Tracing the real people in Brian Friel's ‘first great Irish play'
had a healthy suspicion of journalists. A reporter once described how, when asked to reflect on the success of one of his plays, he did 'a touching impersonation of an opossum playing dead at the approach of danger'.
Still, in February 1963, when a journalist from the Belfast Telegraph caught up with him, Friel was frank about his work in progress. He was writing a play called The Ballad of Ballybeg but didn't know if he'd ever finish it: 'I have been working at it for six months and so far my characters aren't moving.'
His ambition, he added, was to write 'the great Irish play': 'Such a play is one where the author can talk so truthfully and accurately about people in his own neighbourhood … so that these folks could be living in Omagh, Omaha or Omansk.'
A few weeks later, the 34-year-old left for Minneapolis, where over several months as an 'observer' at the Guthrie Theater he honed his craft. On his return home, he and his wife Anne took their children to the Rosses of west Donegal. And there, near Kincasslagh, which comprised little more than O'Boyle's shop and Logue's hotel (in truth, a bar), the Ballad of Ballybeg became Philadelphia, Here I Come!
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The play spans the night and morning before the emigration of Gar O'Donnell, a young man conflicted about both his imminent departure and his relationship with his emotionally inarticulate father, Screwballs, a county councillor and proprietor of a general store. Philadelphia opened at the Dublin Theatre Festival to a rapturous reception in September 1964. It moved to Broadway in 1966, where it ran for 324 performances and won several Tony Awards, including that for Best Play.
Friel had written his first 'great Irish play'.
Screwballs
Main Street, Glenties, Co Donegal. Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/The New York Times
Philadelphia was the first play Friel set in 'Ballybeg'. Among the others are Translations (1980) and his best-loved work, Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), whose run at Dublin's 3Olympia finishes this weekend. And because of the symmetry between Lughnasa's characters and the lives of his mother's people in Glenties, there is a tendency to assume 'Ballybeg' represents that southwest Donegal town.
But then, as Friel intimated to the Belfast Telegraph, Ballybeg is Anywhere. Well, it is Anywhere – and it is not. In Philadelphia, for instance, the stage directions for the shopkeeper-cum-county councillor's entrance are as follows: 'SB appears at the shop door. He is in his late 60s. Wears a hat, a good dark suit, collar and tie, black apron. SB O'DONNELL is a responsible, respectable citizen.'
In notes on characters in an early draft, Friel remarks of Screwballs: 'Aged in his 60s. Hat. Daniel E O'Boyle.' It is a clear reference to Daniel E O'Boyle (1873–1958), the proprietor of the general store in Kincasslagh, who was a county councillor from 1925 through 1950, and who, just like Screwballs, had a younger wife.
The Master
Daniel E O'Boyle with his wife Annie O'Rawe, the daughter of a Falls Road publican, and their son Ted. Photograph: Courtesy of Breandán Mac Suibhne
Daniel E O'Boyle died in 1958. However, at least one other character in Philadelphia was based on somebody who was alive in the 1960s: Master Boyle, who drops into Screwball's to say goodbye to Gar. And to rant about the priest trying to get him fired: 'Enter MASTER BOYLE from the scullery. He is around 60, white-haired, handsome, defiant. He is shabbily dressed; his eyes, head, hands, arms are constantly moving – he sits for a moment and rises again – he puts his hands in his pockets and takes them out again – his eyes roam around the room but see nothing.'
Boyle has a gift for Gar, a volume of his poems: 'I had them printed privately last month.' Public Gar appears genuinely touched. But Private Gar, his alter ego, who has been sneering at Master Boyle, is dismissive: 'He's nothing but a drunken aul schoolmaster – a conceited, arrogant washout.'
Master Boyle may seem a stock character. Indeed, in 1966 Friel himself said: 'All my characters are the stock ones of Irish plays … I use the stock people and then have to make something of them.' Still, young fellows who rocketed from the west of Ireland to college in bright cities sometimes burned up on re-entry. And if the drunken schoolmaster with frustrated ambitions was a stock character in Irish literature, he was a familiar figure in many small towns.
In an early draft Friel named the person who was in his mind's eye when conjuring Master Boyle: 'The local teacher Dominick Kelly, brilliant, mad, touting his book of privately printed poems; years ago he urged Gar to 'clear out' and now that Gar is escaping the teacher turns mean through jealousy.'
Dominic Ó Ceallaigh or O'Kelly (1900–70) was once considered 'brilliant' and he was what people in the 1960s called 'mad'. The son of schoolmaster, he trained for the priesthood, studying in Rome in 1915–18, but abandoned the idea after completing a degree in Philosophy.
Returning to Ireland, he joined the IRA. A severe beating from Black and Tans left him deaf in one ear.
After the Civil War, in which he took the anti-Treaty side, he taught in various schools in Dublin, including stints in Belvedere and Blackrock, before becoming principal of Finglas National School and then, in 1930, principal in Rush.
In 1933, he left Rush to become principal of Dungloe National School, settling in Kincasslagh, where his wife Úna, herself a teacher, was appointed to a position in the local school. Úna O'Kelly (née Turner) was a native of Gortalowry, CoTyrone, where she had been taught by Friel's aunt, Kate MacLoone.
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Anne Friel on her late husband playwright Brian: 'I was crazy about him. He was everything'
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O'Kelly was active in Fianna Fáil, attending ardfheiseanna as a constituency delegate. Indeed, he was master of ceremonies in 1937 at a Fianna Fáil Aeraíocht, cultural festival, on Narin Strand when eight-year-old Brian Friel was among the performers.
And then things came undone. On the morning of July 17th 1939, O'Kelly left Kincasslagh on the mail car to go to his school in Dungloe – it was the holidays – and when he arrived home at 4.45pm he clearly had drink taken. He took his dinner, and then at 6.00pm said was going to get the paper at Daniel E O'Boyle's, a stone's throw from the house. After 15 minutes there, he crossed the road to Logue's.
On arrival home at 10.00pm, 'very drunk', he picked a row with his wife when he was unable to tune the wireless. Then he viciously attacked her, punching and kicking her unconscious. A priest was called to administer the last rites to her. According to court records, O'Kelly called him a 'baldy-headed bastard' and ordered him out of the house.
Arrested in Belcruit on July 24th, O'Kelly was removed to Sligo Gaol and brought to court three days later, charged with inflicting grievous bodily harm on his wife and indecently assaulting one of the maids, a young girl. A trial date was set for mid-October and O'Kelly remanded in custody.
Catherine Walsh (as Madge), Shane O'Regan (Gar Public), Alex Murphy (Gar Private) and Seamus O'Rourke (Screwballs/SB O'Donnell) in a 2021 production of 'Philadelphia' at Cork Opera House. Photograph: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision
However, on August 17th he was released on bail to Letterkenny Asylum. In October, a doctor testified in court that he was unfit to plead: 'He was suffering from a certain amount of depression and confusion, and a certain amount of loss of memory.'
Press reports at the time show the judge ruled O'Kelly was 'not of sound mind' and returned him to the asylum. There he remained until February 1941, when a jury deemed him sane. He now pleaded guilty to three charges relating to the assault on his wife; the indecent assault charge had been dropped. The judge sentenced him to three months in Sligo Gaol.
Úna O'Kelly, meanwhile, moved with their children to Ramelton, north Donegal, where her brother Seán was an established solicitor, and resumed her teaching career.
By 1943, Dominic O'Kelly was back teaching, at the Prior School, a Protestant secondary school, in Lifford. He taught there until 1948, when he returned to primary teaching in CoSligo as principal of St John's Well and then, in 1950, of Geevagh, a three-teacher school, moving a few years later to Claremorris, Co Mayo. After a car hit him in 1959, he retired early to Downings, north Donegal.
O'Kelly knew no shame. Since his release from prison, he had been a regular contributor of verse to the regional press, especially the Derry Journal
.
In 1960 he published, like Master Boyle, a collection of his poetry, Sky, Sea, Sod. It was available from the printer, the Donegal Democrat, and from himself for 10 shillings and sixpence. His short introduction alludes to his 'undermined career' and there is a marked note of grievance in several poems, notably the 30-verse 'Death by Despair (How a Man Might Die in a Mental Hospital)', which includes his self-pitying account of his attack on his wife.
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'Glenties is the stage': Brian Friel's Donegal
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Dominic O'Kelly died in 1970. An obituary in the Derry Journal lamented the passing of a man of 'giant intellect', a 'most lovable and entertaining character', and a 'poet of outstanding genius'. Preceding it on the very same page was an interview with Friel on plans to make a film of Philadelphia. Friel alone likely got the irony.
Other characters
Translations: Brenda Scallon and Liam Neeson in the original production of Brian Friel's play in the Guildhall, Derry, in 1980. Photograph: Rod Tuach
The solicitor who represented O'Kelly in 1939–41 was Pa O'Donnell (1907–70) of Burtonport, a UCD-educated lawyer, who was subsequently a Fine Gael TD (1949–70) and minister for local government (1954–57). Although not mentioned by name in Friel's drafts, might O'Donnell have been the model for the UCD-educated Senator Doogan in Philadelphia? Perhaps.
Certainly, other Rosses notables inspired characters in Friel's 'Ballybeg' plays. In a draft of Translations, for instance, Friel describes the Ballybeg hedge-schoolmaster as 'a kind of dissipated Eunan O'Donnell'.
Eunan O'Donnell (1923–99), who had an MA in Classics, had established a fee-paying secondary school in Dungloe in 1956. And when free education was introduced, and it was decreed that Dungloe was to have a vocational school, with an emphasis on the trades, not a secondary school, with an emphasis on academic subjects, he left to teach in Gonzaga in Dublin.
In the play, Hugh O'Donnell, the Greek- and Latin-speaking hedge-schoolmaster is uncomfortable with the incoming national schools. He remembers, how, in 1798, he and Jimmy Jack, a 60-year-old who knew the classics and not much else, had marched, with the Aeneid in their pockets, before getting drunk in Phelan's pub in Glenties. There, overcome by the desiderium nostrorum (the need for our own), they resolved to march home. 'And that was the longest 23 miles back I ever made.'
Glenties, before the road was straightened in recent years, was 23 miles from Kincasslagh.
So Ballybeg isn't Glenties any more, Toto, it is Kincasslagh?
No, Dorothy: Ballybeg is Anywhere, but populated in Philadelphia and Translations with characters modelled on people in the Rosses where Brian Friel holidayed from the 1950s.
Breandán Mac Suibhne is a
historian at the University of Galway. He is writing a book on the individuals on whom the characters in Dancing at Lughnasa are based.
A new 35th anniversary production of Dancing at Lughnasa opens on August 1st at St Columba's Comprehensive School in Glenties, near the house in which was play was set.
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Irish Times
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- Irish Times
Gourmet getaways: The best places to eat and drink in Kenmare
There's no shortcut to Kenmare – you've got to earn it street by street. Past the houses still marked with an 'L' over the door – the Lansdowne estate symbol – past the dates carved into granite lintels, past the shops run by the people who live above them. The Co Kerry town shaped by continuity, where the line between home and business is often a staircase, and where almost everything worth eating is made by someone who lives within shouting distance of the kitchen. Karen Coakley's Kenmare Foodie Tours is the best way in. The stops change depending on the day, but what holds is the format: a short walk, a direct introduction, a story and a lot of food. The Brennans are first. At Brook Lane Hotel, it's a husband-and-wife team. Úna runs the floor and Dermot does the food – not just in the kitchen, but on the land. Their saddleback pigs are raised a few kilometres away, free-range and fed seaweed for immunity. They're slaughtered locally, and Dermot processes the meat himself – the white pudding, the sausages, the terrines. The tasting on the tour, hosted by their daughter, Megan, includes slow-cooked pork ribs, a sausage roll – rich, flaky, pork–heavy – and a warm slice of pudding with a house–made brown sauce. At their town restaurant, No 35, the same pork turns up as burgers, roast joints and black pudding salad. The next stop is Heidi Ryan's, a food shop named after the owners' grandmothers – Heidi and Ryan. Sabine von Burg is Swiss and Aidan Slevin is from Tipperary. The shop began as a farmers' market stall. It's now one of the best food shops in Ireland, in terms of both sourcing and simplicity. Vegetables come from Billy Clifford and from Mary, a grower in Killarney. There are duck eggs, foraged mushrooms, apple juice from nearby farms and vinegar by Fionntán Gogarty, who left architecture for fermentation after the crash. Charcuterie is by Olivier Boucher, and cheeses by Gubbeen, Coolea, Durrus and Lost Valley Dairy. Everything is sold by weight or portion – minimal packaging, no waste. If you want a wedge of cheese, you say how much. READ MORE Then to Maison Gourmet. It's a small, daytime cafe with highly coveted outdoor seats and an indoor seating area to the back. It looks like a French patisserie because it is – started in 2016 by Emma and Patrick Peuch, who moved to Kenmare when their sons began working at The Park Hotel (one a chef, one in training). They launched with one French pastry chef. Now, during high season, the team runs to more than 20, with a full rota of overnight bakers and counter staff. The croissants are laminated with French butter – they tried Kerrygold early on, but it was too soft to hold structure. The starter for the sourdough is kept alive daily – even taken on holiday. Cakes, tarts, brioches and patisserie are made fresh on site, and there is a tantalising array of millefeuille, pear amandine, strawberry tarts and eclairs in the glass display shelves. From pastry to chocolate. Benoit Lorge, from Lorraine in France, and his partner, Yolanda Serrano from Madrid, run a tiny chocolate shop, Lorge Chocolatier, farther down the street, offering some of Ireland's best small–batch chocolates. They are produced less than a kilometre from where they're sold. The tasting includes milk chocolate with local cream, dark chocolate with tonka bean, and black garlic praline that is intense and balanced, not at all gimmicky. Lorge uses beans from west Cork roaster Dave Barber and Beara sea salt in his caramels. The hot chocolate is made from couverture and draws swimmers and walkers year round. [ Gourmet Getaways: The best places to eat and drink on a weekend break in Galway Opens in new window ] Blasta Cafe is run by Martin Hallissey, in the house where he grew up. His mother is Maura Foley, one of Kenmare's most renowned chefs. She headed up the kitchen at The Limetree before moving on in the 1990s to open Packie's. Hallissey subsequently took over as chef there. It has since closed, and his new environment is filled with pastries – savoury and sweet – from pork and leek swirls in puff pastry to rhubarb crumble tartlets and bread-and-butter pudding with raspberries. Cakes include old–school favourites like lemon drizzle cake, rhubarb and almond, and chocolate biscuit cake. There are a few seats outside, perfect for people watching as you eat. Patrick and Emma Puech, who came to Kenmare to visit their son seven years ago, and never left, opening Maison Gourmet on Henry Street. Photograph: Valerie O'Sullivan Chocolatier Benoit Lorge at work on a giant Easter egg. Photograph: Andrew Downes Martin Hallissey at Blasta cafe The last stop on the tour is the Tom Crean Brewery. It's run by Aileen Crean O'Brien and her husband, Bill Sheppard, and is named after Aileen's grandfather, the Antarctic explorer. The beers are brewed on site, powered by solar, and infused with story as much as flavour. Their Expedition Red Ale marked the family's own journey to South Georgia. Kerry Surf & Turf is brewed with seaweed and boiled turf to give an ancient taste of Kerry. Six Magpies Stout and St Brigid's Lager both picked up national awards. All the beers are additive–free, vegan and brewed in small batches in a modest space behind the restaurant. The taproom is open 5pm–7pm and Saturday tours run at 3pm. That's the loop. And it's not just a trail of independent producers – it's a mirror of the town. Nearly every stop is run by a couple, or is a generational handover, or someone who came here once, fell for the town and simply never left. [ Gourmet getaways: The best places to eat and drink in Connemara Opens in new window ] Across the street from the Tom Crean Brewery, the Lansdowne Hotel is where you stay if you want to be in the middle of it all. Patrick and Aileen Hanley took it over in 2024. It was where Patrick grew up; his mother used to cook in the hotel when he was young. There's no spa, no pool – just good rooms, a relaxed cafe and the Shelbourne Street restaurant, which has a separate entrance from the street. The Nead, the light‑flooded hotel cafe, serves an impressive full Irish breakfast using quality produce and has an all‑day menu. The outside terrace – which captures the sun early in the day – is particularly popular. The Shelbourne Street Restaurant is quite a step above what you might expect – more town restaurant than hotel diningroom. On the menu you will find dishes such as chicken liver pâté with Heir Island bread (Aileen trained there), Tom Crean lager‑battered cod and a particularly good smoked bacon chop with charred cabbage. It's the sort of unfussy food that you often want to eat on holiday, and clearly there's a competent chef in the kitchen. Dining at the Park Hotel, Kenmare Across the road, Park Hotel Kenmare changed hands in late 2023, when Bryan Meehan acquired the property from the Brennan brothers. Since then the art collection – which is being added to on what seems like a daily basis – immediately signals a big change in direction. Gone are the ancestral portraits and in come Dorothy Cross, Sean Scully and Theaster Gates. The first piece to go up – The Rose by Michael Craig‑Martin – replaced a Victorian portrait, a relic of English rule. More than 80 works hang throughout the hotel, with a guided art tour running daily. Gates's powerful work, made from repurposed fire hoses of the kind once turned on civil rights protesters, and Dorothy Cross's foxglove bronze, cast from her own fingers, are prominent in the lobby. The fine-dining restaurant, The Landline (which is open to non‑residents), takes its name from a Scully painting and matches the tone with its food. Dinner might open with a seaweed tart filled with crab. Local prawns are paired with confit chicken, and a pea velouté is poured tableside over the ham hock. A lamb dish includes rump, sausage and shoulder inside a morel, and the meal finishes with a beautiful raspberry soufflé with crème Anglaise and ice cream. Brendan Byrne at Lagom Restaurant, Henry Street. Photograph: Valerie O'Sullivan Sheen Falls Hotel, Kenmare Just around the corner, Brendan and Liz Byrne run Lagom. The name comes from the Swedish word meaning 'just the right amount' – a guiding principle here. The space reflects it with pale woods, birch saplings, soft light and clean lines. The menu is short, the food cooked almost entirely on a Big Green Egg. A squid ink crab croustade with cucumber and dillisk is sharp and theatrical. Goat's cheese tortellini arrive in beetroot borscht. A lamb rump is oak‑seared and plated with cannelloni and roast apple. Vegetables get equal billing – miso‑glazed carrots, baby broccoli and great roast potatoes. Dessert is a semifreddo with Champagne‑marinated rhubarb, served as an 'iceberger' sandwich between slices of gingerbread. A wonderful way to finish. [ Gourmet getaway: The best places to eat and drink on a weekend break in Limerick Opens in new window ] Sheen Falls Lodge sits just outside town, with a spectacular view overlooking the river Sheen. Mark Treacy is head chef at The Falls restaurant, delivering precise, produce‑led dishes rooted in classical technique. The large terrace at the more casual restaurant, The Stable Brasserie, is a bit of a secret, so worth heading to on a sunny day when outside tables are perpetually full in Kenmare. Farther afield is The Boathouse Bistro on the waterfront at Dromquinna Manor estate. Up early, Bean & Batch is where you go for coffee and breakfast. Jamie O'Connell and his husband, John Hallissey, opened it in 2022. The ovens in their nearby bakery crank up at 3.30am. The egg salad sandwich is delicious in that old‑fashioned way – chopped egg, tomato, onion, and lettuce on white batch bread. Sausage rolls are pork and apple, wrapped in crisp pastry. Lemon tarts layer curd and sponge. John's mother's apple tart is always on. Definitely one to order. For something old‑school and with a view, head to Josie's, looking out on to Glanmore Lake with a stunning backdrop of the Caha Mountains. There are picnic benches for al-fresco dining, and a south‑facing window catches the evening light. The well‑priced menu includes langoustines in garlic butter, fish and chips and a memorable dish of Irish stew with deeply flavoured lamb. Dessert is a jelly‑heavy trifle, which could do with a further splash of sherry for a truly home-made flavour. [ Eat your way across Mayo: From garden to grill, the county is fast becoming a food destination Opens in new window ] Farther west, Helen's Bar sits close to the water at Kilmackillogue Harbour, with a substantial number of picnic tables on Bunaw Pier. The open crab sandwich on soda bread with Marie Rose sauce and salad is the thing to order. Mussels, scallops, and fish and chips round out the menu. From there, head down the coast road to An Síbín in Lauragh – a former 1762 coaching inn now run by Katherine Murphy as an atmospheric wine bar and restaurant, with stone walls, wood‑burning stove and low ceilings. The menu mixes local with farther afield: house‑made ravioli, flatbreads, jamón Ibérico, braised beef, mussels, and fish and chips. An Sibín The Buddhist centre of Dzogchen Beara in Co Cork offers stunning views of Bantry Bay. Photograph: For another kind of detour, head to Dzogchen Beara, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat at Garranes on the Beara Peninsula. Set on 150 acres, it has a spectacular view overlooking the Atlantic. It was founded in 1974 by Peter and Harriet Cornish, who donated the property to a charitable trust; it is a joy to know that the expanse of ethereal beauty will be preserved. The vegetarian cafe serves soups and salads made from what's grown on‑site, with freshly made bread. You can stay the night if there are cottages available, or just eat and walk. Finally there's a bottle of vermouth that turns up on several drinks lists around Kenmare – and on Karen's tour if the timing's right. Valentia Island Vermouth is made by Anna and Orla Snook O'Carroll, who began by steeping foraged gorse and orange peel in jam jars in their kitchen. Their flagship white, called Ór for its lovely golden colour, now ships nationwide and many of Kenmare's restaurants, including Mulcahy's and An Síbín Winebar, stock it. Ask for a V&T and you're in for a treat. The vermouth is made with a base of organic Verdejo wine, blended with wormwood, gentian root, heather and about 20 other botanicals. Everything is cold‑infused – no stills, no boiling, no artificial shortcuts. Their small production unit on the Kerry coast beside the Valentia ferry is closed to the public, but they have plans to open a visitors' centre. Their red vermouth, Rua, is in development, built around rose, vanilla and dark chocolate. What marks Kenmare out isn't just the quality of the cooking – though that's high – but how much of it comes from people who've been doing it here for decades: families who breed pigs, bake the bread, ferment the vinegar and cure the charcuterie. You eat here and you taste the hands that made it – sometimes still flour‑dusted, sometimes pouring pints of stout brewed in the shed out the back. Walk the streets and you'll find chefs cooking in the houses they grew up in, chocolate made a kilometre from where it's sold, sourdough starters with their own passport. It's not manufactured – it's Kenmare. And that's what makes it better. Corinna Hardgrave was a guest of The Park and Lansdowne Hotel Where to eat and stay in Kenmare Brook Lane Hotel, Casey's, Killarney Road, Gortamullin, Kenmare, V93 T289; Heidi Ryan's, Bridge Street, Kenmare, V93 C653; Maison Gourmet, 6 Henry Street, Kenmare, V93 A7KE; Lorge Chocolatier, 18 Henry Street, Kenmare; Blasta Café, 29 Henry Street, Kenmare, V93 Y152; Tom Crean Brewery, Killowen Road, Kenmare, Co Kerry, V93 Y6KX; The Lansdowne, Main Street, Kenmare, Co Kerry, V93 YRC8; Park Hotel Kenmare, Shelbourne Street, Kenmare, Co Kerry, V93 X3XY; Lagom, 36 Henry Street, Kenmare, Co Kerry, V93 E28P; Sheen Falls Lodge, Kenmare, Co Kerry, V93 HR27; The Boathouse Bistro, Dromquinna Manor, Sneem Road, Kenmare; Bean & Batch, Killarney Road, Gortamullin, Kenmare, V93 C868; Josie's Lakehouse, Lauragh, Co Kerry, V93 X9ER; Helen's Bar, Kilmakilloge, Co Kerry; An Síbín Winebar, Lauragh Lower, Lauragh, Co Kerry, V93 T4C2; Valentia Island Vermouth,
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
‘I chose my Confirmation name after my favourite footballer. In retrospect, it's pretty funny'
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Irish Times
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Comedian Kyla Cobbler: ‘I was sitting having a whiskey with Tommy Tiernan, going, Yeah, this is my life. What a gift'
It took Kyla Cobbler a while to accept that she was a fully fledged comedian. 'Even just adding it to my Instagram bio was tough,' she says, smiling. 'I guess it's because my career has been really short. I only started when I was 31, and it's gone so well, and I'm so grateful for that. 'It was, like, once I started calling myself a comic, the universe was, like, 'Okay, here we go. Now I'll give you a hand,' whereas before I was fighting it. I think being from Ireland and calling yourself an artist is weird. You don't want to come across as having notions.' Notions or not, Cobbler, who is from Cork , has become one of the hottest properties in Irish comedy in the past year or so. When we speak, she is fresh off the back of two dates at Live at the Marquee in her hometown (where she was the special guest of Tommy Tiernan , the headliner, having appeared on his RTÉ TV chatshow earlier this year), as well as an industry showcase in London. READ MORE 'The last four days have been probably the most pressure I've been under in my career,' she says. 'I remember going from clubs of 60 to doing 1,000-seat rooms, and that difference was massive. And I knew going into the Marquee, with 4,000 people in a tent meant for music, it was going to be a bit crunchy.' She grimaces. 'I've never had tension running through my muscles like that. It was mental, but it was amazing. The other times I toured with him, he'd never stay after the show, but this time we hung out. I was sitting having a whiskey with Tommy Tiernan, going, 'Yeah, this is my life.' What a gift.' Cobbler's rise has been swift, but she took a circuitous route into comedy. The 34-year-old, who grew up in Ballincollig – she left when she 18 – is now based in Barcelona. She lived and worked in Italy for several years, and it was in Milan that she inadvertently picked up her stage name (her real name is Mikayla O'Connor) and began uploading funny clips to her Instagram stories. An old post from 2019 shows her gleefully celebrating 5,000 followers; less than six years later, almost 500,000 followers tune into her amusing reels about relatable everyday occurrences. The relatability factor has a lot to do with her success, she reckons. After our interview, she grumbles, she has an appointment to tame her trademark curls, piled atop her head, before a live TV appearance this evening. 'There's so much of these 'Get ready with me!' videos and morning routines' on social media, she says, rolling her eyes. 'It's psychotic. And it's unreachable for busy women. Putting eye cream on every day? If I drink enough water, like, I win.' Humour was initially a defence mechanism for Cobbler, whose dyslexia was not diagnosed until she was 18. Her school years were difficult, she says, adding that she regards the late diagnosis as 'almost to my detriment, because I now know, as a professional comedian and a grown-up, that you have to be smart to be funny. My teachers saw that I was quick-witted, and they were, like, 'Well, you're just not trying, then.' So school was just a massive nightmare.' She pauses. 'But my mom always fought my corner. I wouldn't have had a tap of confidence leaving home if it wasn't for her. 'It's funny: you go through your life being angry at your parents when you're in your 20s, and then you get to a certain point where you're, like, 'Okay, I need to take responsibility for my own life.' And now, at 34, knowing my mom had three kids and a mortgage and a husband at my age … 'Like, last week, I was using kitchen roll instead of toilet paper because I just kept forgetting to buy it for four days.' She shrugs. 'Who am I to be angry at my parents?' Kyla Cobbler: 'I know my toxic trait as a Cork woman is looking at a troll's profile and going, I could take you' The key to unlocking her love of comedy and performing lay in social media. She remembers the first 'funny' post she uploaded. 'I was working in the fashion district in Milan at the time, and one of the filters was an underwater one, with fish. 'I posted myself dancing 'under the sea'. I left it up for, like, an hour, and then my sister was, like, 'Ehh … What are you doing?' And I thought, 'You're right. What am I doing?' and I took it down,' she says laughing. 'But then I just started doing daily stories and building it slowly. I remember the feelings of insecurity about doing them [at first], whereas now I could not care less. I'm, like, 'There you go. Feed the monster.' [ The funny thing about Irish comedy: Why it doesn't hurt to be rich if you want to be a stand-up Opens in new window ] Her willingness to feed the monster and speak her mind has also led to some interesting reactions online. One quip about how Donald Trump supporters stuck to their guns after the assassination attempt on the US president led to death threats. She is immune to trolling by now. 'I know my toxic trait as a Cork woman is looking at their profile and going, 'I could take you,'' she says with deadpan sincerity. 'I've done this for so long now I have a thick skin about it. And [the internet] is just such nonsense. It's not real. It's always funny when I always get trolled about my looks; they always call me a man, or say, 'You look like this guy.' But they're always really handsome men, so I'm, like, 'I'll take that. He's gorgeous.'' Cobbler has always been open about her own life, too. Her South African fiance, Simon, a master builder whom she calls her 'oak tree', features regularly on both her social-media posts and occasionally at her live shows. She has comedy to thank for their relationship, after first crossing paths with him at a comedy club she was appearing at. The transition from an online comic to stand-up in May 2021 was daunting initially, but now she adores performing live, she says. 'It was the hardest thing I've ever done. When I look back on it now, I just can't believe that this is my career. It was just never on the cards, because I come from a 'shush' family. Like, if you're talking, my dad will be, like, 'Shush, shush, shush',' she says, laughing again. 'So being told you've got seven minutes to fill, I was sitting there shaking – 'They don't want to hear this stuff.' And also because of the online thing, I feel there's definitely this begrudgement [of people thinking], 'Oh, well, that's the internet. That's what got you your following.' 'But it's hard to do, and it just didn't get easy for a really long time. It took a year. I would book myself into open mics and then cancel, because I wouldn't sleep. I remember cracking up about doing my first 15 minutes in a nightclub in Barcelona. And now,' she says, grinning, 'I can't shut up.' [ Stand-up comedy: I never knew that five minutes could feel like a lifetime Opens in new window ] Cobbler's plan for world domination doesn't end with live stand-up; she would love to explore comedic acting, perhaps in a mockumentary-style show like The Office. Given the way she has risen to every challenge over the past three years, stranger things have happened. In the meantime, her new show, Not My Lemons, explores more personal topics – an advancement from her debut show, Gone Rogue, which saw her praised for her 'blunt storytelling'. 'It's very different, for sure, because now I'm in a relationship, so it goes into personal things like my family dynamic, and different stories from growing up and being in school,' she says. 'I'm really proud of it. And it's a cool name, too – you'll get it if you come.' Cobbler recently signed with Off the Kerb, the agency that represents some of the biggest names in British and Irish comedy. It will inevitably lead to more touring and British dates in the future – her seven-show run this weekend at Edinburgh Festival Fringe sold out some time ago – and she might try to squeeze in her wedding this year, too. 'Things are selling really well in Ireland, and a lot of the new tour is sold out,' she says, noting that venue sizes across the country have steadily increased for her Not My Lemons tour, in early 2026. 'And Ireland is amazing, but I just want to take over the world. Why not? I just want to do it everywhere. And I can do it. I'm having just the best craic, especially when people come to my own show, because I'm not proving myself. 'And a lot of them are women, and we'll be cackling away … Oh, it's just class,' she says with a giddy chuckle. 'I don't have a bucket-list vibe. If I can just keep doing this for the rest of my life, I'll take it. I'll keep showing up as long as they let me in.' Kyla Cobbler 's Not My Lemons tour begins at the Mac, Belfast, on February 5th, 2026, and ends at the 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, on April 12th, 2026
