Along the river Liffey stands a sobering memorial: elongated, malnourished, and miserable figures slowly march towards their deaths, at home or on a coffin ship, during the height of the Irish Potato Famine. All around them, however, rise a multitude of skyscrapers hosting major international firms in the fields of pharmaceuticals, finance, and technology, not to mention luxurious and swanky apartment housing. Down on St. Augustine Street, one is but a few blocks away from the ancient city walls of Ye Olde Dublin, ill-equipped to stop power-hungry local marauders, let alone blight, the coronavirus, or the acquisition of valuable real estate by wealthy foreign investors. Far more effective in at least some public safety capacity are the cycle lane separators, traffic lights, and even painted lines on the roads running through this historic city. At the same time that the First Order was destroying entire solar systems with Starkiller Base, magnitudes more destructive than measly Death Stars, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a reclusive Luke Skywalker was leading a purposefully simple life… in Skellig Michael, in Southwestern Ireland. Ireland hosts these and more contradictions, including those of the advertising agency Thinkhouse. How can, in one advertisement, the firm tout the ethics of Tony Chocolonely, committed to making chocolate slave-labor free, while in another commercial, sing the praises of Nespresso, owned by one of the most notorious figures in all of big chocolate, Nestlé SA? How could a planet-first firm print dozens of copies of an oversized, full-color, utterly disposable bit of self-aggrandizing? The youth of Ireland have their aspirations, but they may prove a greater obstacle to their goals than any oldie out there. The complexity of Ireland is also epitomized in the complex lives of the people who we interacted with today, be it the PhD who could not imagine going to college or the advertiser who sought to promote sustainable tea via a flight to South America. Framing the wider issues, like history or business practices, through the lens of a personal story proved effective, as I discovered today. The 1997 Famine Memorial, for instance, can also be read as the triumph of one particular family of Irish descendants: the Clintons.