You'll never beat the Irish - at 'bizarre'

From Dracula to Fr Ted and Boyzone, we have devised some of the most brilliant, but often annoying, things on the planet, says John Daly.

MICHAEL D Higgins’s visit this week to the UK is an historic first for an Irish president and highlights the notion of what it is to be Irish.

While to some people we are an island of frolicking leprechauns dancing crazily to a Boyzone single, to others we are the wicked combination of magic and mania that gave birth to Father Ted, Dracula and U2. Regardless of your Irish tribe — and there are dozens — there’s just no denying we’ve produced some of the brightest, most bizarre, and frequently annoying concoctions of humanity on the face of the Earth.