We’re not in the World Cup, but we Irish are happy out. Scotland’s football fans have stolen Boston’s old Irish heart from us with their bagpipes and ballads about wee birdies and the bloomin’ heather, but Ireland just keeps smiling through.

Hard to believe if you’re a fan of the Dáil’s Leaders’ Questions or RTÉ Radio 1’s Liveline whine-line, but ours is the second-happiest English-speaking country in the world. Only New Zealand is more content in the anglophone sphere; an advantage, surely, of being cast adrift from the rest of the noisy planet.

The World Happiness Report for 2026 places Ireland 13th overall with a score of 6.9 out of 10. Compared to happiest-of-all Finland and its 7.74 score, we’re not exactly delirious, but we’ve climbed from 15th place last year and from 17th in 2024, suggesting we’re getting ever more sásta. As the rankings use respondents’ subjective assessments of their own country’s state of contentment, Ireland – champion moaner and ologoaner – might even be happier than it realises.

Self-assessment can be an unreliable measure. If the report’s compilers – the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, polling company Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network – gave marks for positivity, Israel would win. Despite waging wars on several fronts and living under an Iron Dome, it is eighth in the 2026 list and was fifth in 2024, the first full year of Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

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