Welcome to the 2023 Kilkenomics Festival.
Click on a show title below to learn more and book your tickets.
Thursday 2nd 2023
Friday 3rd 2023
Saturday 4th 2023
Sunday 5th 2023
SOLD OUT – Inflation, Interest Rates and Central Banks: A Perfect Economic Storm
The European Central Bank has increased interest rates ten times in two years and inflation is still way above its own 2% target. Meanwhile, neither the US Fed nor the... Read More
Kevin Gildea
Paul McCulley
Sony Kapoor
The Privatisation of Stress
21st-century capitalist culture demands people to be more resilient to the stresses of modern life, maximising the shareholder value of their employers at great personal cost. Therapies, drugs, and wellness... Read More
David McWilliams
SOLD OUT – Is Putin Winning?
With Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalling, is Putin back in control? The G20 is split. Although NATO is committed, India, China and many African economies are hedging their bets. A long war... Read More
Timofiy Mylovanov
Alexander Kabanovsky
Dylan Moran
Thomas Frank
PASCHAL DONOHOE in conversation with Colm O’Regan
Currently Minister for Public Expenditure and National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Paschal Donohoe held the Finance portfolio in the current Government between 2017 and last year. He has also... Read More
Colm O’Regan
22:00-23:00
Ormonde Kilbride
Five Mega-Trends Shaping our World
The conflict between Israel and Hamas is threatening to destabilise the Middle East and the global order. What are the emerging themes and threads that will define the coming era... Read More
Colm O’Regan
Angelica Oung
Robert Shrimsley
Rory Sutherland
13:00-14:00
The Set Theatre
The Economics of the New Cold War
The conflict between Israel and Hamas has reawakened cold war cleavages and the powers are taking sides. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had serious consequences across the world, sparking food... Read More
Alexander Kabanovsky
Angelica Oung
David McWilliams
Evolutionary Economics: The New Frontier?
Traditional economic theories view the economy through the lens of physics with hard and fast laws, but what if the economy behaves far more like biology, adapting adjusting, and mutating... Read More
Linda Yueh
David McWilliams
Rory Sutherland
SOLD OUT – What if the Fed Makes a Mistake?
He who controls the money, controls the world. The US Federal Reserve controls the money and is the most important institution in the world, but it is an institution run... Read More
Leah Rose Downey
Paul McCulley
Sony Kapoor
Katie Martin
Karl Spain
SOLD OUT – Economics & Authenticity
We live in an age when the pursuit of authenticity – from living our ‘best life’ to eating artisan food – seems to matter more than ever. Yet the forces... Read More
Naoise Nunn
Inflation: Who’s to Blame? Greed, Printing or Pandemics?
Inflation has become the number one economic issue everyone is talking about. It affects the value of the money in our pockets and has sparked cost-of-living crises that in turn... Read More
Leah Rose Downey
Paul McCulley
Inside Ukraine
Former Ukrainian Minister of the Economy and now head of the Kyiv School of Economics, Timofey explains how Ukraine has managed to keep going, why the economy has not collapsed,... Read More
Timofiy Mylovanov
Alexander Kabanovsky
Dylan Moran
Rory Sutherland: How to Get Ahead in Advertising
Why is Red Bull so popular when everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy... Read More
Rory Sutherland
SOLD OUT – Narco State or Global Breadbasket? Latin America in the 21st Century
Heading towards chaos or about to reach its potential, in what way is this giant, often forgotten continent heading? Join four economists from the region as they explain to us... Read More
Carolina Alves
Martín Lousteau
Marla Dukharan
SOLD OUT – The David McWilliams Podcast
The aim of David’s podcast, much like Kilkenomics itself, is to make economics easy, uncomplicated, and accessible. With the world at a political, technological, and financial tipping point, economics has... Read More
John Davis
David McWilliams
Noah Smith: One Man Think Tank
Noah Smith is a true one-off – an economist of true brilliance, originality, depth, and range. His substack is unmissable, covering economics, finance, geopolitics, futurology, demography, literature, popular culture,... Read More
Naoise Nunn
SOLD OUT – Start Up Ireland
Ireland has been hugely successful at attracting foreign direct investment, particularly from the US, as its companies seek an English-speaking foothold in EU markets. But what about our indigenous businesses?... Read More
Paul Hayes
Stephen Kinsella
SOLD OUT – Does Marx Matter?
One hundred and fifty years after the publication of Das Kapital – perhaps the most consequential economics book ever written as it was the blueprint for the central ideological struggle... Read More
Timofiy Mylovanov
20:30-21:30
The Watergate Theatre
The Next European Crisis
Europe’s – particularly Germany’s – economic model was based on cheap gas, cheap money, and American-policed peace in Europe. Now all three are gone. What’s next? The Israel/ Hamas conflict,... Read More
Carole Nakhle
Leah Rose Downey
Robert Shrimsley
Andrew Maxwell
21:30-22:30
The Set Theatre
SOLD OUT – The Economics of a United Ireland
Can we afford it? Can we afford not to unify? Northern Ireland costs the UK Exchequer more than €10 billion a year and, with a huge public sector, it has... Read More
Andrea Catherwood
Cormac Lucey
Dearbhail McDonald
22:00-23:00
The Watergate Theatre
The Sins of Our Fathers
The Balfour Declaration and subsequent Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement carved up the Ottoman Empire and sowed the seeds of the world’s most intractable conflicts. When the British arrived in India, the subcontinent... Read More
Carolina Alves
Sony Kapoor
Robert Shrimsley
Andrew Maxwell
Marla Dukharan
SOLD OUT – The Jilted Generation
Locked out of, not just the housing market, but the rental market too, living with their parents, and thinking about emigrating, what happened to the kids of the Celtic Tiger?... Read More
Sean Keyes
Stephen Kinsella
Irish Property Up, Down Sideways
It’s Groundhog Day again…or is it? The rental sector in Ireland has collapsed to a level where houses to let, in Dublin in particular, regularly have queues of hundreds of... Read More
Sean Keyes
Stephen Kinsella
SOLD OUT – New World Order
Nearly 100 years ago, Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock was staged in Dublin with the immortal line from Captain Boyle: “The whole world is in a state of chassis”.... Read More
Dylan Moran
Katie Martin
SOLD OUT – Age of the Strongman
Israel’s Netanyahu and Hamas’ leaders have played strongman cards to their people but to what end? Putin’s colonial adventures in Ukraine are stuttering and may bring about his downfall. Boris Johnson is... Read More
Thomas Frank
Angelica Oung
Martín Lousteau
Big Tech V the Nation State
Who runs the world, Big Tech or elected government? Who wins, data or democracy? We are moving from private capital to surveillance capitalism, where information and everything about you is... Read More
Dearbhail McDonald
What did Globalisation Ever do for Us?
As anti-globalisation protests unify both far Left and far Right, we ask, in the most globalised country in the world, what did globalisation ever do for us? In this session,... Read More
Leah Rose Downey
Sony Kapoor
Peter Antonioni
SOLD OUT – Economics of Dante
Written over 500 years ago, loved by Heaney and Joyce, and the book that was at Samuel Beckett’s bedside when he died, Dante’s Divine Comedy, is regarded as the most... Read More
Naoise Nunn
David McWilliams
SOLD OUT – Cathedral Thinking : Thinking Long Term in a Short Term World
When Jonas Salk, the scientist who discovered the cure for polio, was asked why he didn’t patent his wonder-drug in order to make his fortune, he replied that he wanted... Read More
Sarah Cullen
Karl Spain
SOLD OUT – Spending Ireland’s Tax Bonanza
Ireland has lucked out! We have more money than we know what to do with it. The fiscal surpluses, stemming from huge corporation tax receipts, constitute an extraordinary opportunity to... Read More
Sean Keyes
Stephen Kinsella
SOLD OUT – Led by Donkeys – The Big Con
In the past few years, more and more elements of government have been outsourced to the Big 4 consultancies. So much so that the government has been infantilised, civil servants’... Read More
The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them
There is very little that is certain in economics, except this: there will be another financial crisis. But while we may not be able to stop the next one, we... Read More
Linda Yueh
Naoise Nunn
Keynes VS. Hayek
The two most influential and consequential economists of the 20th century are the touchstones in the global battle for economic ideas in the 21st century. In the teeth of the... Read More
Colm O’Regan
Paul McCulley
Katie Martin
Peter Antonioni
SOLD OUT – The People Vs The Elite
Tom Frank, the brilliant award-winning American commentator and journalist, insists that populism, far from being the problem of our time, is the cure for most of our ills. Historically, populism... Read More
Carolina Alves
Thomas Frank
14:30 - 15:30
The Watergate Theatre
Economics in the Dock
Long regarded as all-knowing high priests, with their models akin to religious creed, economists are taking a bashing these days. Their reputation is tarnished. Not only did the vast majority... Read More
Marla Dukharan
16:00-17:00
Pembroke Hotel
SOLD OUT – Artificial Intelligence and Trust: How Do We Get There?
In late 2022, the world was stunned by the advent of generative AI. The potential for Large Language Models (LLMs) to transform how we live and work is immense, but... Read More
Kevin Gildea
SOLD OUT – The Economics of Energy
Economics is about energy. No energy, no economy. The war in Ukraine was a warning shot underscoring how dependent we are on cheap energy. From here, energy supplies are uncertain,... Read More
Carole Nakhle
Eric Lonergan
Angelica Oung
Sarah Cullen
Dearbhail McDonald
Is Ireland full? The Immigration Myth…
Immigration is a huge issue for Ireland. Without migrants, this economy would seize up, but with thousands of people coming to Ireland, many argue we have no place to put... Read More
Stephen Kinsella
Karl Spain
SOLD OUT – Why the Dollar is Still King
Remember all the crypto, tech-bro talk about the end of the dollar? The Green-back was finished, destroyed by its own creator the Fed that was printing it out of existence!... Read More
Paul McCulley
Katie Martin
Naoise Nunn
Martín Lousteau
Marla Dukharan
After Gaza: What’s next for BRICS Vs. NATO?
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict has divided the world along the BRICS V NATO lines. The US and the EU, basically NATO, have lined up behind Israel, while the rest of the... Read More
Andrea Catherwood
Fantasy Finance Minister: How to Start a Country & How to Fund It
Just over 100 years ago, Ireland became an independent state. In the same year, the Soviet Union was founded. Two very contrasting events, both facing the common challenge of establishing... Read More
Timofiy Mylovanov
Paddy Cullivan
SOLD OUT – Why Countries Get Rich
The essential question in all development economics: why are some countries rich and others poor? Can countries catch up? And, once prosperous, can a country slip back? And how can... Read More
Rosie Holt
Carolina Alves
SOLD OUT – Don’t Cry for Me Argentina
It was once the 7th richest country on the planet, today Argentina is the 87th richest. What happened to this amazing country, one with more natural resources than almost anywhere... Read More
Naoise Nunn
Martín Lousteau
The Economics of Our Burning World
Climate change is, at its core, the most monumental failure of economics. The world is being destroyed because the market can’t put a price on the planet. What is the... Read More
Carole Nakhle
Sarah Cullen
Sony Kapoor
Can Crypto Ever Come Back?
After a disastrous year, cryptocurrencies have faced much criticism as being Ponzi schemes and pump-and-dump scams, but what is the bigger picture? What is the future for the blockchain technology... Read More
Katie Martin
Interests Rates Up or Down
Inflation is still rampant. Sure, it’s coming down but not so quickly, and yet interest rates continue to rise, but (apart from the US) growth is weak. The euro and... Read More
Linda Yueh
Leah Rose Downey
Paul McCulley
Eric Lonergan
Andrew Maxwell
18:00-19:00
The Watergate Theatre
Telling Stories with Data
John Burn Murdoch, one of the world’s best explainers of global economics, uses data and graphics to brilliant effect. He first shot to prominence during the pandemic, bringing arcane modeling... Read More
Sean Keyes
Andrea Catherwood
Robert Shrimsley
19:30-20:30
Smithwick's Experience, Parliament Street Kilkenny
SOLD OUT – Peak China
For years it was assumed that the 21st century would belong to China. In a race to get rich before it gets old, China is stumbling. The economy has stalled,... Read More
Linda Yueh
Angelica Oung
Sony Kapoor
Andrew Maxwell
The Great British Break Off: The UK After Brexit
Now the Queen is Dead, what’s keeping the UK together? The great English nationalist project has finally delivered an exit from the EU. What are the unintended consequences of Brexit... Read More
Rosie Holt
Stephen Kinsella
19:30 - 20:30
The Pembroke
SOLD OUT – Economics of the Middle East
Hosted by Andrea Catherwood With Carole Nakhle, Robert Shrimsley, Nicholas Gruen The Middle East is once again in terrible turmoil and millions of civilians are in mortal peril as the... Read More
Carole Nakhle
Andrea Catherwood
Robert Shrimsley
19:30 - 20:30
The Watergate Theatre
Trump Part 2: The Nightmare
He’s back and this time he’s even more angry. He’s topping the Republican polls, is even more rogue – if that were possible. What does the return of Donald Trump... Read More
Thomas Frank
Leah Rose Downey
Martín Lousteau
SOLD OUT – Soccernomics
Soccer, the biggest sport in the world, plaything of dodgy sheiks and corrupt oligarchs, is in crisis. Have sponsorship, television rights, outrageous salaries, and ticket prices ruined that one sacred... Read More
Kevin Gildea
Peter Antonioni
The Cash Clinic 2024: Making Money in a Madcap Market
What to do with your money in 2024? Property, stocks, bonds – which way are the markets going? What important macroeconomic policy swings can we expect over the next twelve... Read More
Rosie Holt
Paul McCulley
Katie Martin
The Psychology of Money
Money is probably the most misunderstood subject, particularly amongst economists! In fact, we have a sneaking suspicion that most economists don’t understand money, its energy, its power, and what it... Read More
Linda Yueh
Eric Lonergan
Sony Kapoor
21:00-22:00
Smithwick's Experience, Parliament Street Kilkenny
Get Up, Stand Up! How Jamaica Turned Itself Around
Jamaica is rising. For years the Caribbean island was dogged by debts, defaults, and capital flight. Not anymore. Jamaica is on the up and it’s a role model for other... Read More
Marla Dukharan
Homes and Hierarchy
The world is divided into two camps, those who own their homes and those who don’t. Homeowners have seen their status, wealth, and influence rise rapidly over the past decade;... Read More
Sean Keyes
Robert Shrimsley
Dearbhail McDonald
Show Me the Money
These two women, Professors Stephanie Kelton and Isabella Weber, are leading economic revolutionaries. The two most influential female voices in global economics are challenging all the conventions of mainstream economics on money, central... Read More
David McWilliams
Start Up Wake: Killing Start-Ups Humanely to Save the World: A Flounder’s Presentation
Beachhut PR CEO Paul Hayes sees more value in learning from failure than marveling at the success of others, and this is where he came up with the idea for... Read More
Paul Hayes
Affluenza: Ross O’Carroll Kelly’s Guide to Property
The Rossmeister on housing- what’s not to love? Bringing his legendary talent, wisdom, and nous to the housing crisis, Ross charts a way out of this ‘focking’ mess. Don’t miss... Read More
22:30-23:30
The Set Theatre
Jargon Busting
Jargon Busting is Kilkenomics in a nutshell – making economics accessible, understandable, and cutting through the bullshit! It’s always one of our fastest-selling shows with its mix of economics definitions,... Read More
Rosie Holt
Peter Antonioni
Stephen Kinsella
Karl Spain
Marla Dukharan
11:30 - 1:30
The Ormonde Brunch
SOLD OUT – The Ormonde Brunch
Consistently the fastest-selling show at Kilkenomics, our Sunday brunch returns to the Ormonde with world-class panelists and razor-sharp comedians divining the entrails of the newspapers and ruminating on the events... Read More
Dylan Moran
Thomas Frank
Eric Lonergan
Katie Martin
Dearbhail McDonald
11:30 - 1:30
Langton's Ballroom
SOLD OUT – Ballroom Brunch
Consistently the fastest-selling show at Kilkenomics, our Sunday brunch returns to the Ballroom with world-class panelists and razor-sharp comedians divining the entrails of the newspapers and ruminating on the events... Read More
Alison Spittle
Colm O’Regan
Angelica Oung
Peter Antonioni
Robert Shrimsley
I CAN’T BELIEVE ITS NOT IRELAND
Imagine this. It’s 2032 and Ireland is a new country. There’s a new flag. A new anthem. As Unionists holiday in the south for the first time, and southerners discover... Read More
Paddy Cullivan
Four Big Ideas to Change Ireland
It’s Sunday afternoon, you’ve heard and digested loads, now let’s come up with four big economic ideas that could change this country. Ireland has been transformed over the past two... Read More
Sean Keyes
Andrea Catherwood
Eric Lonergan
Alison Spittle
David McWilliams
Girls on Top
Economic analysis will only improve when women are better represented in economics, a discipline that incorporates history, politics, philosophy, and science. Its methodologies are mostly mathematical, without a grasp of... Read More
Angelica Oung
Naoise Nunn
The World in 2023: Reasons to be Cheerful – The Positive Economist
After all the doom and gloom of the events of the weekend; after all the economists referring to one hand and then the other; and after all the sighs of... Read More
Colm O’Regan
Thomas Frank
Alison Spittle
David McWilliams
Marla Dukharan