Séamas O'Reilly: Laughter is the best medicine for the Burkes' loathsome behaviour

'There’s not much I can say about Enoch Burke and his family that hasn’t been said better, and indeed funnier, elsewhere — there is, in fact, not much I can say about them that hasn’t already been said about the bubonic plague'

Seamas O'Reilly. Picture: Orfhlaith Whelan

Mark Twain said, “against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand”. 

It’s a nice line, all the nicer for the fact that Twain did actually say it — on this occasion, in his unfinished novel The Mysterious Stranger — making it a genuine quote of his and, therefore, rare among roughly 95% of quotes attributed to him online.