Thanks Bairbre for this crossword. The clue construction here is sound. In my opinion the most successful clues are the ones whose surfaces have a sense independent of their cryptic construction. 25A does this best, I'd say.
I really enjoyed that Bairbre! My favourites were 2d, 4d, 17a, 11d and 20a (which made me laugh). I agree with Conto on the surface meanings but I thought the wordplay was really clever in lots of the clues. Looking forward to the next one!
This was a DNF for me because I was stumped by 24A. Personally, if the solution is a fairly obscure word or phrase I want to be helped to it a bit more by the wordplay, but that's just me. Some lovely stuff here, especially 9A, 10A, 11D, 21D and the quite marvellous 20A.
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