This festschrift has been conceived to celebrate John Horgan's 75th birthday, as a way of marking his professional career as journalist, politician, academic, and Ombudsman. It is a career that closely parallels and intersects with the emergence of modern Ireland. The essays are divided into three broad categories - media, politics and society - and the contributors travel fertile ground, taking in changes in journalism practice, media ethics, political leadership, election promises, the EU, education policy, the public intellectual, and the role of political memoir. Alongside these essays are personal tributes to John Horgan by a number of his friends and former colleagues, including Mary Robinson and Ruairi Quinn. The authors' indebtedness to John Horgan's longstanding collegiality, support, wisdom, and friendship is abundantly clear throughout. This personal tribute will have lasting value in its contextualization and reevaluation of important areas of Irish life over the past half century. Subject: Irish Studies, Media Studies, Journalism, Politics, History]