'A lot of my shtick is Cork versus Kerry': Ballyclough comedian Cornelius Patrick O’Sullivan  

Cornelius Patrick O’Sullivan is best known for his GAA-based comedy, but his current show was inspired by the family's experience around his son's diagnosis with autism 

Cork comedian Cornelius Patrick O'Sullivan.

Cornelius Patrick O’Sullivan was working in London running a bar about 20 years ago. Mondays were his day off. He persuaded a couple of his Monday drinking buddies to enrol in a six-week comedy course in Stratford. It would be something to keep them out of the pub on their day off. His friends didn’t get the memo about staying sober, however.

On the first day at the course, they were ejected for being tipsy. O’Sullivan stayed sober and stayed the course, which concluded with him delivering a stand-up gig at an old Victorian theatre. He was smitten; the bug had bitten. It brought him back to his days as a teenager performing on stage with the Mallow Pilgrim Players musical society.

“From age 12 or 13, every year I was involved in a Pilgrim Players production until I was around 20-ish,” says O’Sullivan. “I enjoyed being on stage, the applause, going out afterwards, the camaraderie, the craic involved in and around the whole thing. When I’m at a gig, it always feels like being in school, on your 11 o'clock break, having a game of soccer. Then when the bell goes, the break is over — or the gig is over, and I have to come home — and I have to get back into reality.”

O’Sullivan grew up in Ballyclough, five miles from Mallow. After his stint in London, he came back to Co Cork and has been running the Co-Co Comedy Club at the Roundy Bar in Cork City since 2010. He’s living in Killavullen these days — 20 minutes’ drive on the other side of Mallow from his hometown — with his Kerry wife, Noelle, and their three boys.

“A lot of my online videos are GAA-based, and as my wife is from Kerry a lot of my shtick is Cork versus Kerry. Not only in sport, but in general. Kerry is always trying to get the upper hand on Cork and Cork is always trying to get the upper hand on Kerry. I'm up and down to Kerry the whole time, so I'm immersed in that type of a sound that comes out of Kerry people. It's hard to pick up, and to understand. I have Google Translate with me a lot of the time!” 

 Cornelius Patrick O'Sullivan, wife Noelle, and sons, Hunter and Harvey (with medal).

There could be rich material to be mined from Cork’s new, shoot-from-the-hip hurling manager Ben O’Connor, who lit up social media over the weekend with his “on the edge” sermon after Cork’s seven-point victory over Tipperary in the league at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, a game O’Sullivan attended with his dad.

“He sure did some absolute box office interviews after the match,” says O’Sullivan. “I've been looking at him, studying his head, wondering where can we go with this? The only thing stopping me slightly is how much I like the guy. If I start taking the mickey out of him, will I get invited back to Newtownshandrum for a cup of tea? At the same time, you have to draw a line [and do your job as a comedian]. We'll see how the year pans out.” 

O’Sullivan performed his first show two and a half years ago. He’s currently touring his second show, entitled Pull Hard. “Pull hard is a hurling term: ‘pull hard or don’t pull at all’, just pull hard, give it your best,” he says.

The show is inspired by the journey his family has been on since O’Sullivan’s middle child, Harvey, was diagnosed with autism aged four. “It's about that process and the feelings parents will encounter when their world is turned upside down and you get a diagnosis like this. It evolves into how we reacted, how we adapted to it. We used the GAA as a crutch to help us cope. It starts off as a tragedy and it ends up with a hopeful message, and it's wrapped in a rasher of laughter and silliness.

“I talk about my other two boys. I talk about Harvey. Harvey's my favourite. You’re allowed to have a favourite if you've three kids. That's written under the placenta when the baby comes out. I go into the journey of Harvey and how amazing he was. Then Noelle started to spot signs. I was in denial.

"She’d say: ‘He's got a few of the traits.’ I was like: ‘What traits?’ I'd be rebutting the obvious, distinct traits she’d be listing. I'm like: ‘Well, what about his lack of eye contact? You're from Kerry — sure in Kerry, ye never look at anyone, you know?’”

• Cornelius Patrick O’Sullivan’s Pull Hard is at Killarney’s INEC Arena (Friday, February 13) and Cork Opera House (February 14). See: corneliuspatrickosullivan.com