The Irish Are Coming

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Ryan Tubridy. The Irish Are Coming

INTRODUCTION

The lure of television

The Irish in Britain

1. THE HELLRAISERS

RICHARD HARRIS: the excessive-compulsive

PETER O’TOOLE: the Celtic dynamo

JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS: born to be king

2. THE COMEDIANS

DAVE ALLEN: the funniest man in the pub

DYLAN MORAN: telling it like it is

FATHER TED: Irish lunacy

DARA O BRIAIN: the most Irish of them all

3. THE CHAT SHOW HOSTS

EAMONN ANDREWS: Mr Congeniality

TERRY WOGAN: the cheeky national treasure

GRAHAM NORTON: the ‘shiny Irish poof’

DES LYNAM: a smooth operator

ZIG and ZAG: furry agents provocateurs

4. POLITICIANS, SOLDIERS and REPORTERS

EDMUND BURKE: an eloquent humanist

ARTHUR WELLESLEY, 1st Duke of Wellington: the Iron Duke

BRENDAN BRACKEN: the original Big Brother

BRENDAN ‘PADDY’ FINUCANE: flying ace

ORLA GUERIN: the voice of truth

5. THE ARTISTS

JOHN HENRY FOLEY: sculptor extraordinaire

FRANCIS BACON: master of the macabre

THE QUIET MEN: portraying immigrant lives

PHILIP TREACY: royal hat man

PAUL COSTELLOE: the princesses’ choice

ORLA KIELY: the queen of prints

PAURIC SWEENEY: the bag man

6. THE WRITERS

JONATHAN SWIFT: the godfather of satire

BRAM STOKER: the blood-sucker

OSCAR WILDE: the witty aesthete

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW: the opinionated funny man

EDNA O’BRIEN: the country girl

MARIAN KEYES: any craic?

7. THE THESPIANS

WILFRED BRAMBELL: the original grumpy old man

MICHAEL GAMBON: a talent for divilment

SINÉAD CUSACK: a saintly sort

FIONA SHAW: the thespian’s thespian

CHRIS O’DOWD: class clown

8. THE MUSICIANS

VAL DOONICAN: the singing Seanchaí

GILBERT O’SULLIVAN: moody bluesman

BOB GELDOF: Celtic motormouth

THE NOLAN SISTERS: aka the naughty Nolans

RIVERDANCE: a reinvented art form

9. THE BOY BANDS

LOUIS WALSH: the street-smart Svengali

STEPHEN GATELY: reluctant hero

NIALL HORAN: ‘the cute one’

10. THE HARRY POTTER BUNCH

BRENDAN GLEESON: the crazy mad-eyed teacher

DOMHNALL GLEESON: like father, like son

DEVON MURRAY: playing dumb

EVANNA LYNCH: the hippy dippy one

11. THE JAMES BOND FRANCHISE

KEVIN McCLORY: the litigious writer/producer

MARTIN GRACE: all because the lady loves

PIERCE BROSNAN: the smooth operator

12. THE BUSINESSMEN

ARTHUR GUINNESS: thirst-quencher

JOHN PHILIP HOLLAND: submarine inventor

HORSE RACING: Ireland’s national sport

WILLIE WALSH: the Slasher

MICHAEL O’LEARY: the ‘jumped-up paddy’

CONCLUSION

NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Also by Ryan Tubridy

Copyright

About the Publisher

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For Mum and Dad Thank you for history, humour and love.

Title Page

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And yet, the world did notice Peter O’Toole. It was hard not to. Always wearing his trademark green socks, O’Toole played up his Irishness and floated around town, drinking lavishly and followed by wisps of Gauloise cigarettes that he smoked in an ostentatious cigarette holder. Described by a friend as smelling ‘like a French train’, Peter was a committed smoker. When John Goodman, his co-star on King Ralph (1991), offered to get him an ashtray after he flicked his ash on the ground, he cried, ‘Make the world your ashtray, my boy.’

This was the stuff of O’Toole legend: a half-sozzled, licentious thespian with swagger and a talent to back up all the talk. As part of a set of working-class boys who made good, O’Toole, Harris and Richard Burton became their own West End rat pack, lascivious lounge lizards who took the art of candle burning to new levels. Looking back on those days, O’Toole is unapologetic: ‘I do not regret one drop. We weren’t solitary, boring drinkers, sipping vodka alone in a room. No, no, no: we went out on the town, baby, and we did our drinking in public! … It was a fuel for various adventures.’ Such fuel allegedly saw him go for a drink in Paris one evening only to wake up in Corsica.

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