Wacky Eire

by Geraldine Comiskey

Overview

Welcome to Wacky Eire - it's stranger than fiction. Imagine RTÝ's Nationwide crossed with the cult series Eurotrash, or BBC's Country File mixed with Father Ted . . . Now imagine it as a book of true stories, written by an insider who has travelled the length and breadth of Ireland seeking out the weird, the wacky, the raunchy and the downright shocking . . . this is Wacky Eire. In this hilarious account on modern Irish life, Sunday World journalist Geraldine Comiskey takes the reader on an outrageous romp through the real Ireland - where ancient traditions and modern obsessions make lively bedfellows and where people will constantly surprise you. From naughty farmers, animal antics and dodgy faith-healers to secret swingers and strippers, from scandalous exposés to charming vignettes of rural life, Wacky Eire is the naked face of modern Ireland.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781907593680
Publisher:	Liberties Press
Publication date:	09/01/2012
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	465 KB

About the Author

GERALDINE COMISKEY is the Sunday World’s roving reporter, rooting out Ireland’s wackiest stories. Her best-known scoop for the Sunday paper was the Thierry Henry doorstep ‘ambush’, when she appeared on the front pages of nearly every newspaper in the world, and TV news bulletins from Bogotá to Bangkok. Geraldine had her first news story published at the age of 14, in the Evening Herald and since then has worked for a variety of regional and national papers, including The Irish Times, Irish Daily Star, Irish Daily Mirror, Irish Sun, Sunday Tribune and The Irish Press, amongst many others. As the Irish Daily Star’s adventure correspondent, she had many wacky assignments including: getting set on fire by stuntmen, dancing on the wings of a World War II bi-plane, joining a circus trapeze troupe, and learning to shoot with the elite Garda ERU. Outside her life as a journalist, she has had many jobs, including a stint as a TEFL teacher in Italy, which she expanded into interpretation and translation work with her fluent Italian.

Editorial Reviews

Comiskey, a reporter for the Irish tabloid Sunday World, drew on her strangest assignments while compiling this look at modern Ireland. The stories are hit or miss-some are truly "wacky" and fascinating, while others are nothing new-but she covers a whole range of subjects, from an island invaded by giant rhubarb, to the annual redhead convention, to a supernatural "poltergoat". Occasionally, Comiskey fails to provide enough context for her stories, as in "Cockerels and Chainmail," leaving the reader more lost than entertained. Her writing is extremely pun-heavy and colloquial, and each chapter stands on its own, rather than as a piece in a unified work. The tone works for the most part, but the heavy use of Irish slang and unexplained Irish pop culture references will likely confound an American audience; such a language barrier may discourage some readers, while some stories, like the one about the Father Ted festival, may go completely over non-Irish heads. However, for those intimately familiar with the emerald isle, Comiskey is an enjoyable narrator and her fun stories should ease some nostalgia.
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Publishers Weekly