Bernard Casey on his new book 'Local Gossip'

Ciara Kelly (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman. On Newstalk, with Ciara.

Shane Colman (0:10)

Okay, we're delighted to be joined now by comedian Bernard Casey to discuss his new book, Local Gossip, which explores the very backbone of rural Ireland, GAA obsessions and small town gossip depicted by his Kerry characters. Bernard, you're very welcome to The Hard Shoulder. Congratulations on the book. Tell us what Local Gossip is about.

Bernard Casey (0:32)

So Local Gossip is a series of short stories and tall tales from over the road. And it stars four characters in total, but primarily two, which are Local Gossip, a man in his late sixties, a bachelor who's home from England and is kind of up to date with everything that's going on. Although bachelor, a lot of people, he's quite sharp. He knows everything that's going on. He knows the record. He knows who objected to the school's extension, if you get me. And I think his sidekick then is his nephew, who's called Nephew. That is his name. We think we're kind of going for a bit of a Whitnell and I kind of thing here. I like it. But Nephew then is a 17 year old aspiring county miner. Now I say aspiring, but in vertical commas, he's a little bit deluded, but not that deluded, if you get me. I think when people read the story, they'll understand, they're like, oh my God, that was me. I was like that at 16, 17

In GAA, all you have to be is not bad.

You don't have to be the best. You don't have to be the next David Clifford because when people remember you and they say, oh, Shane Colman, was he any good? He wasn't bad.

Shane Colman (1:47)

He wasn't bad.

Bernard Casey (1:48)

You know, that's not that's all right. And that's nephew kind of knows that. But he he still wants he will do anything to get a county minor trial. He just wants to get in in and around the county minors. And in the book, he gets up to a lot of very devious, suspicious and quite manipulative tactics that move that enable him to get all with hilarious consequences of course. But they are the main characters.

Shane Colman (2:17)

I get it because I think we all wanted to say, I played a bit of minor with the county. All right. We have every every young fella. And now I know young woman wants to be able to say that.

Bernard Casey (2:27)

You're going to be brought over to New York for the summer page.

Ciara Kelly (2:30)

Yeah, that's all you want.

SPEAKER_4 (2:31)

If you play minor, bring them over, get them a job and digs.

Shane Colman (2:37)

There are other characters in the book as well.

Ciara Kelly (2:39)

Do you want to tell us about them as well?

Bernard Casey (2:41)

There are, yes.

One of the more popular characters, the characters I do, Local Gossip and Nephew, I've been making videos on them for many, many years and built up a good following with them. And I brought them live on stage with my stage shows and everything. People have enjoyed it. But a lot of people were fascinated by the other characters that I created. Kevin, who is Nephew's first cousin. And Kevin sees the world very differently. He's not like the others. The other characters are kind of, they're sure of themselves and they're quite confident and cocky, but behind it all, it's all hot air. But Kevin is a little bit different.

He sees things for the way he wants to see them. And, you know, he has his own.

He's quite blunt. He's quite dull. Some people will say he's boring. But he has a wonderful way of observing things quite directly. And his father then is Gerard, who was Local Gossip's brother. And Gerard is a character that every community has. The fella above in Dublin and nobody knows what he's at. You know, what does he work at? I don't know. It's something to do with computers. No, no, it's construction items, is it? He's like, I don't know. And when he comes down, he's got a swagger about himself.

Shane Colman (3:55)

A little shady even?

Bernard Casey (3:57)

Well, nitty. We're not sure. Even in the stories, you'll read Gerard's story, you're like, hang on a second now. This is, and that's it with a lot of characters.

And people have said it to me, they were like, it's like when there's a family wedding and a family, they all look the same. And then you're like, hang on, who's that lad? They're like, oh, that's George. I never saw him before. Oh, he lives up to country. Yeah, yeah, just you wouldn't know what he'd be as. You know, oh, he's a George Wright boy.