In a move that has shocked large sections of the Irish blogging community, one blogger has broken from the norm and declared himself to be ‘100% positive about everything!’.

It’s a far cry from the bitter, tired ranting that spews from the keyboards of the country’s most prominent keyboard warriors but Bernard Byrne is unapologetic about his approach. Speaking to us via telephone he claimed it was about time Irish blogs stopped being a platform for hate and petty sniping and instead focussed on the good things in life.

“Why should blogs only be used to fuel the dark side of life?”, he asked. “There’s so much wonderful stuff in this world of ours. Such beauty, wondrous light and the most amazing people who are so generous with their time. We should embrace them and leave the boring, angry pontificating to those people whose lives are obviously bereft of goodness. I feel sorry for them, semi-colon, small letter o, close bracket”.

Ion, like a lion in Zion. Irish blogger positively charged.

Byrne, whose posts include theories on why ebony and ivory can live together in perfect harmony, went on to say “I know many people will think ‘Hey, what are you being so positive about?’, but that’s just the kind of person I am. I see the bright side in everything. If a doctor told me tomorrow I had cancer I’d realise that it was merely life opening up new experiences to me, ell-oh-ell. If I were in a restaurant and I found out my steak was gone off and had maggots on the inside I’d be thankful that I got a glimpse of the maggot life that I would never have had otherwise. You cannot enjoy life unless you can appreciate the magnificence of every situation, person, place or thing, colon, hyphen, capital D”.

But others are not convinced, saying that what Byrne is doing is harmful to blogging. One of Ireland’s top bloggers, who asked to remain anonymous, said “We have spent years building up our curmudgeonly ways and now this chap wants to come along and flipping ruin everything. It’s a blooming disgrace is what it is and I’d like to see some kind of examination system introduced so twits like him can’t just come along and call themselves bloggers. If we don’t introduce some kind of blinking apprentice system then it’s all going down the tubes, mark my words”.

This is the first time anybody has introduced any positivity into the Irish ‘blogosphere’ since the demise of the fabled Blogtrottah, a supposedly satirical and cynical website devoted to celebrity culture but which was, in reality, a Unix powered celebration of the best of Irish political and media life. Perhaps now the scene is ready for something that isn’t morose and petulant and with not so much a chip on its shoulder as a 10kg bag of Kerr’s Pinks.

The final word goes to Byrne, who took time out from writing a post about how brilliant other blogs are, even the ones he claims not to like, to tell us “If you can feel a wind blowing through Irish blogs it is not a sour, poisonous cloud like the ones we have had to endure for so many years. This is a zephyr, a warm mistral of enlightenment. As that wonderful rock band The Scorpions would tell us, this is a wind of change, pointy bracket, asterisk, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, are-oh-eff-ell”.