Ireland with John Bishop for John Bishops Ireland, aired May 2019
Claire Webb - 9 May 2019
John Bishop has a soft spot for Ireland because it’s where he got his big break. The comedian’s first TV gig was on a Northern Irish panel game in 2003, and a regular slot on an RTÉ talk show followed. At the time he was a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, but his success across the Irish Sea gave him the courage to jack in the day job. “Although at that point I had no chance of getting on TV in the UK, it gave me the confidence that at least I’d always have a live audience in Ireland.”
Irish audiences, he says, are “so welcoming. I like that there is a culture of the spoken word in Ireland. People will give somebody a chance and listen to their story. That was a revelation when I was starting out: I don’t have to say a joke every ten seconds. I can tell a story and they’ll wait for it.”
In John Bishop’s Ireland, he travels around the Republic and Northern Ireland, performing gigs and exploring Irish traditions. He began by watching a game of Gaelic football – “a mixture between football, rugby and GBH” – with exuberant fans in Dublin. “Gaelic football is the national sport, along with hurling, and it’s just mental. I got a ticket to the all-Ireland final between Dublin and Mayo, which 80-odd thousand people attend, and half the country watches on TV. Nobody on the pitch is professional and I just thought that was fantastic. I got to speak to one of the stars and asked about it turning professional and he said, ‘No, it would kill it’. Everyone just plays for their county. There’s
something uniquely brilliant about that.”
In this week’s episode, he heads to the leafy Georgian town of Westport, County Mayo, to meet Matt Molloy of the Chieftains, the traditional Irish music band who have collaborated with the likes of Mick Jagger and Roger Daltrey, played for the Queen and the Pope, and won six Grammys.
“He’s got a pub called Matt Molloy’s where people just turn up and play, and he joins in, so you get to play with one of the best musicians in the world. It’s like me being able to play five-aside with Steven Gerrard.” Did he sing along? “I haven’t got a musical bone in my body, but I drank the Guinness and listened very hard. I’d recommend anyone to go to Matt Molloy’s pub or something like it – just sit there and absorb a traditional Irish music session.”
While in Mayo, he also visits the Knock Shrine, where the faithful believe there was an apparition of the Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist outside the parish church on a rainy August day in 1879. Today over a million and a half people a year make the pilgrimage to attend services and marvel at an enormous mosaic depicting the apparition. “It’s a village of less than a thousand people, but it’s got its own international airport for all the pilgrims. Whether you’re religious or not, that’s an interesting place.”
When it comes to scenery, he was blown away by both the north and southwest coast. “In the north I went to Portrush, which is Game of Thrones country and a beautiful part of the world. I went swimming, which was not a great idea because I nearly died of cold. The other place I’d never been before that I really loved was West Cork. The west coast of Ireland is absolutely wild.”
Anyone looking for holiday romance should consider a trip to Lisdoonvarna, a spa town in County Clare that holds a matchmaking festival every September. Bishop met Ireland’s premier dating guru there, a rather serious chap called Willie Daly. “You put your hands on Willie’s magic book, and then he will find you a partner during the matchmaking festival. It happens at the end of the summer because farmers used to go to find a wife after the crops had been brought in. Willie’s father and grandfather were matchmakers before him. It’s just fantastic, isn’t it?” Daly claims to have matched more than 3,000 couples and wasn’t deterred by the fact that Bishop is a married man. “He said: ‘If you’re married, you should put both hands on the book and close your eyes. The next two weeks will be like the first two weeks of your honeymoon.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s no good to me, Willie. I don’t want to spend the next two weeks being disappointed and having an argument.’”
John Bishop has a soft spot for Ireland because it’s where he got his big break. The comedian’s first TV gig was on a Northern Irish panel game in 2003, and a regular slot on an RTÉ talk show followed. At the time he was a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, but his success across the Irish Sea gave him the courage to jack in the day job. “Although at that point I had no chance of getting on TV in the UK, it gave me the confidence that at least I’d always have a live audience in Ireland.”
Irish audiences, he says, are “so welcoming. I like that there is a culture of the spoken word in Ireland. People will give somebody a chance and listen to their story. That was a revelation when I was starting out: I don’t have to say a joke every ten seconds. I can tell a story and they’ll wait for it.”
In John Bishop’s Ireland, he travels around the Republic and Northern Ireland, performing gigs and exploring Irish traditions. He began by watching a game of Gaelic football – “a mixture between football, rugby and GBH” – with exuberant fans in Dublin. “Gaelic football is the national sport, along with hurling, and it’s just mental. I got a ticket to the all-Ireland final between Dublin and Mayo, which 80-odd thousand people attend, and half the country watches on TV. Nobody on the pitch is professional and I just thought that was fantastic. I got to speak to one of the stars and asked about it turning professional and he said, ‘No, it would kill it’. Everyone just plays for their county. There’s
something uniquely brilliant about that.”
In this week’s episode, he heads to the leafy Georgian town of Westport, County Mayo, to meet Matt Molloy of the Chieftains, the traditional Irish music band who have collaborated with the likes of Mick Jagger and Roger Daltrey, played for the Queen and the Pope, and won six Grammys.
“He’s got a pub called Matt Molloy’s where people just turn up and play, and he joins in, so you get to play with one of the best musicians in the world. It’s like me being able to play five-aside with Steven Gerrard.” Did he sing along? “I haven’t got a musical bone in my body, but I drank the Guinness and listened very hard. I’d recommend anyone to go to Matt Molloy’s pub or something like it – just sit there and absorb a traditional Irish music session.”
While in Mayo, he also visits the Knock Shrine, where the faithful believe there was an apparition of the Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist outside the parish church on a rainy August day in 1879. Today over a million and a half people a year make the pilgrimage to attend services and marvel at an enormous mosaic depicting the apparition. “It’s a village of less than a thousand people, but it’s got its own international airport for all the pilgrims. Whether you’re religious or not, that’s an interesting place.”
When it comes to scenery, he was blown away by both the north and southwest coast. “In the north I went to Portrush, which is Game of Thrones country and a beautiful part of the world. I went swimming, which was not a great idea because I nearly died of cold. The other place I’d never been before that I really loved was West Cork. The west coast of Ireland is absolutely wild.”
Anyone looking for holiday romance should consider a trip to Lisdoonvarna, a spa town in County Clare that holds a matchmaking festival every September. Bishop met Ireland’s premier dating guru there, a rather serious chap called Willie Daly. “You put your hands on Willie’s magic book, and then he will find you a partner during the matchmaking festival. It happens at the end of the summer because farmers used to go to find a wife after the crops had been brought in. Willie’s father and grandfather were matchmakers before him. It’s just fantastic, isn’t it?” Daly claims to have matched more than 3,000 couples and wasn’t deterred by the fact that Bishop is a married man. “He said: ‘If you’re married, you should put both hands on the book and close your eyes. The next two weeks will be like the first two weeks of your honeymoon.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s no good to me, Willie. I don’t want to spend the next two weeks being disappointed and having an argument.’”