Colm O'Regan: Late Late Toy Show star Jacky McCullough put Dripsey on the mention map
It never fails to thrill: The Mention. Whenever the name of my home village gets is printed or said in the media, my heart gives a flutter.
Before social media, small villages and townlands weren’t mentioned as much. There were simply not so many places to mention them. There was the paper, the telly and maybe someone might write a local history. Or on signposts. And there weren’t even that many signposts for Dripsey. Its location was on a need-to-know basis. And not many needed to know.
Small places didn’t feature so much. Even though we had some notables. People will tell you they had a blanket from Dripsey woollen mills. (You can still buy the blue and white design classics on adverts.ie.) Next year you’ll hear about how it’s 100 years since the Dripsey ambush. We had a Victorian murder. The last man hanged in Cork Gaol, Doctor Cross. You can see the house from our haggart. My father would show visitors the murder scene across the valley. (It was featured in a musical a few years ago starring Patrick Bergin. But more about smouldering Irish Hollywood stars later.)
The mentions reduced in the 1980s. The woollen mill closed. We had to make our own mentions.
As time went on, there were more mentions: the garden centre, the soccer team, the famous 25-yard St Patrick’s Day parade, the GAA team. In modern times we have world-wide fame with the country music singer in America and the lads in the video for Hozier’s song about needing a lift to Mass. Inniscarra Dam itself is in the video. Technically not Dripsey, but it was Dripsey land they flooded so we’ll take it. The teenage boxer pro-fighting in Tijuana. Like a young Hemingway, if Hemingway had to go home to do the Leaving. (I’m sure I’ve left someone out. I’ll be KILT.)
Some recent mentions take you right back. Gabriel Byrne was on the Ray Darcy radio show a few weeks ago. Someone rang in asking did he remember making a film in 1983 in Dripsey?
A village held its breath. Gabriel Byrne making a film in Dripsey Castle is Old School-Mention. It was called Reflections, an early Channel 4 film which meant two things: meaningful silences and plenty of riding. The latter came as a surprise to many Dripsey families who allowed children to stay up late to watch it and saw the bould boy from Bracken in a ménage a trois-and-a-bit with members of a wealthy family in decline. Confirming all our hopes and dreams about what goes on in big houses.
Gabriel Byrne said it was one of the happiest times he ever spent on set. YES! Dripsey got a good mention. Well done everyone.
I thought that was it for the time being. Until the night of the Toy Show. First, Christine Naughton who was a couple of years ahead of me in school bakes a Toy Show cake that goes viral. Then there was Jacky McCullough. The fella in the waistcoat and tie who is the classic triple threat – snooker, trains and comedy. He said one of the greatest lines ever delivered on the Late Late.
“How are things in Dripsey?” asked Ryan.
“Ah, not great. There's nothing close to us, anything close is closed.” The little man didn’t come to play. He nailed Level 5 rural Ireland in a sentence.
The Irish Times didn’t list him in their review of the show which I can only put down to Dublin jealousy. It doesn’t matter. I’m giving him, and Dripsey, The Mention.
