The 2 Johnnies’ Late Night Lock In is back tonight, with the duo flaunting their rural lawlessness before the eyes of The Irish Times’ metropolitan readership, who see nothing in this show except two guffawing men pointing at them and calling them eejits.
That’s just as the Johnnies like it. And if you think there are just two Johnnies, you’re fooling yourself. Johnnies are in fact legion, and they are gathering at the walls of Dublin much like the wildlings on Game of Thrones – except they all drive Fiat Puntos and drink tea from old milk bottles.
Sadly, I cannot review the first episode, as it hasn’t happened yet, so instead, as a culchie, I am writing a guide to culchie culture, aka culchure.
Love in the Country
There are two kinds of people out there “in the country”: taciturn men who think the phrase “sure you know yourself” is basically going to therapy, and verbose gabblers who don’t leave a thought unspoken lest it constitute an inner voice. As someone who has spent a lot of time in the badlands beyond the capital, trust me when I say there is nothing out there in between these two models of person. Love in the Country’s Anna Geary attempts to perpetuate both types of culchie in this excellent State-funded breeding programme.
We already have Great House Revival. What we need now is Feck the Preservation Order, Let’s Knock It and Build an Office Block
As a culchie, I know culchies. Here’s my definitive guide to culchie culture, aka culchure
The Celebrity Traitors is clearly ripped off from Traitors Ireland: A Nation Once Again
Today I will discuss House of Beamish. I think I remember the plot from history class, but we were all quite drunk
Nationwide
Nationwide is where, several times a week, the culchies openly plot the overthrow of their jackeen overlords under the firm guidance of “General” Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh. “No. That couldn’t be true,” says you, an Irish Times reader sitting in a leafy Dublin suburb. “They couldn’t be doing that so openly, surely. How brazen. On the national broadcaster? Surely not.” But you’re not going to check, are you? Of course you’re not. It’s Nationwide. It’s all just weird shapes and animal noises to you.
Marty Morrissey
I once spent a day with the alliterative sports scamp Marty Morrissey at Semple Stadium, and it was, as you might imagine, the most magical day of my life (possibly even more special than the day of my wedding). He bought me a 99. Actually, he got two 99s free from a shopkeeper he knew, which is as things should be. Frankly, RTÉ is not directing enough money in Marty’s direction. The man is Ireland.
Normal People
Is Normal People really about culchies? There’s a constant implication throughout both the TV show and the novel that its two ridey brainbox protagonists are too good for their small town. That’s suspicious to me. “I hear you’re in Dublin now” was a carefully aimed insult when I was young. Sure, what has Dublin got that they don’t have in, say, Moate or Monasterevin or a shack in the bog? It makes me think that Normal People is not the work of a culchie but a psyop perpetuated by a crypto-jackeen.
[ Normal People TV review: Painful, joyful, gorgeousOpens in new window ]
Also, Normal People is full of unspoken yearning and beautifully shot sex. Never once does Marianne slap her hands together and say, “Well, I’m off to get the ride,” as she heads off behind the chipper for five minutes before the minibus comes. What is this genteel shite, Pride and Prejudice? Is this what Biddy and Miley died for in 1916?
Glenroe
You think Connell and Marianne were sexy? You poor fool. That’s just the Covid speaking. You need to check out Glenroe. Hubba hubba, vroom vroom (in this instance the “vroom” is from a tractor), awooga (this is Irish for “awooga”). Miley and Biddy are the sexually expressive ur-culchies from which all other television sex-culchies have spawned.
Daniel and Majella’s B&B Road Trip
Another erotic voyage in which everyone keeps on budget and, also, keeps receipts. This is the most erotic thing of all for any culchies watching, even the civil servants who usually have some sort of side hustle.
The Late Late Country Special
Would you go back to Dublin with your hipster “trad music”? The real music of the Gaels is played on pedal steel and Bontempi organ by a man with frosted tips. And it’s typically yodelled as an ode to an obscure townland that’s now a Circle K. Perhaps you can hear such music emanate from your car radio or yonder fairy fort as you leave the motorway behind and head into the real Ireland.
Thankfully, The Late Late Show Country Music Special is now overseen by Patrick Kielty, a man weaned on Lilt and section-23 tax breaks (did they have those in Northern Ireland?) and not Ryan Tubridy, a silver-tongued Dubliner engaged in what I can only call culchural appropriation.
Oireachtas TV
Ignore the Ministers and the TDs (even the Healy-Raes are secretly from Rathmines) and look at all the people scurrying happily in between. That’s the Civil Service, the deep State, the permanent Government, who are all, of course, culchies, constantly undermining those eejits in the capital with passive aggression and sneery sarcasm. They are, essentially, the political wing of the GAA (another entryist culchie organisation working hard to get Dubliners to eat dinner in the middle of the day).
The Morbegs
A docudrama about regular culchies written, directed and acted by culchies and thus far earthier and more grounded than, say, Downton Abbey or Buck Rogers or Sooty and friends, which are all set in Dublin and possibly Bray. (See also: Macnas and their big Irish heads.)
Pure Mule
The main things I remember about the classic RTÉ drama Pure Mule is that I enjoyed it a lot and that it was set in the midlands. (You can watch it on RTÉ Player). As you know, the true home of the culchie is the midlands. Forget all the areas along the Wild Atlantic Way or, indeed, Ireland’s Ancient East. Once a place is branded like this, it attracts artisanal cheesemakers and ceases to be a true haven of culchiedom. It essentially becomes an outer suburb of Dublin. (Sorry, Wexford, but you know this is true.)
Of course, the metropolitan puppeteers of Fáilte Ireland are smart, and they’re attempting to take out the heartland of culchie power by giving the midlands a whimsical name too. Before long they’ll be marketing it aggressively. You know the type of thing: “Come to the Midlands! Check out our petrol station! Behold the town metaller! Photograph the roundabout!
“Is that Xtra-vision still operational? (Yes, but not for videos, only for butane and Monster Munch.) What’s the history of that old Norman keep? (It’s where the teenagers used to drink before they started going to the ghost estate.) What’s that man burning in his garden? (It’s none of your business and you’ll say nothing about it if you know what’s good for you.) Ah, just savour: Ireland’s Magical Midlands – what are you looking at?”
Anyway, that’s the slogan I’ve come up with. Also: What are you looking at?
