St. Patrick’s Festival has revealed Tara Flynn (top) as host of SPF TV and Grand Marshal of this year’s virtual Festival.
Nigel Goggins writes:
Get set for some Cork-style hilarity and hijinx as Tara hosts six great virtual days and nights on St. Patrick’s Festival TV (SPF TV), the new dedicated TV channel which will offer more than 100 fantastic, free events from March 12 – 17, in celebration of our national day.
SPF TV will broadcast to 1.1 million homes in Ireland through the Oireachtas TV channel and stream globally at stpatricksfestival.ie, every day from 9.30am through to late night, kicking off this coming Friday and running right up to St. Patrick’s Day.
Irish comic Tara Flynn’ in her You Tube video as Kinsale landlady Máire Uí Bean in today’s Guardian:
“Has anyone ever called you an ignorant, bigoted old bitch,” asks the genial spoof interviewer. “I’d like to see them try with a mouthful of award-winning breakfast,” comes the blithe reply.
Does the comedy approach work? Certainly the issue is being discussed on Tara’s blog, in newspapers, on the radio and on YouTube. Posted last Monday; viewed by 94,000. More than one way to raise a voice.
Comedian Tara Flynn and her African American husband were visiting her hometown Kinsale, Co. Cork recently, during which her husband suffered racial abuse.
Ms Flynn has made a new sketch The Racist B&B because of the incident.
She explains:
“On a recent trip home, I got a reminder that Ireland Of The Welcomes can be conditional. By now very familiar with Kinsale, my (African-American) husband offered to take the dog out for his last walk of the night. I sat chatting with my mum. 20 minutes later, my husband returned. He looked angry. “Well,” he said, “I haven’t been called those names in a while.” A group of young people standing outside a bar in the centre of town had shouted racist epithets at him. Some of those epithets have made it into my clip but we’ve decided to cover them with sound effects. They’re just too vile. They are shocking in the abstract and absolutely horrifying when applied to someone I love. In my hometown. In 2013.
“My husband is a tolerant person. He just stared the namecallers down and they – like most cowards – shut up when faced with this silent challenge. He tried to laugh it off in the re-telling, saying it wasn’t his first time and that he’d heard worse. But that’s not the point. I was mortified. Stunned. Fuming.”
This is the sketch, in which Tara plays a racist B&B owner Máire Uí Bean an Tí.
Choice quote:
“We try and turn people away before they get here, if possible. We don’t want to disappoint anyone. So we ask them a few questions on the phone, like ‘Do you take the sun well?’ or ‘Could you clap along to this Michael Jackson track?’ And if they have fantastic rhythm or if they sound a bit tanned, we tell them that there’s a festival on. That we’re full.”
Tara Flynn’s uncompromising take on the proposed abortion panel.
Featuring ‘rick idol Moynes (top right) as himself.
Starring :Tara Flynn, Luke Griffin, Dermot Magennis, John Moynes, Kevin McGahern and Giles Brody; Director of Photography: Conor O’Toole; Sound: Donnacha O’Brien;;; Continuity: Charlene Craig; Directed by Diarmuid O’Brien. Mr Moyne’s pants: Model’s own.
Directed and edited by Chris Lincé; Cinematography by Tim Jordan; Make-up: Bella Noell
Production assistant: Nicola Lincé Produced by Mary Flynn, Tara Flynn & Chris Lincé; Bicycle consultant/wrangler: Terry Bergin
