The Blindboy Podcast - The Importance of Supporting Striking Workers

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Irelands revolutionary history of boycotts and strikes. Reimagining the wren for Limerick Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Swoon at the croppy toucan, you droopy Sousans. Welcome to the Blame by Podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier podcast. To familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast, and if you're a regular listener, you know the crack. I am giddy. I am giddy with excitement because this time next week, I'll be in Coventry. I'll be in the middle of my England, Scotland and Wales tour. I'm giddy because I'm after getting several guests who I've been chasing for a long time

and stars have aligned with this tour. Now I love speaking to every guest, but sometimes guests are recommended to me by other people. So I entered the situation with a curiosity, but not really knowing how it's going to go. But with this tour, I'm so fascinated by the people that I'm going to speak to. I just have a lovely, kind of a warm, safe, comfortable feeling. I'll give you an example. My first gig's in Brighton this Sunday. My guest is Fern Brady.

Fern is a comedian from Scotland. She's an author. She's also very publicly autistic. I've chatted to Fern before but never live. And I just know it's going to be crack. It's just going to be ridiculous crack because she's hilarious. but on top of being hilarious, just have an incredibly smart, interesting person.

So I'm entering the tour with that lovely, confident feeling of this is going to be a cracker of a gig. And the Brighton audience, just one of those audience that really appreciate it when you take the time to come and see them, especially in October, because it's a seaside town. Then on to Cardiff, I have a guest called Kerry John Phillips. Kerry is

I hope I'm pronouncing the name correctly C-E-R-I Apologies if there's a Welsh pronunciation that I'm not getting right Kerry was recommended to me by listeners Kerry is an actor I think a former comedian

but now a professional storyteller who specialises in Welsh folklore and Welsh mythology because I want to learn stories from the Mabinagian which is early Welsh medieval mythology where a lot of the stories are very different but almost exact parallels to similar stories in Irish mythology.

So I'm going into that gig with a hungry belly and some of the best podcast guests in my experience when the person is a professional storyteller, when they tell stories up on stage and that is their thing. Which takes me on to Coventry then the day after where I've got Claire Murphy the storyteller, so I'm fucking spying rotten. Claire was a guest two or three years ago. For me personally, out of nine years of doing live podcasts, she's definitely in the top three in terms of the experience I had on stage chatting to her. Put it this way. So Claire's a professional storyteller. I chatted to her in Bristol. And after chatting to Claire Murphy at that gig, I had to change the type of chair that I use on stage. for any gigs afterwards.

Because... I got so enraptured in the stories that Claire was telling that I forgot that I'm supposed to be doing a gig up on stage and just sat back listening to her in this really comfy chair. After about 15 minutes of Claire telling this incredible story, I'd just snap out of it and go blind by you're doing a fucking gig man.

You're up on stage, there's an audience there. I'd forgotten about my duty to entertain and was just listening to my guest telling stories, but also for the rest of the tour, I said, find me the shittest, most uncomfortable chair from here on in, so that I never allow myself to relax in that way again, as if I'm a member of the audience.

And I think that's why, that's why that live podcast with Claire Murphy was in my top three. It was so enjoyable for me, and I've been counting down the days to speak to Claire Murphy again, and I get to do it next week. Wednesday in Coventry. It's a load off my mind to have that confident feeling of no matter what happens this is going to be unbelievable crack. Then Bristol I have got and I've been chasing this person since I started doing, since

before COVID, in Bristol I'm going to be chatting to Professor Ronald Hutton. He's like a world renowned expert. in pre-Christian Britain it'd be fair to call him the foremost authority A book by him that I adore One of my favourite books is Trees in Anglo-Saxon religion So the pagan Anglo-Saxon

Pre-Christian worship Of trees and sacred groves He's an expert on paganism I don't know how interested ye are in this shit But I'm deeply passionate about this stuff That's my role I want to speak to people Who I am genuinely

curious and passionate and excited about and I'm so interested in pre-Christian I've made fucking documentaries about it I've done multiple podcasts about it obsessed with pre-Christian Ireland and what we call

quote unquote pagan beliefs holy wells sacred wells the other world mythology I'm fascinated by these things because of how they relate to biodiversity I'm fascinated by old Irish systems of belief that are more

in line with a fear and respect of nature and unfortunately when it comes to the the English side of things with that pre-Christian history there isn't as much information available as there is for Irish pre-Christian history you know my theory about Sheffield and Sheffield Cathedral and the 8th century Sheffield Cross that's covered in vines and my hunch that that site was once a pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon sacred growth Now I'm speaking to the person who might be able to answer that question. Professor Ronald Hutton.

I can't believe he's coming to chat to me. So that's Bristol next Thursday. And then Guildford. Guildford, still looking for a guest. Now, I had a guest, but unfortunately they had to cancel. This is why I don't announce guests until the very, very last minute. A podcast tour is really, really unique. The one thing you can guarantee is I'm going to fucking show up.

But when you're dealing with a show that has, multiple separate guests. All sorts of things can go wrong. People get sick, something else comes up. Often, stage fright is a thing. Not everybody's comfortable getting up on a stage and speaking for a long time in front of an audience. So it's not common, but it does happen

that I could book a guest in three months ago and then they'll work themselves up and eventually just go, I can't do it. This is actually freaking me out. I'm going to have to pull, especially musicians, bizarrely, professional musicians. In my nine years of doing this, professional musicians have the highest rate of dropping out of a live podcast, and I can understand why these people are used to the stage.

They're used to getting up on stage in front of a large audience. It becomes familiar, it becomes routine, but then they start to almost rely upon. the instrument that they're holding in their hand like a guitar or they come to rely upon the fact that they're singing songs and when you strip all that away and now they're up on the same stage and they just have to speak sometimes it's too much for them so I'm still chasing a Guildford guest

but that's how it goes it'll be fucking grand London the barbican now London is completely sold out the rest of those gigs are quite close but you can still get tickets London is completely sold out and I can't really tell you who the guest is finances this thing

but he's currently on a break from making content but he's coming out of that break just to chat to myself because we're both mutual fans of each other's work and we're both dying to chat to each other also he's probably my most request guest from the listeners he is I'd call him an economist

He has a shaved head and economics is his thing and he speaks with great clarity and empathy and authority on inequality. I reckon you can guess how it is, but there's no tickets available for it anyway. I'd be shocked if I don't put it out as a live podcast. Glasgow at the pavilion sold out. That's Wednesday two weeks away. I think I have an astounding guest for that. I'm just waiting for final confirmation. Then for Gateshead, I have.

another returning guest who I had an incredible chat with Glasgow two years ago in Gateshead I have Darren McGarvey Darren is similar enough career to me I suppose he would have started off

as a rapper in the YouTube era in the 2010s then became an author and a general political commentator he's what I'd describe as terrifyingly erudite he has a way of speaking with such speed and clarity of thought

that you feel as if he's reading a script he talks in real time like most people can write he speaks about class addiction masculinity inequality in this way that can

man he got a fucking drunk Glasgow audience to shut the fuck up and listen I'm asking him for Gateshead because it's not too far far away from Scotland even though he's Glasgow. Do you know if it was Newcastle I wouldn't ask him? Gateshead is just over the river on the other side of the bridge from Newcastle. The reason I wouldn't ask him to gig Newcastle.

The castle, the new castle, where the city gets its name, was built by William the Conqueror's son, because he was terrified of Scottish people. So Newcastle was like a defence against the Scottish, against the Picts by the Normans. But Gateshead feels more respectful. head I believe gets its name from an old Anglo-Saxon word from funk, mean goat's head, the head of a goat. Don't know why that is, but I'll fucking ask Professor Ronald Hutton back in Bristol and then

I'll bring that information to Gateshead. Then final gig then is Nottingham on Sunday the 1st November. Cracker of a guest possibly waiting for final confirmation. Every single person I'm speaking to on this tour, I just know it's going to be a banger. I can't fucking wait. And I'm praying to dog above that the sound will be right on the night. I've picked solid venues, places that I try and pick spaces that are, if they have theatre on, then it's a good choice.

I try to avoid any venue that is suited for orchestras. Straight up, I'm not playing anywhere that can accommodate an orchestra. Those rooms tend to have a giant echo, a giant. echo that's brilliant if you have an orchestra but quite difficult if it's spoken word. So I go for venues that can accommodate theatre. Another reason I choose theatre venues for my live podcasts is I borrow from the language of theatre. A lot of live podcasts these days, they have elaborate sets and intro music and lighting. And a lot of the bigger live podcasts feel like a bit like the great live podcasts feel like a bit like the

Graham Norton show, they're borrowing from the language of TV chat shows up on stage. What I'm always trying to do, I don't want, I don't want an interview and I don't want a chat. I want intimacy and a feeling of safety up on stage. I was speaking a lot about Samuel Beckett last week. Beckett has a play from 1972 called Not I. Now Beckett's theatre language was minimalism, very, very stripped back. the play not I. It's a completely black stage

with one spotlight shining upon a disembodied human mouth and the audience are in darkness too so it forces it to focus very intently on just the words being spoken. With my live podcast I tried to keep it very minimal.

Two chairs on stage a desk a gentle purple spotlight the audience in complete darkness. And what that does is it creates a feeling on stage that the audience isn't there. For me and my guest, it becomes like a chat that you'd have in a kitchen.

But a kitchen that's impurgatory. And when I say creating a feeling of safety, the safe feeling of not being watched or observed, lighting can do that. And then you end up having the type of conversation that you wouldn't have in a room with a thousand people or two thousand people. You have the intimate chat that you have in an empty room with just two people. And if I can get that groove going properly, then for you and the audience,

it doesn't feel like a live podcast. It doesn't feel like a chat or an interview. It can feel a bit like a play, like a live play unfolding in real time, unless the crowd are shit-faced. In which case, we turn the lights up a bit and you bring the crowd in and you have a bit of crack. The thing is with those podcasts, they're wonderful fun for everybody who's in the room physically, but they don't translate into good live podcasts that I can put out. And that's why Tommy Tiernan has been on the podcast three times, but I've never put those episodes out.

Because it's just me and Tommy screaming at each other and making the audience laugh. But it becomes a you had to have been there type of thing. but I'll get Tommy eventually. Again, the best interview me and fucking Tommy Turner never did. The 90-minute chat on a boat in the middle of Lockdark but RTE owned the footage and only put out about three minutes of it and the rest is lost in time like tears in rain.

So I'm giddy this week. I'm fucking excited. I can't wait to go off. And do these gigs. I mean, winter tours are always a tiny bit tougher because it's bleak. However, for this tour, for the first time ever,

I'm going to have a tour van that's converted into a mobile podcast studio which is the nerdiest shit in the world tour vans are for doing coke not mine all the seats are going to be taken out in the back there's going to be one seat and then a large desk

I'm going to have a small fridge with milk in it so I can drink tea at all times and you see the distance between gigs in England, Scotland and Wales you're often on the road for maybe four hours or five hours I want to chat about something important this week It's Wednesday the 14th of October as you listen to this

and before I begin the podcast I want to express solidarity with the workers who are striking in Ireland this morning 300,000 public sector workers so you're talking doctors, teachers, nurses, civil servants are engaging in a 24-hour strike demanding better pay and better working conditions So that's 300,000 people, that's a lot.

And what I'd like everyone to remember is that when public sector workers strike for better conditions, when any group of workers strike for better conditions, that benefits everybody, that benefits all workers. And I'd ask you all to be very cautious and critical of headlines that you're going to see appearing in sections of the corporate media, which instead of a day,

addressing the entitlements and the demands of the workers. Instead they will frame these strikes as an inconvenience on you or frame the striking workers as being greedy and unreasonable or frame them as being bullies or instead of focusing on the issues that are affecting the workers, they'll choose to run a story about the person who couldn't go into their job that day because that person couldn't find a childminder because their kids couldn't go to school because the teachers are striking.

It's a very easy thing to do because 30 years of neoliberalism as is all fighting for scraps. It's very easy to get the worker who doesn't have a full-time contract who doesn't have a pension to hate on the teachers or a civil servant.

Well at least you've got a full-time job. You've got a pension. You're sorted for life, aren't you? You're greedy. Why should I support your strike? And at one point, the sector that you're working in, might have had unions at one point.

It might have been something that was state run at one point. Pensions, security. If there's any hope of getting that bank, just support striking workers when you see it. And be wide of the propaganda that exploits the vulnerabilities I just mentioned. Look at America, look at the UK. Private corporations are rubbing their hands together like vultures, like Elon Musk with Trump and Doge.

They dismantled the US Civil Service. You don't think wealthy investors and investment funds are looking on going fucking great. I hope the health sector in Ireland falls apart and then it needs to be privatised. That'd be great for us. A public health service that's run for profit? Let them strike, don't meet their demands, allow it to dismantle, we'll step in. People in America have to take out loans, have to sell their houses. If they become sick, if their bodies become sick, things get pushed on to hell.

health insurance companies whose business model depends not on providing health care for the people who are paying for insurance but their business model depends upon denying healthcare for people who are paying insurance. What does that get you? Fucking Luigi Mangione a broken unfair unequal system. Striking collective bargaining unions are essential to a functioning society to a democracy to justice to fairness. We have to support striking workers, even if it means being inconvenienced. If sections of the government, if sections of the corporate media, choose to demonise workers, frame the situation as an inconvenience to you, frame the workers as greedy, then what you're witnessing?

You're witnessing class solidarity amongst the ultra-wealthy. That's what that does. Even though these are public sector workers, which means they're paid by the government. private corporations and billionaires, they don't want to see any strikes. The tech corporations, the private pharmaceutical companies, whatever the fuck, they do not want to see any workers, form a union, collectively bargain, strike and have their demands met and answered. They can't allow that. If you want a safe functioning society, we the people and the workers, we need to be able to protest peace, peace, to get out there in protest and expect that it will actually work and be listened to,

and we need to have the power to be able to withhold our labour for negotiating, for collective bargaining. When you don't have that, you get a Tinderbox. These are peaceful, reasonable, professional, firm and assertive avenues to enact change. You take that away, what do you get? You get riots. Then you get more militarised police. Then you get more riots. And then you get more militarized police and you get a more unequal society. Support the workers, support the strikers, support the unions. Be deeply critical of any headline which frames teachers, nurses and doctors as being greedy or as being the source of your problems. Do not allow yourself to be hoodwinked by a performative, theatrical display of class solidarity amongst the ultra wealthy incorporations. Up the workers,

and use today as an opportunity to nicely and calmly spread that message to any people you see who are being hoodwinked by disingenuous propaganda. We're dealing with a situation where towns in Ireland don't have adequate healthcare professionals or teachers because those people they can't afford to live close to where they work because of the housing crisis. Also on that subject, join Kato, C-A-T-U, Community Action Tenants Union. Find your local Community Action Tenants Union and join it. If you're renting, if you have a mortgage, the only person who can't join Katu is a landlord. But if you've got a mortgage or you're renting, join your Community Action Tenants Union. If you're listening to England, Scotland and Wales, I believe Acorn is the equivalent organisation.

but I'm open to being wrong on that because currently that is the peaceful avenue for large scale solidarity and collective bargaining when it comes to the housing crisis or fighting evictions or build to rent

or investment funds what do Dublin Limerick Ennis Waterford Clanmel Lee Kenney Wexford Tharless Tullamore and Mount Melik

in Leash what do these places have in common they all have a Parnell Street. What did Charles Stuart Parnell do to have streets named after him? He organised one of the largest strikes that this country has ever seen. A widespread rent strike against the landlords. It's where we get the word boycott. We get the word boycott from Charles Stuart Parnell. When I gig in places, especially over in England, I like to find out about the places I'm gigging. One of these is Coventry. And lots of people ask me to find out because

over in England Coventry is a place but the word Coventry can mean to shun a person to shun or exclude somebody means to be sent to Coventry I went searching for the origins of that term the best evidence

the best evidence that I could find is that it's connected with the English Civil War unfortunately the Brits aren't as good at recording their fucking history especially their working class history as we are here in Ireland they're great for recording the history of royalty and rich people.

Anyway, the Brits had a civil war in the 1600s between the royalists which support monarchy, a king or queen, and then the parliamentarians who supported not necessarily working class struggle but something a little bit more democratic than monarchy.

However, you did have the likes of the levellers who were parliamentarians, who would have been a fairly solid working class movement. Anyway, during the fucking English civil war, Apparently royalist prisoners, right, the royalist prisoners, were all sent to Coventry. And when they got the Coventry, the working people who were parliamentarians would ignore and shun them. And that's where you get the phrase to be sent to Coventry, which means being shunned. I'd never heard it. It's something they say in England.

Fuck does this have to do with Charles Stuart Pernel? Well, Parnell gave a speech in 1880 in Ennis. And in this speech, which we have a transcription of, because here in Ireland documenting our revolutionary history is very important, we have a transcription of this speech and you can actually see the moment where the word to be sent to Coventry morphs into the word boycott. Parnell said, when a man takes a farm from another which had been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside. When you meet him, you must shun him in the streets of your town. You must shun him in the shop, you must shun him in the fair green and in the marketplace. and even in the place of worship by leaving him alone, by putting him in a moral coventry,

by isolating him from the rest of the country as if there were a leper of old. You must show your detestation of the crime he has committed. Who is he talking about there? Some fucking prick of a landlord called Captain Bycott. Actually, he wasn't a landlord. This is important. He was a land agent.

So he was... An English person. who was employed to manage the largest states. But the landlords, they're very rich colonial people who don't live in Ireland. They were absentee landlords, who were exploiting the people of Ireland via their land agents. So anyway, Captain Bycott, he was shunned in Ireland. He couldn't get served in shops. No worker would agree to harvest the crops on any land that he managed.

Charles Stuart Pernel requested that he be sent to Coventry. But the shunning of this Captain Bycoycott, was so fucking successful that we started to use the word boycott. That was a strike. That was collective bargaining. That was collective action. That was peaceful. That was the Land League.

That led to rent strikes. That led to change, reform and eventually fucking revolution for 26 counties. So that's who Charles Stuart Pernel is. That's why there's a street named after him in every town. That's your history. That's what you came from. We need to get that back. Another thing too on this topic.

The Irish War of Independence, 1922. We tend to think of it exclusively as the IRA fighting the British forces with guns and bombs and physical force. The IRA were just regular people. They weren't necessarily trained soldiers. Most of the IRA's guns, their weapons, were literally stolen from.

The British Army are the British Police. the RIC. So you get this narrative, this David and Goliath narrative of this tiny volunteer force of farmers defeating the might of the British Army, using weapons that were stolen from the bodies of dead British soldiers. That's just one part of the revolutionary story. That's the sexy part. That's the enjoyable narrative. That's the story that you want to tell. That's the story you want to make films about. But What made that possible, large-scale bycots, large-scale strikes by regular people, unions, transport workers, refused to carry British troops on trains, just fucking refused.

So if 16 members of the IRA ambush and shoot British soldiers down in West Cork, the British can't get reinforcements down there because they can't get the troops on the train because the ordinary people, the workers, are refusing to take those troops. People boycotted British courts, British police. Disputes were being overseen by quote-unquote illegal courts that were run by Irish people. Members of the RAC, the Royal Irish Constabulary, even though some of those members were Irish people themselves,

they were completely shunned by their communities. They couldn't buy food in the shop. They weren't allowed into the church. They couldn't avail a goods and services. So the story of Irish independence, it's not just the IRA and physical force republicanism. It was class solidarity. It was the people, it was the workers coming together for justice. And the roots of that awakening, you go back 40 years previously to Charles Stuart Parnell.

We should be aware of this. Remind yourself of this every time you walk down the fucking Parnell Street. We need a bit of this back. We need to make sure it's not been fucking astroturfed. by elements of the far right with jobious funding. And a good starting point, support the striking workers today. Be critical of any headline which blames the workers, calls them greedy, or tries to get a collective structural issue,

and then frame it as being the responsibility or an inconvenience to the individual. That's neoliberal messaging. I saw it in the fucking wild. I saw it in the wild yesterday. A couple of weeks back I did a podcast about food security in Ireland. I spoke about when I was a kid that we used to get locally grown organic fruit and vegetables delivered to our neighbourhood in a van. Then that disappeared in the 90s. When the EU moved

away from its common agricultural policy that protected farmers, changes made to the World Trade Organisation in 93 after the end of the Cold War, long story short, food production was put to the forces of the private market. So small local farms in our own. Ireland go out of business because the supermarkets can buy in bulk. They can buy their cabbages in bulk for dirt cheap from a gigantic farm in Spain. So you can trace that with evidence from the 70s up until now, which leads to this Irish Times article that I read the other day. Now the article itself, the body of the article, it's very fair, it's facts based.

The article is about 83% of fruit and veg consumed in the Republic of Ireland. is imported from overseas. What headline did they choose? The headline was, Nobody wants to work. Why doesn't Ireland grow more vegetables? That article is paywalled, so you just see the headline on your social media.

When you go into the article, it says, Nobody wants to work. Jenny McNally laughs when asked what might turn someone away from a career in vegetable growing. Now that's kind of a jockey, throwaway comment from an organic,

vegetable farmer who's struggling in Ireland. Nobody wants to work. Now what she's jokingly referring to there is herself and her small family farm have been put in a position where they're competing with a gigantic corporate owned farm in Spain. So that then makes it difficult for a small Irish farm to offer competitive wages under those conditions. However pudding is the headline, nobody wants to work. Why doesn't Ireland grow more vegetables? That reads to me as framing a large complex structural issue and then pushing responsibility back onto the individual. And also, what have I been saying for years about doing interviews with print media in

particular? Be careful because they will take an offhand comment that you make, but then present it as a thesis statement in the headlines. And then if you want wider clarity, you have to go into the article itself. Like in this situation where it opens with, nobody wants to work. Jenny McNally laughs when asked about what might turn someone away from a career in vegetable growing. I do know what I call that a thesis statement. The article actually contradicts that headline. Someone sees that headline, glances past it on Instagram. Then they're in done stores the next day, buying cabbages.

Jesus, the cabbages are very expensive today. Why is this? Oh, I heard on the paper it's because of lazy cunts. Lazy cunts. All right, okay. In my day, people weren't afraid of getting their hands dirty. I knew it was the lazy cunts. You see what I mean?

And just to clarify, because I support journalism and journalists. Solid journalism. But the journalists can do their job with freedom and a feeling of safety. That's as important to a functioning society as collective bargaining and unions, hugely important. So the journalist Keane O'Connell who wrote that article, excellent article, really well-informed, multiple sorts. and an excellent overview of Ireland's food security. But often journalists don't write the fucking headlines.

And I'd wager, I'm guessing. I'd imagine that journalist saw the headline and went off for fuck's sake. And that then brings in a wider discussion. Am I saying there's some deep conspiracy up at the Irish Times to push neoliberal propaganda? No, I think the Irish Times and all news outlets need a headline that's going to do well, in social media algorithms.

Social media being a platform that is owned and run by billionaires, which rewards content, which is inflammatory and encourages turn and response. Combat in the comments section. If you can do that, you do well in the algorithm and you survive. It's not my opinion, it's the findings of multiple peer-reviewed articles about social media algorithms. The most recent one being one in Nexus, which is the National Academy of Sciences Journal. 2025, an article called Engagement and User Satisfaction and the amplification of divisive content on social media. The very algorithmic structure of social media sites reward the type of headlines that express the type of neoliberal messaging that takes complex structural issues and frames it as a problem for the individual so that the people at the bottom fight amongst scraps.

I'm fascinated by how all those things align. Alright, let's do our ocarina pause now. I forgot to do the ocarina pause last week. Last week, I even said, I feel like I've forgotten something. It was the ocarina. I never played an ocarina for the first time in almost 500 episodes.

Before that, let's speak about the Patreon. If you enjoy this podcast, if it brings you distraction, information, mirth, merriment, whatever has you listened to this podcast. please consider funding it directly. This is a fully independent podcast. This is my full-time job.

This is how I earn a living. And listener support is how I'm able to deliver a podcast each week, pay my rent, purchase new equipment, replace equipment when it breaks, how I'm able to afford going on tour, everything. This is all because of direct funding

from patrons and Patreon. I'm all right saying patrons, but I can't say Patreon. too Yankee coded I can't do that it has to be Patreon but still I won't call you patrons because I don't think it's a word and it sounds too ecclesiastical

even if it was too close to patrician all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it and for that you get four podcasts a month

but if you can't afford that for whatever reason don't worry about it listen to the podcast for free because the person who's paying is paying for you to listen for free and if you are paying, you're paying for the person who can't afford it to listen for free. Everybody gets the exact same podcast, the exact same experience, whether you pay or not.

And under that model, I get to pay my bills, I get to earn a living. What more could I want? So go to patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast. If you're a new patron, don't do it on the Patreon app on your iPhone, because Apple will take 30%. Do it on the browser on your phone or the browser on a laptop. Listener funding also means I'm not beholden to advertisers, a podcast which is beholden to advertisers, a podcast which relies exclusively on private funding

from advertising companies, from products. Some of those companies might back off. It might express discomfort if a podcast is speaking explicitly about the importance of unions, collective bargaining, striking. That's not really a concern on a listener-funded podcast. Any advertisers on here don't have a say in any shape or form about the content that I make. Also, I'm not overly concerned about the podcast needing to do numbers to keep advertisers happy. Otherwise, I'd be platform and celebrities who I'm not too interested in speaking to. If I'm chatting to someone

on this podcast, it's because I'm genuinely interested in speaking to that person. Upcoming live gigs, I spoke about the tour, England, Scotland and Wales, beginning this Sunday. Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, Glasgow, Gateshead and Nottingham. Finishing on the 1st of November, that is the beautiful tour that I'm about to embark on. It's a privilege to come to your cities and to be your guest, especially if it's like learning about English folklore or Welsh folklore and learning about it. live in front of an audience who's also learning about it and facilitating a space for curiosity. I think the Welsh are all right.

I don't think Welsh people. Welsh people don't have a queasiness or a fear about learning about their language, their folklore, their mythology, but in England, it can be a little bit of a dog whistle for far-right beliefs, for white nationalism.

Like the way it is in Germany or certain Nordic countries. Fuck that. Don't allow racists to co-opt your mythology and folklore. Those stories don't belong to any person. They belong to the land. Rooted in oral culture before writing existed. Stories about mountains, trees, lakes and seasons. You look deep enough they tell us about ecosystems, cycles of nature.

Be curious about your mythology. From that angle, when the stories are connected to the land like that, then they are stories for whoever is on that land right now. It's not nationalistic. Right, what else have we got? Australia and New Zealand in April. Almost sold out. Pardth and Brisbane, they're sold out.

Small amount of tickets left from Melbourne, Sydney Opera House and Auckland. England, Scotland and Wales go to feign.com.ukau. Blindbuy. All other tickets go to the Blindbuy podcast.I.E. Ocarina pause. Oh, that was too high-pitched apologies to any dogs. Okay, you'd have heard an advert there for some bullshit. On the subject of folklore. This Christmas period,

the people of Limerick are trying to bring back our Wren tradition. The Wren takes place on the 26th of December, St. Stephen's Day. People dress up in costumes. The traditional image that you'd have in your head would be people dressing up in straw with masks. They go on a long walk, they play music, sometimes they call door to door to people's houses and ask for donations for charity.

The Wren is a folk custom. It feels pagan. It feels pre-Christian. But also we can't be sure. And it isn't uniquely Irish. The rent takes place on the Isle of Man, takes place in Wales, parts of England, Brittany, southern France, in Galicia, Newfoundland, up there in Canada. It's highly likely that it's very, very old because of those areas that I've just mentioned. Those are what we call the Celtic-speaking regions.

Ronald Hutton, who I'm going to be speaking to in Bristol, he's got a book for 1996. called the stations of the sun, which places which suggest that the Wren might be a pre-Christian winter solstice event. But what we do know is it used to be widely practiced all around Ireland and then it kind of disappears. The one place that kept a really solid Stevens Day ren tradition would be Dingle, Dingle down and Kerry are known for their wren. Limerick hasn't had a wren, a proper Wren since the late 1970s So last year

A group of people who I know Tried to bring the Wren back to Limerick By all accounts it was great crack And I saw footage of it And I contacted the lads that were doing it And I said This is fucking brilliant

But because we haven't had A Wren day Event or walk Or parade Or whatever you want to call it Because of that We don't know what a Limerick Wren Looks like anymore

People used to to dress up in straw and look like wicker men because straw was what was cheap, disposable and readily available. Straw is no longer readily available and cheap in Limerick City. You have to go out of your way to get bales of straw. So I was asked to give some thoughts and ideas about what a Limerick Wren would look like. So I met with them this week to throw a few ideas around about what December 26th would look like this year. And I said an authentic rend day should actually reflect real folklore, contemporary folklore, and stories that are relevant to people's lives in Limerick right now.

So the first idea I pitched was, Did you hear about the Limerick 9-11? Now I'll explain to you what the Limerick 9-11 is. It refers to an incident that happened this September 11th. Last month. Long story short, there's a sex shop in Limerick City. And on the 11th of September, a car crashed into the sex shop and knocked a wall. A large crowd gathered.

And because it happened on the 11th of September, everyone started caught on it, Limerick 9-11. When videos of it started going around on Instagram, I said, Oh, I hope a second car doesn't reverse into the Limerick sex shop. But since the incident happened, I've heard people speaking about it on the street. I've spoken to people about it. People are claiming to have been there who weren't there, and I've heard multiple different, ridiculous stories about what actually unfolded and happened on that day.

They might be true, they might be fictional. We don't know what the fantastical nature of it means. That is now folklore. People are exaggerating and telling stories about a real incident, and now that has separated from what actually happened into what people think is happening. So that's folklore. First off, this fucking...

sex shop. It's been there for more than 30 years. It was legendary because it opened in 1996, I believe. And I remember being a child and suddenly everyone has this great awareness of the sex shop. You couldn't see what was inside. It was the first time I'd seen the word lingerie written down, of course, which I thought was lingerie. They sold condom sex ties and pornographic magazines, probably videos too. My memory of the sex shop, a child. There was a 24-hour candle-lit vigil outside this sex shop for at least one year. Catholics on their hands and fucking knees sang the rosary with candles outside the sex shop, intimidating anyone who would go inside it. Just five minutes around the corner in 1996.

Limerick's Magdalene Laundry, which is a giant Catholic prison for women. young girls who got pregnant out of wedlock. Young girls who might have matured a little bit earlier than other girls and then attracted the intention of perverted old men. Some of those girls were just thrown into the fucking laundry because they were blamed for male attention. Evil shit. The last laundry, magdalen laundry, which I then went on to go to art college in. That closed in 96.

While the first sex shop opened around the corner, when there was rosaries being said outside 24-7. Eventually the rosaries disappeared and by about 1998-99, everyone just accepted. There's a sex shop in Limerick. It's okay. People have sex. People want condoms. People want to see. People having sex on videos or on magazines. By about the year 2000, I was a teenager. but we didn't have we didn't have the internet in our houses

to go to an internet cafe so pornography when I was a teenager you had to take turns running into the sex shop which obviously you weren't allowed into because you're wearing a school uniform and you're under the age of 18

you'd have to storm in there try and look at the covers of as many magazines as possible in about a 10 second time frame then you'd get kicked out and you had to go outside and explain what you saw to your friends and you wouldn't just get kicked out

by the owner sometimes you'd get kicked out by the men who were inside in the sex shop too and something I always remember because it was fucking ridiculous this particular sex shop had I suppose you'd call them wanking boots they were private kiosks

where they were usually like farmers like older farmers from out the country private kiosks This is before internet in people's houses Men used to go into the sex shop Rent out a DVD for like an hour

But not take it home with them Watch it in the sex shop In a private boat And probably tug the belly buttons off themselves But the thing is Because I remember it Because there'd be nothing to do after school There'd be a gang of teenagers outside the sex shop

One person would be given the job the job of, look, just run in, run in, see all that you can see and come out and tell us about it. And when that would happen, and the Yonflah would get chased out by the men who were up in the wanking boots, there was always like one elderly man, one old farmer would run out, and there was always at least one, and half of his face was bright red, and we could never understand it, and then eventually one of the lads figured it out. The sex shop also had tanning boats, the old type of tanning beds that were a bit like a coffin that open up, so they leak a lot of light. So what was happening was.

Some of the old men were going in sitting down, watching their pornographic DVDs in the wanking booth, but then directly beside them to one side. Other men were using the tanning boat. And if you spent too long in the wanking boat, one half, Half of your head would catch non-consensual ultraviolet rays from the tannin booth. And that's why some of the men would run out and half their head would be red. But then, as the years progressed and the shop, everyone gets the internet. So the market for DVDs and magazines disappears. So the sex shop, not just this one, I'm guessing all sex shops, move towards

sex ties, sex dolls, lingerie, all that carry on, which takes us to Limerick 9-11 last month. I don't know how much of this is true because I've heard several different versions of it. This has grown legs, this has become a folklore story. A car definitely reversed into the sex shop and knocked a wall. We know that happened, it was all over social media, we saw it. But apparently, when the wall was knocked,

all the local teenagers came out and started running into the sex shop with the knocked wall at the same time literally a minute away in the milk market there was a very fancy black tide dinner incredibly fancy being done outdoors in the lovely early September sun you're talking eight-course meal and a string quartet limerick trying its absolute best

to be a normal city so while the fancy black-tie outdoor string quartet dinner is going on. A car crashes into the sex shop and then all the teenagers go into the hole in the wall of the sex shop and start dragging out everything. Giant sex dolls,

the realistic ones. Laundiery, sex toys, Gimp costumes, the whole shebang. The teenagers all start drawing the laundry on. Crotchless thongs over their tracksuits. Lads ripping their tops off and wearing leather vests. Strapp on dildos, gimp masks, feather boas,

every fetish gear that you can imagine under the sun and carrying sex dolls. And now there's an army of these fuckers marching towards the incredibly swanky black tide dinner with the string quartet. And they reach and all fucking chaos breaks loose. You have all these grey-haired people in their 60s. trying to enjoy their duck liver patte

and listen to someone playing Vivaldi on a cello and now they're being overrun teenagers jumping up on the tables with big massive strap-on-dil-dos and it sounded like clockwork orange it sounded like clockwork orange and that story starts with did you hear about Limerick 9-11

did you hear about Limerick 9-11 and I heard different versions of that from different people What is true, a car crashed into the sex shop. We know that it knocked a wall. I haven't seen footage of the Black Tide Dildo riot. It might not have happened. Or maybe some element of it did happen.

At this point, I don't think it matters because now it's entered into folklore, as did you hear about Limerick 9-11? And I said to the organizers of the Wren, there's your fucking Wren. I went online and I found footage of the last. Ren, Stevens Day Ren in Limerick, and it was 1977. Mostly kids dressed as like cowboys and Indians. A little bit of straw, but it didn't look pagan.

It didn't look pre-Christian. It looked like kids dressing up on Stephen's Day out of boredom, going on a charity walk, with things that are relevant to him and things that are available. So I pitched to the organizers of the Wren. If you're to do an authentic fucking limerick wren And you're to make it ours Our own thing We're not trying to copy what Dingle are doing

They have their own thing Unbroken tradition If we're going to do a limerick wren Start off with a theme like that Did you hear about the limerick 9-11 And I'm envisioning A combination of Wicker men

Tuxitos Laundier and Fetish Gear And people with one half of their heads painted red in honour of the original wanking booth men which ironically they were doing that around actual 9-11

that would have been around the year 2001 it probably won't happen you know but don't don't come to me don't come to me going blind by we need to improve our wren can we borrow your imagination please

if you come to me that's what you're getting it probably won't happen but it is the way we need to be thinking It's the way we need to be thinking because that's the folklore that's dancing around people's mouths in Limerick City right now that's fucking folklore

no one's written that down it's operating as consistently changing in fluid oral culture stories on the streets that's a story that's born in the mouths and minds of the people of Limerick is it based on what actually happened

possibly but I don't think that's what matters It's the version that the people of Limerick want to believe because it's so much crack and that's how you do an authentic Wren. You're not engaging in heritage now. It's flexible folklore. So I've begun that dialogue and I'll be keeping you up to date. I think if you start thinking that way, Limerick will get its Wren back. That's all I have time for this week.

I hope you enjoyed that. I think this was a phone call. I didn't have a huge amount of time to perform. pair an entire hot take this week because I've been so busy with my play up in the abbey animals which is going to be running until November it started to get good reviews as soon as the Brits got involved which is often the case with Irish art we tend to shit on our own stuff and you have to wait till someone outside gives something a good review but it got an excellent review in in the stage which is I suppose the main theatre critique magazine

over in Britain. And that is important for the cast, the crew, everyone involved who's working in theatre that's a lovely little thumbs up from a publication like that. I'll catch you next week. I'll be on tour. Let's see what I can record in the back of a van.

Or maybe I might find time to visit a museum and do a museum podcast or an art gallery podcast. Also what I want to show it out too, I'm going to appear on a podcast called Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud. She is a legendary fashion designer who does a magnificent podcast.

I spoke last week about the rise of video podcasts and how I'm suspicious of the medium. However, there are some podcasts that are doing something genuinely creative and unique with the video format. One of these is a view from a bridge which I appeared on last week. The other one is

Bella Freud's podcast, fashion neurosis. Bella is, the daughter of the legendary painter Lucien Freud and she is the granddaughter I believe of Sigmund Freud the Sigmund Freud and her podcast takes the form visually of a psychoanalyst's couch and it's very beautiful because the camera is looking down on the person being interviewed and that's incredibly unique and a creative use of video and I was freaked out when I was asked to be on the podcast

I was a bit nervous because it's a fashion podcast and I can't fucking dress myself. I'm terrified of clothes and fashion because it's a form of social communication. When you wear certain clothes, it's not just about comfort, it's about what you can communicate to other people. I got really nervous and worked up

and almost didn't do it because I was going, what the fuck am I going to wear? I can't dress myself. What am I going to wear? Am I going to have to get a suit? And then I chilled the, fuck out and I said, you know what?

What gave me the idea actually was Bella's father, Lucien Freud, incredible portrait painter, but used to paint people not just nude, a profoundly vulnerable form of nudity, honest nudity. And I thought, what is my nudity? And I'm not taking a fucking bag off my head. My nudity is my autism clothes.

clothes. I have an incredibly baggy t-shirt 3xel tracksuit pants, this really baggy shirt, orthopedic crocs. I have a set of clothes

of which I have many, many duplicates and these clothes are chosen exclusively to be worn in private to meet my sensory needs. and none of these clothes are about communicating anything visually to another person

they are all about my unique sensory needs and what allow me to unmask and stim and feel like me when I am on my own and I'm not being seen by anybody other than very close family now everyone has their lounging around the house clothes everyone likes to get into something comfy and sloppy when they're at home on the couch. But for autistic people, it's much, much more.

Our outdoor clothes, our masking clothes, the clothes we wear to appear normal. These things can be unbearable. My school uniform was so fucking itchy that I couldn't concentrate in class. Now I know what that is, but I didn't know then. So I turned up to this fashion podcast. In my autism clothes,

and I spoke about every part. of what I was wearing. And I felt comfortable doing it. And I felt passionate about it. And I had a lot to say about those garments. And that's my nudity. That's what I did on the Fashion Neurosis podcast with Bella Freud. And that should be out this morning.

If you want to get a crack at that. All right, wink at a swan, rub a dog. Genia fleck to a worm. Dog bless.