purely Irish. That's not to say these traditions are not worth celebrating; Irish Americans have their own storied history in the U.S., after all, and who doesn't love a dyed green river or a green-themed parade with lucky shamrocks and leprechauns?

No matter how you celebrate, have a very Happy St. Patrick's Day! Or as they say in Irish Gaelic, "Beannachtaí na Féile Padraig ort!" (Watch how to pronounce it below.)

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Wellness

Navajo Nation raises $3 million for COVID relief with the help of grateful Irish donors

@Ciaraioch/Twitter, GoFundMe

Update: Since this article was published two days ago, the GoFundMe total has risen from $1.8 to more than $3 million.

The Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation in the southwestern U.S. have been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak. With a third of the population having no running water, proper virus-avoiding hygiene is nearly impossible. Access to groceries is limited, and the community has a high number of elderly and individuals with health conditions that put them at higher risk of complications from the virus.

A GoFundMe fundraiser was organized on behalf of the Rural Utah Project Education Fund to raise money for groceries, water, health supplies, and other necessary items in these Native communities. And this week, they have received a huge influx of donations from a seemingly unlikely source—Ireland.

If you're wondering what would prompt people on an island across the Atlantic to send money to a specific community in the U.S., the answer is simple. Gratitude.

In 1847, Native American tribes were struggling to get established after being forced to relocate from their homelands during the cruel and shameful Trail of Tears. The tribes had suffered greatly and had very little. But when the Choctaw nation heard about the suffering of the Irish people during the potato famine, they pulled together a donation of $170—around $5000 in today's dollars—to send to Ireland.

That collective act of sacrificial generosity was not forgotten. And now people in Ireland are repaying that gift many times over in a beautiful expression of historic human connectedness.

The GoFundMe currently sits at more than $1.8 million of a $2 million goal, thanks in no small part to a flood of donations from Ireland. And as the donations of $10, $20, $30 keep rolling in, Irish people are leaving lovely messages of gratitude, solidarity, and hope along with them:

"Ireland remembers the Navajo kindness in her hour of need."

"In remembrance of the kindness shown to my country by your fellow native Americans, the Choctaw people, during a time of dire need. Gach rath oraibh uilig." [Translation: "Best of luck to you all."]

"I donated because when you had nothing, you gave something to help Ireland."

"Yá'át'ééh from Ireland. The Native American donation all those years ago was never forgotten. There have been songs written about your generosity. I am glad to be able to return the favour in some small part. Ahóá!"

Vanessa Tulley, one of the fundraiser organizers, acknowledged the outpouring of love and money coming from Ireland in an update:

Absolutely beautiful. Humanity wins the day once again.

If you'd like to donate to help the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation in their COVID-19 fight, you can find the GoFundMe here.

Correction: This post has been updated to clarify that the 1847 donation came from the Choctaw Nation during the Trail of Tears. The Navajo tribe were forcibly relocated from their lands during "The Long Walk" of 1864.

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'For many people around the globe, [St. Patrick] is ... the patron of immigrants.'

In his final St. Patrick's Day visit to the White House as Ireland's leader, Enda Kenny, offered some timely thoughts on immigration.

GIFs via The White House/YouTube.

In a bit of advice to the U.S. — an old friend of Ireland — the Irish prime minister recounted how immigration helped mold a strong relationship between the two countries, making a subtle plea to the new president to look for the value in those who wish to come to the U.S.

Kenny urged Trump to find a compassionate solution to undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

"There are millions out there who want to play their part for America — if you like, who want to make America great. Heard it before?" Kenny joked, offering up a simple, friendly, and clear message:

Whether Trump takes Kenny up on his advice is anyone's guess, but it's certainly a message worth spreading.

Check out the full address below, beginning about 10 minutes in:

Yes, a lot of bad things happened this week. We all know that. But so did a lot of great things!

A Philadelphia dance center held a daddy-daughter ballet class. A brave 19-year-old used his iPhone flashlight to save a young girl from a deadly house fire. A man in California has been single-handedly reviving a rare and beautiful species of butterfly in his backyard.

And that's not nearly all.

Here's a look at some of the wonderful things that happened this week. It'll make you feel good about the world again.

1. Pollution has gotten out of control in India, so Dehli banned all disposable plastic.

Sorry, floating bag from "American Beauty," this was the right move for our planet and should have a major impact on our oceans.

2. American Girl just released its first boy doll.

Image courtesy of American Girl.

Parents have been clamoring for more diversity from American Girl for years, and so in addition to Everett, the company's newest line will also feature a Hawaiian doll and a new black doll.

Boys play with dolls, too! Heck, yeah.

3. No longer the whitest show on television: Rachel Lindsay will be the first black "Bacehlorette."

GIF via The Bachelor

About. Damn. Time.

4. A city in Iowa is saving the bees!

City officials in Cedar Rapids are working to create a 1,000-acre "bee paradise" full of grasses and wildflowers to help rejuvenate dying populations of the crucial little pollinators.

5. But if that doesn't work, maybe these bee-like pollinating robots will.

An industrial design student in Georgia, Anna Haldewang, came up with a prototype for a tiny drone that may be able to mimic the important role bees play in keeping crops and plant-life thriving.

Man, young people are smart these days.

Image courtesy of Savannah College of Art and Design.

6. A father said his son with autism would only eat Star Wars macaroni and cheese, so William Shatner rallied the internet to help.

Kids with autism sometimes have trouble adapting to change, so when Reed Botwright ran out of his son's favorite dinner, he put out a call for help.

Then, William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, did this and started an incredible domino chain of giving.

7. People in Ireland raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to send a girl to the U.S. for a rare and expensive cancer treatment.

Shauntelle Tynan's video pleading for people to help her raise the money she'd need to visit Houston, Texas, went massively viral. Her story struck a nerve in Ireland, whose people came together to raise a staggering 713,511 euros, or nearly $800,000, to help pay for treatment.

Me right now. GIF via 30 Rock.

8. A bunch of Sikh temples in California opened their doors and hearts to dam evacuees.

When the Oroville Dam in Northern California failed this past week, over 100,000 people were forced to evacuate. Lots of people stepped up to help with housing and shelter, including several Sikh temples in the area.

#LoveTrumpsHate

9. A school bus driver in Tennessee built a new ramp for a girl on his route with special needs.

She already had a wheelchair ramp at her house, but it didn't quite reach the bus. So Thomas Mitchell rounded up some buddies and built her a new one, no questions asked.

10. A high school student in Ohio handmade valentines for everyone in the school.

The girl, who has remained anonymous, spent months handfolding over a thousand origami hearts that say "You are loved."

On Valentine's Day, she and some friends placed them on every locker in the school.

There's bound to be great news next week, too. You just have to look a little harder for it these days. But I promise you, it's worth it!

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Wisconsin bus driver comforts scared 4-year-old on first day of school - Upworthy ›

Everyone knows the best thing about Christmas is the Christmas songs.

Image via iStock.

"Jingle Bells"? Classic. "Frosty the Snowman"? Timeless. "Feliz Navidad"? You know you secretly love it.

And this holiday season is a perfect time to think about how we can make our favorite traditions accessible to everyone, even people who may not be able to hear all of those festive classics.

That's why three students from Ireland recently made a sign-language sing-a-long of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Abbie O'Neill, Amy Durkin, and Joanne O'Donnell, who are students at the Centre for Deaf Studies at Trinity College, donned their finest winter hats and proceeded to jam out to one of the catchiest Christmas classics ever created.

Using only their hands, of course.

The video started off as a class assignment but soon spread far and wide via social media, both inside and beyond the deaf community.

"We've got such supportive responses and messages from hearing and deaf people from all around the world," the three friends wrote in an email.

The video currently has over 200,000 views on Facebook, where hundreds of commenters have shared their admiration for the girls' efforts.

Check the video out below:

But this wasn't just a holly-jolly gesture of inclusion. It was part of a much bigger statement.

Ireland has a deaf and hard-of-hearing population of over 90,000 people, many of whom rely on Irish Sign Language (ISL) to communicate and live their lives. But ISL isn't currently recognized as an official language by the Republic of Ireland. That means many in the deaf community face tremendous difficulties in schools that don't cater to their needs or accessing government programs that aren't required to provide interpreters.

In a broader sense, not recognizing ISL as an official language leads to a much bigger lack of awareness and consideration for the deaf community, too. O'Neill, Durkin, and O'Donnell recall going to see a subtitled film recently. The theater staff forgot to turn on the subtitles until several minutes into the movie. After the movie, they spoke to a deaf couple in the audience about it. The couple "simply laughed — they're all used to this lack of awareness and indifference from the wider hearing community."

But there is hope on the horizon, in the form of the Irish Sign Language Bill, sponsored by Sen. Mark Daly, that would designate ISL as a native and independent language. The bill is quickly gaining momentum.

"The Irish deaf community have been denied equal rights and opportunities for years," Daly told The Journal. "The impact of this piece of legislation would be truly transformative."

If and when the bill passes, it will be due in large part to the efforts of Ireland's deaf community in bringing more attention to the conflict.

So while this viral video might look like just an adorable sing-a-long, it's actually a lot more.

Thanks to three students, it's also part of an important mission: improving the lives of thousands and thousands of deaf Irish men and women.

"The Deaf Community in Ireland has been fighting for years to have ISL recognised," the friends wrote. "We're just happy that we could bring some awareness to it."

That alone is a heck of a gift this holiday season.

Trump is already building a wall in Ireland, and the story behind it is ridiculous.

The Lodge at Doonbeg is one of the most highly praised resorts in Europe.

It attracts visitors from across the globe for its scenic views of Ireland's Atlantic coast and, most importantly, for its celebrated golf course.

Since February 2014, the resort has been owned by Trump International, who scooped it up after the previous owners reportedly became unable to afford the necessary repairs from a particularly harsh winter.

"We’re going to reshape it and make it one of the greatest golf courses in the world," Trump said at the time.

Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images.

Trump's first order of business? Build up the part of the golf course that runs along the beach.

An officially protected "special area of conservation," Doonbeg's Doughmore Beach had already lost more than 30 feet of its legendary dunes to erosion due to rising sea levels.

So Trump's sons Eric and Donald Jr. gave the go-ahead to move some massive boulders on the sand at the edge of the property — without bothering to get the proper construction clearance first.

As you can imagine, that didn't go over well. Local officials put a stop to the un-permitted rock wall quickly.

So the Trumps responded by ... threatening to build an even bigger wall.

It's a classic Trump negotiation tactic: If we have to ask permission to drop a few big boulders on your beloved beach, then we might as well go all the way and spend millions of dollars on a 200,000-ton rock wall that's almost two miles long and 15 feet tall.

"It seems a very heavy-handed approach," David Flynn of the local West Clare Surf Club told the Irish Examiner. "We are not anti-development and we had a very good relationship with the golf club since 2002, but what they are planning is a quantum leap from previous proposals."

A view of Trump's Doonbeg resort from the water. Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images.

When the Trumps filed a permit application with the Clare County Council about building the wall, they used climate change to justify the project.

According to Politico's review of the application's environmental impact statement prepared by an Irish environmental consultancy, it said in part (emphasis added):

Basically, they argued that this giant wall is necessary in order prevent additional damage from rising sea levels, which are caused by global warming and only getting worse.

Put another way:

THE TRUMPS...

WANT TO SPEND...

$11 MILLION DOLLARS...

ON A SEA WALL...

TO STOP SOMETHING...

THAT DONALD TRUMP...

DOESN'T EVEN...

BELIEVE EXISTS.

Keep in mind that Trump blamed the struggles of his Scottish golf resort on "bird-killing" wind farms. He has vowed to renegotiate the already-lackluster Paris Climate Accord if elected president. His proposed energy plan repeatedly refers to a nonexistent thing called "clean coal." And he has previously said that climate change is, "just a very, very expensive form of tax."

And then he specifically cited global warming as the reason why he needed to build an ugly rock wall to protect his treasured Irish golf resort.

Trump at his Aberdeenshire golf course just after Brexit, which he called a "great thing" and that they "took back their country" despite the fact that Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain. But I digress. Photo by Michal Wachucik/AFP/Getty Images.

This is, of course, incredibly maddening logic. But it's about about the environment too.

Rising water levels and erosion are real problems, and seawalls can in fact help mitigate some potential harm to coastal communities. In that regard, Trump's appeal actually makes sense. But according to Friends of the Irish Environment, a proposed 15-foot wall around one specific part of the beach could seriously interfere with Doughmore's ecosystem.

The reverb from Trump's ginormous wall could affect the natural cycle of the dunes and vegetation, hurting not only the rare creatures that live in that pristine environment, but also ruining the beach's reputation as a stunning vista and surf destination. By deflecting the winds and tides, the wall could also cause greater flooding damage to occur along other parts of the coast — where the local people, many of whom work at the resort, have to live.

A rainy day in Doonbeg. Photo by O. Morand/Wikimedia Commons.

Oh, and if the wall doesn't get built? Trump has already threatened to close the resort and devastate the local economy.

Tourism is a multibillion-industry for the Republic of Ireland, and the people of Doonbeg are essentially being held hostage in a catch-22: either Trump's giant wall gets built and the locals lose their beloved beach while bearing the brunt of flooding damage, or 350 people lose their jobs immediately, with the rest of the community suffering as a result of that lost income.

"The fear of our friends and neighbours losing work is very scary," explained an administrator from the Save Doughmore Beach Facebook page, in an interview with Magic Seaweed. "We are in no way trying to close the hotel and golf course, we are just asking for some ethical business practices and some sound environment practices."

Surfers at Doughmore Beach. Photo by Lukemcurley/Wikimedia Commons.

This whole situation is essentially a microcosm of what Trump stands for and how he gets his way.

We've seen him use wealth and status to bully the little guy, while willfully denying the facts of reality just to make some cash. And now he's employing those same manipulative, strong-arm negotiation tactics in a pissing match over environmental issues and the interests of a small community.

It's possible to build coastal protections that don't also damage the environment.

It's possible to build a resort that provides hundreds of jobs without taking over the entire community, impeding their access to public property, and essentially creating an economic throwback to feudal sharecropping.

It's possible to compromise and still make a profit, to provide good services in good faith that make the world a better place and also keep the money coming.

But Trump's modus operandi has always been the same: He'll say that climate change is a hoax at the same time that he builds an ivory tower to protect himself from its effects, while also abandoning his own workers to live with worsened water threats and no choice but to just keep working for the man who got them into that situation in the first place.

That's not the kind of person that I want to see in the White House.