Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Keepin' It In The Family

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

Conan chats with Ellen from Tullamore, Ireland about going to law school while working in a whiskey distillery and how Conan takes his dram.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay. Let's get started. Hi, Ellen. Welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Hi, guys.

Hi, Ellen. How are you? I'm good. Thanks. How are you? We're very good. So, Ellen O'Brien, and you're coming to us, I'm just going to guess from Ireland, right? Yes, I am.

Okay. Where are you in Ireland right now? So, I'm in Tullamore, so it's in the Midlands. Oh, how far are you from Dublin? How far is Tullamore from? It's about an hour, roughly. Okay. Ireland's not huge, so a lot of things are an hour from something else.

Isn't that right? Yeah. So, I'm an hour towards the middle. Tullamore? Literally in the middle of Ireland. Tullamore sounds like a magical land, doesn't it? Yeah. It's like filled with pixies and leprechauns and unicorns.

Tullamore has a very, just a fairytale kind of feel to it. There's definitely some strange creatures, but I don't know what I'm saying. I'm sorry, Ellen. Those are called Irish people. Yes. I have some experience. So, okay, your name is Ellen O'Brien. I'm an O'Brien as well, as you may know, and so we're probably distantly related in some

way. Yes. We definitely are. Yeah. Everybody's related. Yeah. That's the problem. I found out a few years ago that because I took a DNA test and found out that even though

I've been living in this country for, my family has at least for about 150 years, I am still 100 percent, 100.00 percent Irish, because- It's the skin color and the hair. Yeah. And all the relatives- That doesn't fade out. We didn't branch out. No one got creative with their life partner.

Everybody just married the person who was brushing their teeth next to them in the bathroom. God. Yeah. That's what happened. And now 150 years after that, and look at me, so what about you? Are your parents is one of them from Spain or the other one from France? No, unfortunately not. I'm 100 percent Irish.

Oh, wait. In England, that's my claim to non-Irish fame, but yeah, 100 percent Irish. All right. So, Ellen, I'm trying to understand a little bit about your background. Tell me about your parents. What are their names? So my dad, Ray, he was born an O'Brien, and he met my mom when he was 21, who is Tina O'Brien. Wait a minute.

Also- Was she born Tina O'Brien or she took his last name? No, she was born Tina O'Brien. Oh, my God. What? Oh, for God's sake. Wait a minute. Did they brush their teeth next to each other?

Wait a minute. An O'Brien met and married an O'Brien. This is what I've been talking about. This is the problem. What are you guys doing? We're not roaming far from the house. That's for sure. You're not roaming far from your family.

They're not related. Of course not. They're both from teeny, tiny town in Ireland, and they're both named O'Brien, but of course there's no feckin' relationship. Sorry about that. No, I'm sure they grew up blocks from each other. Yeah, they're closer than it did. Well, I wanted to talk because, as I've said, my family, lots of O'Brien's, marrying O'Brien's.

Oh, well, I turned out perfectly normal. Oh, yes, you did. Perfectly normal. Oh, you're a very good lawyer and liar. You're gonna make a great lawyer. Ellen, this is the point. Ellen, this is the point I've been trying to make to people here in America. They weren't related, though.

I should just say they weren't related. Oh, sure, they're not related. You just said you're all related. Yeah. I mean, at least move on to cousins. Just get to the extended family. I know. Here's what I don't understand, Ellen.

You basically just said we both come from this tiny town, and one O'Brien married another, and now you're their daughter, but don't worry, it's all above board. No problems. My mother's side of the family came from Mayo, so the west of Ireland, and my nanny married an O'Brien in Tullamore, so they're not related. Okay, yeah, sure. You're just all from the same tiny, green island. And a gene pool.

Yes. We're not related. I live on this side of the house. She lives on that side of the house. She's 15 feet away from me. So, tell us about yourself, other than, well, first of all, you and I have a lot in common. We're both O'Brien's. We're both 100 percent.

We're both Irish. We're both terribly inbred, but you... Do you find that you suffer sometimes depression? Do you get depressed sometimes? Oh, wow, okay. It's the weather, of course. Oh, it's the weather, you think. I'm telling you, it's the genes.

It's in the genetics. It's not the weather. I swear to God, you can move to Miami and you'll still be wandering around saying, God damn it, I can't take it anymore, because that's me, I live in Los Angeles, and I used to think, oh, it must be the weather, the clouds, no, it's in our mind, it's in our DNA strand. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. It's because if we stray too far away, we get sunburned.

Exactly. So... Yeah, yeah, that's why. That's why we're supposed to live under that carpet of clouds. But let me get back to there. Tell me a little bit about what you do. Tell me what you do for a living, Ellen. So I'm actually a law student in Dublin, but in my spare time, or at the weekends, I work

in a whiskey distillery in Tullamore. Of course you do, Wucky. That's a great job. First of all, what do you do at the whiskey distillery? So I'm a tour guide, so when we get visitors like yourselves coming over, I'm the one that brings them around and tells them all about Tullamore Jew, our whiskey. Oh, I've heard of that whiskey. Yeah.

Yeah. That's supposed to be a good whiskey. It's the best. Are you a good tour guide? Yeah. Well, I like to channel you on my tours a little bit. Wait a minute. What do you mean?

I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do.

I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do.

I do. I do. But it's and it's, that's, I think its a big mistake, Ellen. I think you should channel someone else. Yeah. What are some of the bits that you did? Yeah.

I need to tone it down a bit because you don't really want your lawyer cracking jokes, so I need to bring it down to maybe a more magical solo level. Yeah. You mean people that actually like themselves are secure in their own skin? They're not Irish, they won't understand. So don't go that far. Sorry about that. So, Alan, you're channeling me

as you give these Irish whiskey tours. Let me ask you a question and you say the tourists like it, but the Irish don't love it so much. Let me ask you a question. How would the Irish people feel about me doing my bits? Would it go over well or would they be disgusted by the whole thing?

Be honest. They'd never let it show, obviously, but it would depend. You'd have the older types that would be nodding along and they'd secretly be thinking, oh, it's a bit of an Egypt, isn't it? I love how Egypt, I'm an Egypt. That's idiot, in case you didn't know.

Yeah, I kind of had furred. Yeah. Thanks for translating, yeah. I just have to translate here. Wow, yeah, I could see that. I could see that. I was, do you know the comedian Dara O'Breen? You've heard of him ever? Dara O'Brien, yeah.

Well, I've heard of how he was O'Breen, but Dara O'Brien. Oh, great, another O'Brien. Yeah, another O'Brien. He's very funny. Not the cousin. He performed in the town that I'm from, which is Dungarvin, Waterford,

and he said it was a really tough town, and he's very funny, and he said he did a show there once, and nobody laughed, and then he was trying to go to his car, and one of the people from the crowd got between him and his car, and he said, you're about as funny as a shite in a bed.

Oh, my God. That's water for you, though. That's my people. Oh, my God. And that's the way my family talks to me. Yeah. No, Waterford is great. It's great.

Wow. Yeah. I don't believe you. Sounds like it. Yeah, sure. I'm trying my best, Sona. I know. It's sweet.

So, wow, that's incredible. So you're just going to... You're studying law, OK? And you're also giving tours at a distillery where you channel me, and you say the bids don't go over well with the Irish, which makes total sense. Yeah.

What kind of law... What do you want to do with your law degree? What kind of... Would you like to get into criminal law? Well, I see I'm money in first year, so we haven't actually covered everything, but I am enjoying criminal law and also tort law, so kind of the law of personal injury, stuff like that.

Right. But I'd like to do... I don't know if you've seen the rookie on Netflix, but Noah Centineo kind of like to do something like that. We'll see. So you'd like to do a TV show is what you're saying. Or you want to do the kind of law that the person does in the TV show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like with the FBI, something like that. Oh, you'd like to be an investigator. OK, you'd like to be an investigator. Yeah, yeah. OK, that's fascinating. I mean, that's curious to me. I wonder if you could ever use anything from your whiskey background

when you're investigating a crime. Do you know what I mean? Whiskey is actually quite an international conversation starter because even with older people, I can just bring up whiskey and that's the conversation started. But yeah, maybe. I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting you should say that

because I know what your question is for Conan. Do you want to ask it? Yeah, so my question, Conan, is what way do you drink your whiskey? And what's your favorite Irish brand? Oh, wow. Well, these are really good questions. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not a big whiskey drinker.

I hate to say that because it sounds like. It's OK, I'm not judging you. No, it sounds like I like that I'm being judged for not drinking too much whiskey. I feel like I'm being disloyal to my heritage. Can't you just lie? Yeah. Just lie so we could get a bottle.

I like finnigans. Yeah. Finnigans. I just made that up. Say, tell them we'll do. Tell them we'll do. I love telling we'll do. Yeah.

That's a sound bite right there. Yeah. And what about Jameson's? Sounds like that's a competitor. Where is Jameson's from? Also Ireland. Oh. Who cares, right?

Yeah. Yeah. That stuff's shite. My dad gave me Telemore Dew for my wedding. He gave me a nice bottle of Telemore Dew. I thought he hit you with a bottle of Telemore Dew. He did. But I drank up all the stuff off the floor.

I have to say, I like Telemore Dew. I have had Telemore Dew when I like it. It's got a smooth. It goes down real smooth. That's important for me, because I'm not the man list of men. I like my whiskey smooth. How do you drink it? Do you drink it neat, or do you put anything in there?

Usually neat, but we have whiskey sours in Ireland. So it's quite like a cocktail. Yes. I love a whiskey sour. Man, that sounds good. Yeah. This is dry January for me, so this sounds good. Yeah.

I like a whiskey sour that has three starbursts in it, just dissolving slowly. I like some sugar in my drink. Yeah, you two are real men. Put an umbrella in there, and I'm quite happy. We're man enough to know we're not Irish coffee. An Irish coffee? Yeah, you gotta love an Irish coffee.

And I was watching your tour of Guinness, and I just wanted to say that we start with the whiskey, so you don't need to be waiting till the end. So we start with an Irish coffee to get you warmed up. That sounds fantastic. That's very good. They should do that at more tours. Like if you go and you, I think, basically,

if you go to like the, I don't know, FDR library, they should give you a drink when you get started. Any historic site should start with a strong drink, you know? Well, we're here at Gettysburg. What do you have? Make mine a double. Welcome to the Mormon Temple Salt Lake City. What do you have?

Tullamore Town. Wow, so let me ask you a question. If I came by, let's say I visited you. Well, what kind of things would we do? What would you show me? Oh, well, obviously, the distillery would be first on the list. You'd have to do a tour.

I'd probably bring you around Tullamore Town. There's quite a lot of popes, as is typical in Irish towns. How do you think I'd be treated by the local population? I think you'd fit in. Like a shite in a bed. Well, I know I wasn't going to say that. I know I'd fit in visually. I know I'd fit in visually, but would my sense of humor

go over well? Probably, yeah. We've all got a bit of a weird sense of humor in Ireland. So yeah, you'd fit right in. OK, I'll take that as a compliment. I appreciate that. And maybe I could, and what law school are you going to? So I'm in the Technological University of Dublin.

Very nice. So yeah, it's right beside the president's house in Dublin. Oh, OK. Who's the president? It's not a coincidence. Oh, it's not. Who's the president right now? Joseph Biden.

Michael D. Higgins. Joseph Biden. I wasn't asking for a neurological exam. Who's the president now? What day is it? Yeah. Very nice. Do you have a lot of brothers and sisters?

I'm actually an only child. What? How will you marry? I brush my teeth and it's like, dog. There's no one for you. No. Hi, you don't be an old maid. Well, I think you're a lovely person.

I like you, Ellen. Thank you. Ellen O'Brien, my long lost cousin. Yes, you'll have to come visit. Visit all the other cousins. I will, yeah. I'm going to come. I'm going to drink way too much whiskey.

Maybe I'll take over your tour for you. What if I did your tour? Oh, yeah. Yeah, and then I'll give you anyone laughing. Maybe. Maybe even you will say, this isn't working for me. This man's an idiot. This man's an idiot.

That's an idiot. Let me ask you a quick question. When I grew up, my mother used to call me a bold stump. She said, ah, you're a bold stump, a bold stump. Is that an Irish saying, bold stump? Have you ever heard it? I've not, no. But I'm sure they have different language in water first.

Yeah, they're primarily Italian down there. Yes, yes, yeah. All right, well, really nice talking to you. Best of luck. Thanks so much. Looking forward to our. Hopefully, I'll see you in the distillery one of these days. Oh, trust me.

Hang around the distillery long enough and no, Brian will show up. Yeah. Nice talking to you. Catch you. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks so much. Bye.

Bye. Conan O'Brien needs a fan. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gorely. Produced by me, Matt Gorely. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Salateroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer, Aaron Blair.

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