I was born in Athenry, Co Galway, and I grew up in Tuam. For the first seven years of my life, we travelled around the country – staying in places like Thurles in Tipperary. I wouldn’t have many memories from back then, but one of the things that stayed with me right into adulthood is the sound of rain hitting the roof of the caravan. The sound of rain really helps me sleep.
I’m an outdoorsy person. Being out in the rain with my dog doesn’t bother me – I love it, actually. I have a massive love for travel: meeting different people, having cups of tea with people. I remember having a cup of tea with a total stranger in Rosmuc, simply because I got a flat tyre, and she ended up inviting me for a cup of tea that lasted about three hours.
The amazing thing about Tuam is that no one is different. It’s a predominantly working-class town. It has a great history – especially a history of creatives. The Saw Doctors are probably the most well-known. Then there’s the likes of Tom Murphy, the playwright.
I grew up in a council estate. The Travellers weren’t the poorest people there. [As a Traveller] I never felt as though I was a victim of Irish society. I felt I was part of Irish society, and some of the things I was facing were faced by a minority within that society. I didn’t allow myself to go around thinking we had it worse than everybody. My parents would never have allowed that. It was always: just go out and do your best no matter who you are.
Martin ‘Beanz’ Warde: ‘I can speak with authority about being Irish, a Traveller and gay’
Oliver Jeffers: ‘Culturally I feel Irish but I normally skirt around the question: where are you from?’
Muireann O’Connell: ‘There are people in this country who hate me with the fire of a thousand suns’
Éanna Ní Lamhna: ‘When I went to UCD there were no points. You could study what you liked’
I wasn’t great at school. I did a bad Leaving Cert. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the intellect, but we learn differently, and school wasn’t a great environment for me to learn. After the Leaving Cert, I started an access course to get into third-level education. I was almost finished when Des Bishop came to Tuam looking for Travellers to be part of his new comedy show. The headline in the Tuam Herald read “Bishop to make laughing stock of Travellers”. I was like pfff, let’s see about that. I ended up unwittingly auditioning.
After three weeks working with Des, I did my first [stand up] show, live in front of 220 people. After that I started supporting Des. I realised that, actually, I’m not bad at this comedy stuff.
Because I started doing lots of gigs, my university pursuit went on hold. I later did the access programme again as a mature student and did a degree in National University of Ireland, Galway, in sociology and policy.
The vast majority of my stuff is based on three things. One, being Irish. Two, being a Traveller. And three, being gay. I can speak with authority on all of those things because I identify as all of those things.
To this day, I’m still the only comedian from my community. Other comedians in the past have mined my community for comedy, usually punching down. I felt: I’ve a chance here now to balance the scales. There are so many funny things that my community would do, that isn’t punching down, but more like highlighting them.
I travel all over the world and there is no feeling like touching back down on Irish soil again. I love coming home to Ireland
— Martin ‘Beanz’ Warde
Irish people look after our elderly. [In my RTÉ show, The End of the World with Beanz] we did an episode on van life in Arizona, and it was absolutely heart-wrenching. We met people who are forced to live in RVs and campervans and in some cases, tiny cars – these people are in their 70s and 80s. One woman was telling herself this is what she wants to do – she wants the freedom to travel. The reality was that she just couldn’t pay rent any more and because of health issues with her late husband, they lost their home, lost everything. In Ireland, we have homeless people, but there’s a variety of factors involved in that, and it gets called out on a daily basis. It’s not swept under the carpet.
When you go to other places and see how difficult it is for other people to live, it does give you a sense of, like, Jaysus would you ever shut up? You’ve got so much privilege in comparison. It took me going to Africa [for season one of The End of the World with Beanz], seeing little kids walking around barefoot in a dump in Nairobi, to think: I’m a big fat white privileged Traveller and there are a lot worse things going on.
I travel all over the world and there is no feeling like touching back down on Irish soil again. I love coming home to Ireland. We have beautiful land. I sound like a proper culchie now. But we have amazing wildlife. We have lovely seas, forest, greens, fields, rivers.
We are the best country in the world for having a bit of craic, most times at our own expense. If you go to another country, people pick out Irish bars for a reason – not for the quality of the drinks but the quality of the craic. It’s a type of wit that can only be born from intergenerational trauma and despair and the hard weather conditions. Even though everything is saying we should be depressed and in despair, we still find a moment to have the craic.
In conversation with Niamh Donnelly. This interview is part of a series about well-known people’s lives and relationship with Ireland. The End of the World With Beanz is on Tuesday nights at 7pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player
