Host: Dan Kennedy
Dan: [00:01:05] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. Last week on The Moth Radio Hour, we had a special episode that was recorded live in Dublin, Ireland. And this week on the podcast, we're going to bring you that full hour. One of the stories that you're going to hear is about a comedian having to convince a court that a joke he told was in fact funny. [chuckles] Always love to see comedy on trial. There is all kinds of stories in this hour. You're going to run the full emotional gamut. So, without further ado, here's The Moth Radio Hour right here on The Moth Podcast.
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Jay: [00:01:50] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this radio show. And in this hour, we bring you a special program recorded live in Dublin, Ireland, at the Sounds Alive Festival. This was the first time we ever produced a show in Ireland, a place known for its raconteurs. The show took place at The Grand Lodge of the Freemasons Hall in Dublin. It's a gorgeous building. It's only recently opened its doors to the public.
[cheers and applause]
The theme of the evening was Don't Look Back. And the host is writer and performer Lynn Ferguson.
Lynn: [00:02:25] So, when I asked our first storyteller, “Looking back, is there a night when you went out when you should have just stayed home?” [audience chuckles] And he looked at me and he said, “Yes, [audience chuckles] I don't remember very much about the night, but the following morning, I was told I tried to chat up a broom.” [audience chuckles] Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Colm O'Regan.
[cheers and applause]
Colm: [00:03:08] I'm a stand-up comedian, and my toughest ever gig I had to do was in a lawyer's office in Dublin. It was early December 2010. And a few weeks previously, I was boarding a train to Belfast. The timing is important, because around this time, Ireland was broke, and 80 years of independence had been given up for 10 years of a property boom and foreign creditors are in the country telling us how to spend our own money. On the other hand, I was feeling quite chipper at that time.
You see, I had bought a house at the height of the boom and it had gone down in value to almost nothing. But I'd managed to channel my rage into humorous commentary on the economy, [audience laughter] and everybody wanted to know the lighter side of the financial crisis. That day just before getting on the train to Belfast, I'd been giving an interview to BBC News. BBC news wanted to know what I thought about the economic crisis. I was speaking for Ireland. [audience laughter]
And my self-importance wasn't in any way dented by the fact that during the interview, my nose started to run and the entire news watching population of the BBC saw my snot. But other than that, everything was good. On the train, I rang my wife to see were there any new emails. I was quite an email obsessive checker, because I'm self-employed, every email might be a job. I rang her and I said, “Are there any emails?” And she said, “Colm, you checked half an hour ago. Relax. But I'll check.”
And she did. She looked, and there was a new email. I didn't recognize the name of the person it was from. So, I was excited. This could be a corporate gig, which is the holy grail of gigs for comedians. It involves lots of money, not performing that well and being in an unsuitable environment. In many ways, the opposite of The Moth. [audience laughter] “Will I read the email?” she said.” And I said, “Do please.” So, she read the email, and she skin read it as you know when you read out loud and you don't read all the words. So, she read “Blah, blah, blah. At an event on Friday 3rd December, blah, blah, blah. Identified my client by name, blah, blah, blah. Grossly defamatory, blah, blah, blah. Substantial damages.” [audience laughter]
She eventually realized that what she was reading out was a lawyer's letter. And she said, “Colm, I think they're suing you because of a joke you told. What on earth did you say?” And immediately, I flashed back to that fateful day. I was doing a lunchtime gig for a group of businessmen, comfortably well-off people, men in their 50s and 60s, the kind of demographic that you would aim anti-prostate cancer campaign at. [audience laughter]
The gig was going well. They liked my shtick about the economy. I chimed with them, because we were all looking for someone to blame. My idea was that to blame, it was the billboards. You see, Ireland had experienced the worst ever property boom and bust in history. I figured it was because of the billboards that circled all the property developments all around the country, the billboards that wanted you to buy an apartment by selling you an idea of the lifestyle you would be buying into, by showing you photographs of the kind of people who were going to be your neighbors once you moved in.
The photographs were often of a man who looked a little bit like George Clooney’s tightly cropped hair, flecked with gray. He was probably putting on some cufflinks on his way to a charity ball, perhaps. Or, a sexy woman eating some sexy food suggestively. Maybe a bit of asparagus. This was four years ago, so asparagus was still sexy for us in Ireland. [audience laughter] What they were trying to say was that if you bought the apartment, these people would be your neighbors and one or both of them, depending on your proclivity, would bring you in as soon as you moved in and have sex with you on the floor. [audience laughter] That's the lifestyle they were trying to sell.
And the audience liked this. And then, I told a joke about one particular property development and one particular property developer. I identified him by name, and I didn't know he was in the audience. [audience laughter] Now, I can't tell you for legal reasons what the joke was, [audience laughter] so you're just going to have to trust me when I say that it was really funny. [audience laughter] So, in order to experience the situation, think of something else funny. Laugh at that, and you'll be in the situation.
He came up to me afterwards after the show, and we exchanged unpleasantries, and then he walked away. I thought that was that, but it turned out he was walking away to his lawyer's office to send me a letter. So, here I was on the train to Belfast listening to that letter being read out. I was scared, because I had just recently given up my job to become a full-time standup comedian. I suddenly felt very alone. There's lots of scary situations you will encounter in life. But when you leave your job and you're just on your own and then you get sued, that's a pretty scary one. [audience laughter] And then, I felt enraged. I felt he was bullying me with the solicitor's letter.
In the solicitor's letter, they said things like, “What you said went far beyond the bounds of comedy.” I had imagined a property developer and a solicitor sitting down with a whiteboard to work out the bounds of comedy. [audience laughter] But I felt intimidated. I felt bullied, and how dare they clamp down on my free speech. I was David, they were Goliath. And then, I got excited, because this could be my big chance for publicity. I could go to court with this and strike a blow for art against money. I would be David, they would be Goliath, I would be in court with all the big shot city lawyers.
And for some reason, against all rules of jurisprudence, the judge would allow me to address the court for 15 minutes, and I would change minds. There would be spinning headlines the following day which said things like, “Financial security for hitherto unknown comedian as TV deal is offered.” [audience laughter] So, I went to my solicitor. I was excited and I told her the story. And she said, “Colm, I need you to tell me what did you say during the gig?” And I told her the way I'm telling you now in an offhand way. And she said, “No, I need you to tell me exactly how you said it, because I need to know the context. Because if this goes to court, we need to be able to convince a judge that what you said was funny.”
So, I stand up there. So, I stood up at the edge of the table, and as I say, “I've done some tough gigs in my day, but 20 minutes in front of a solicitor who didn't nod or smile once, just took notes, and from time to time interrupted to legally clarify some of the jokes I was telling.” [audience laughter] “So, where were these billboards that this asparagus was on?” And I said, “I'm not sure. In fact, I'm not really sure whether it was asparagus. It might have been lettuce.” “Was it asparagus or was it lettuce? We need to know. [audience laughter] I don't know what. These jokes aren't intended to be quizzed in a legal way. Well, they're going to be quizzed in a legal way, Colm.”
After I was finished, she paused for a bit, and then she gave me one of the toughest reviews I've ever had as a comedian when she said, “I think, Colm, we would have difficulty persuading a judge that what you said was funny.” [audience laughter] So, I think he has a case for defamation, and I think you should apologize. And I was furious. I said, “How can I roll back on this? This is art fighting against money. How can I apologize?” And then, she showed me some of the costs that might be involved. [audience laughter] A €1,000 just for being there, €10,000 for discovery. If it went to court, it could cost €250,000.” So, I said, “Okay, I'll apologize.” [audience chuckles] But I was deflated by the whole experience, I felt that, when she said, “Why don't you go home and have a think about it?”
I went home and I felt down, because this is not how this was supposed to end, this glorious story of the little guy fighting the big guy, all for this, just because it was going to cost me, I was going to have to roll back on my principles. And then, I reread the letter. I hadn't really read the solicitor's letter properly the first time. Solicitors’ letters, lawyers’ letters are written in Times New Roman font, which is the scariest of all typefaces. [audience laughter] I think we'd all feel a little better if lawyer's letter was written in Comic Sans. It just wouldn't hurt as much.
And I read it. I read page two of the letter. And on page two, I noticed this line which said that, “Several others who were there that day also pointed out to my client the serious nature of your allegations.” And then, it started to fill in for me that perhaps what was going on was not this battle to suppress free speech, but the fact that this man had been slagged off and laughed at in front of his people by his peers, and he was just plain hurt.
I started to realize that sometimes it's not necessarily big principles are involved, not necessarily the little guy versus the big guy, not necessarily that the little guy is always right. Because I had taught myself, I was fighting the man. Here was me, a little guy, striking a blow against the man. And I realized instead, I was just striking a blow against a man, and that's not that funny, as it turns out. Sometimes David may have been a bit of an asshole, [audience chuckles] and Goliath might just have been minding his own business. Thank you very much.
[cheers and applause]
Lynn: [00:13:18] Colm O'Regan, ladies and gentlemen.
Jay: [00:13:22] Colm O'Regan is a comedian, author and broadcaster hailing from the small county court village of Dripsey. His two books, Celebrating, The Irish Mammy, are bestsellers. Colm also writes a weekly column for the Irish examiner and a weekly radio diary for the BBC World Service.
[pleasant violin music]
We'll be back in a moment with more stories from this live show in Dublin, Ireland.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jay Allison. You're listening to a live Moth event held in Dublin with theme Don't Look Back. Here's your host, Lynn Ferguson.
[applause]
Lynn: [00:14:31] All right, gorgeous ones. When I asked our next storyteller, “Looking back, is there a night when you went out when you should have just stayed home?” She answered, “Yes. The night Nelson Mandela died, I didn't find out till I got home.” Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Karen Gearon.
[cheers and applause]
Karen: [00:15:07] Okay. I'm 20 years of age. I'm the shop steward in Dunnes Stores, Henry Street in Dublin. And I receive an instruction from our union, called mandate, that we're no longer to handle South African produce because of apartheid. We knew very little about South Africa. We didn't know how to pronounce or spell apartheid. But we followed the union instruction.
We went around the store to find out what was South African. It was mainly outspan oranges and grapefruit, and informed management that we were going to follow this instruction. We were immediately put on cash registers. I remember sitting there myself, Mary Manning, and Liz Deasy and this woman coming up with two outspan grapefruit in her basket. We looked at each other and we prayed that she wasn't going to come to one of us. [audience chuckles] But she did. She came to Mary Manning. And Mary Manning refused to handle South African produce and was suspended. We came out on strike, and that was the first day, the 19th of July, 1984, at a quarter past 12:00 on a Thursday. And I remember it well that the Dunnes Stores antiapartheid strike started.
As I said, we knew very little about South Africa, we knew there was discrimination, but we didn't know what discrimination it was about. We were a few days on the picket line, and a man called Nimrod Sejaka came onto the picket line, and he started telling us about what was South African and what was apartheid all about. He was an exile from South Africa, and he'd been living in Ireland for about 15 years. He told us what it was like to be a black person living in South Africa.
“You couldn't sit on the same seat as a white person. You couldn't use the same toilet. You had to be out of the cities and the towns that white people lived in by a certain time. And you had to have a passbook to leave your township.” He described what apartheid was like in one of the best ways that I can describe it. It was like a pint of Guinness. The majority of the people living in South Africa were black, and the minority were white. And like a pint of Guinness, the white sat on top of the black. And because of Nimrod and what he was telling us about South Africa, that changed for us personally. It no longer became a union instruction. We were never, ever going to handle South African goods until apartheid had gone, and freedom for everybody in South Africa had been achieved.
The strike went on. Our union official told us, “May take a couple of weeks.” We were six months on strike when we got an invitation to meet Bishop Desmond Tutu. He was coming from America, going over to Oslo to pick up a Nobel Peace Prize, and he said, “I'd like to meet the Dunnes Stores strikers in London.” So, as we did being shop workers, we got in a car and we drove and took the ferry over to London to meet Bishop Desmond Tutu, who was about to collect a Nobel Peace Prize. [audience laughter]
I remember being there, and it was the first time that we really had any media interest. The cameras are there, and this small little man comes into the room. People that know me know I'm not a very huggy person. So, the first thing he does is come and hugs us, and I'm like, “Oh God.” [audience chuckles] And then, he told us and the media how proud he was of us and how brave we were. And for somebody like that to say that, it just brought more passion to us than we ever had before. And he told us that he would go back to South Africa and he would tell the ordinary workers, the ordinary black workers in South Africa, that they weren't on their own, that there was people from other countries that cared enough to do something about apartheid.
That was in December of 1984. We were six months on strike. We went through a long winter. And then, as the first anniversary of the strike happened, and we were getting very little support from the government, from a lot of Irish people and from the trade union movement, but we stuck to our guns. Bishop Desmond Tutu asked us to come to South Africa to see for ourselves what apartheid was all about. We had no money to go, because we had earned-- When we were working about £85 a week, we were now on £21 a week. The union would only give us £1,000, and the trip was going to cost about £8,000.
So, one night in Dublin City, we got as many supporters as we could together, and we went around every pub in Dublin City raising funds for that trip. And we raised £7,000 in 1985 to go on that trip to South Africa. That was the support we got from ordinary working-class people in Dublin. The trip was organized, and we headed over to Heathrow and was about to board the plane, Bush Airways plane to Heathrow or in Heathrow to go to South Africa. We were stopped and held for a number of hours there. They wouldn't let us on the plane, because the South African wouldn't allow the plane to land.
Eventually, through negotiations, we boarded the plane to be told afterwards that the captain had told all the passengers that we were the reason the plane had been delayed for so long. We were all separated, we weren't allowed to sit together. So, you can imagine the atmosphere. We were quite terrified. And remember, we're only 20. The youngest of us was 17, the oldest was 24, the rest of us were all 20. We arrived in Jan Smuts Airport, which is now by the way, called Oliver Tambo Airport. When we arrived on each side of the tarmac, there were soldiers. We thought this was the norm.
We arrived in to get our passports checked and soldiers came and asked us were we the group from Ireland. We said, “We were.” Immediately, there was about 40 armed soldiers around us with machine guns. We were escorted upstairs. We were held under armed guard for eight hours. We did not know what was going to happen to us, because we had heard stories of people disappearing once they got to South Africa, and black South Africans themselves disappearing.
Eventually, we were informed that we were going to be sent back on the same plane. But while we were there for eight hours, we couldn't even go to the bathroom where two women soldiers would come in with us and the door would have to stay open. When we got eventually back on the plane, we were disappointed that we were leaving, but one sense we were relieved that were safe. And going up the steps of the plane, I never forget when I got to the top of the stairs, I turned around and I put my fist up and I said, “We will be back when South Africa is free.” And Sandra, one of the strikers, pushed me in and said, “Get that [audio cut] into the plane.” [audience laughter]
When we arrived back in Heathrow-- Now, we left on a Monday at 12:00 noon and this was now a Wednesday at 07:00 AM in the morning. None of our families knew where we were at all. So, you can imagine the worry. When we arrived in Heathrow, we were told by the captain that all passengers must remain seated, that the police were boarding the plane. We looked at each other and said, “Oh God, here we go again. We're going to be thrown out of Britain, as well as everything else.” But weren't. We were escorted into a press conference.
11 workers, 10 young women and 1 young man. We're in a press conference with all of the media from the UK, the Irish media, the press media asking us what happened, what was going on. There was a headline saying, “The most dangerous people in the world. And that was the Dunnes Stores strikers.” [audience laughter]
When we got back from South Africa and London, a mass picket was organized. Now, up to that moment, there was very little support for the strike. There was a lot of lip service paid, but not real support. On that day, the Saturday, there was nearly 7,000 people on that picket line. You couldn't walk up or down Henry Street for the amount of people that were out there supporting us. So, thank you to the South African apartheid government for kicking us out. [audience chuckles]
As I said, the strike continued. And then, in October of 1985, the most amazing thing happened as well. We were invited over to address the United Nations in New York. Can you imagine, shop workers picketing outside Dunnes Stores day in, day out and the UN wants us to talk to them? So, I go over and a colleague, Michelle Gavin, comes over with me. When I got to do my speech, I was terrified in South Africa, but I think I was nearly more terrified in this, because there were all people in suits and what I would say, posh people, rich people, people that were really important, not just Dunnes little workers from Dublin and Ireland.
When we got to do our speech, and I did it, the first time ever recorded in the UN that there was actually standing applause, because we were just ordinary, everyday people standing up for what was right. And that made a difference to everybody that was sitting around that room that day. Eventually, the government started to take some notice of us and they brought in a boycott of South African goods. When we started the strike, there were two antiapartheid movements, one in Cork and one in Dublin. By the time the strike ended, which lasted two years and nine months, there was more than 36 anti-apartheid groups. And they were done stores support groups that formed antiapartheid groups after that. So, the momentum was really good.
The government introduced the boycott on the 1st of January 1987. Ireland is the first Western country to actually put a boycott of South African produce in place. And that was a direct result of the work of us, the Dunnes Store strikers, moving that in such a way. Then, we all drifted apart and tried to get work and tried to go back to some normal life. And then, all of a sudden, we couldn't believe that Nelson Mandela is released from prison. We're watching individually by ourselves, this man is free. Can you believe it? Did we ever think we'd see the day? And then, we find out he's coming to Ireland, and he wants to meet the Dunne Stores Strikers. [audience chuckles]
Our idol, the person that we had idolized for so many years-- We lost so much and we gained so much, because we had so much passion about what he represented. I looked up to him and he's a very tall man, I thought, oh my God, you are the person I have always wanted to meet. And now, I'm standing here and it was totally surreal. He shook hands with us and he said, “You are so brave.” He gave us his medal of bravery. Nelson Mandela, us. I just couldn't believe it. When he said we were so brave, all of the bad feeling, all of the hurt that we went through on those bad winters and dawns just totally fell away, because he acknowledged what we did. We didn't care about anybody else. He did.
I wasn't at home the night Nelson Mandela died. I was actually in the pub. [chuckles] When I came home, my mom had actually rang me, and she's here in the audience to tell me he died. I thought, oh, God, it was heartbreaking. The following morning, we got a call to go up to Dublin to the Mansion House next door to sign the book of condolences. I'm living in Kerry and have been for the last 26 years. When I got in my car, I was just going down the drive and I got a phone call, bring the passport, just in case. I thought, yeah, right, that's ever going to happen.
When we got up to the Mansion House, we signed the book of condolences. And next of all, within an hour, we're told we're going to the funeral of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. All of us. When we went into Jan Smuts airport, we were scared. We were so nervous. Everything went well, and we're going through arrivals, and it's the Irish Embassy in Johannesburg, in Victoria, coming to collect us the Dunnes Stores strikers. And to bring us to our hotel, and then the rest of the strikers come and join us the day later, and we're all there, and we're back in South Africa, and South Africa is free.
[cheers and applause]
Lynn: [00:28:15] Karen Gearon, ladies and Gentlemen.
Jay: [00:28:19] Karen Gearon had trouble finding work in Dublin after the strike. She has lived in Kerry for the past 26 years, and works in the community development sector. Here again is your host of this evening of live storytelling in Dublin, Ireland, Lynn Ferguson.
Lynn: [00:28:38] When I asked our next storyteller, “Looking back, is there a night when you went out when you should have just stayed home?” He said, “Plenty,” actually. He said, “Especially when my mum told me to stay in and watch a DVD, and I went out anyway and got drunk.” And then, he wanted to say, he said, “Sorry, mum.” [sighs] Unfortunately, his mum's not here tonight. She's going out. [audience laughter] Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our next storyteller Daryl McCormack.
[cheers and applause]
Daryl: [00:29:36] So, last October, I got a call from my mum. I was in college, and I answered the phone. And she says, “Daryl, have you seen the comments made about you?” And I said, “No, mum.” She sounded quite worried. And I said, “Relax, it's okay.” She goes, “If you don't and you haven't seen them, please don't look at them.” And I said, “I'll be fine, mum. Don't worry, I'll be grand.”
A few weeks prior to this, I had done my first professional acting job. I was to do a two-to-three-minute video of me urging young people of Ireland to come out and vote for the referendum and the campaign. It was two, three minutes, me speaking English and Irish. And I was really proud of it. When my mom was talking about, there's a Facebook thread of a picture of me, and it was a comment section, and it was up for people to discuss whether to vote yes or no. Unfortunately, a few people, very small amount of people, made some comments about my skin color and judging my nationality, basically.
I didn't really feel affected. For some strange reason, I felt I wasn't that affected. It didn't make me feel that bad. I felt mostly embarrassed for the people that came up to me being like, “I'm very sorry about that. I heard what happened,” and I was like, “Well, it's okay.” The truth was my mom felt a bit more affected than I was, because she spent her whole life trying to get me to avoid this kind of thing, where people would make comments about my appearance. She grew up in Nenagh, and left when she was 21, and she met my dad in California. She became a nanny over there for a summer. He was only about 21 as well. He was a soldier in the American Army. They had their summer romance, and she became pregnant. She got very scared and came back to Ireland like the scared little girl she was, and she gave birth.
So, I grew up in Nenagh. I met my dad twice. I don't really know him that much, but for a man I've met twice, he has a massive effect on my life and an influence on my life just because of his color. I remember growing up in Nenagh, and a lot of from what I remember was young kids my same age looking at me and staring at me. It would be really prolonged stares. [audience laughter] I used to ask my mum, “Mum, why are these other kids staring at me?” She'd always come out with the answer, “It's because you're so handsome.” [audience laughter] And part of me, I didn't believe it fully. [audience laughter] But I got to an age where I was getting too older for she could keep saying that.
I remember the first time I actually encountered racism. One of the first times I remember I was playing soccer in my local state named [unintelligible 00:32:51] and I was playing with my cousins. There was another guy who was also part of the estate, but a different section. He came out and played with us. I was only about 11, and we were playing soccer, and I made a bad challenge. I clipped his ankle and he turned around to me and said, “Fuck off, you black bastard.” And being 11, I think he was around 20, I was obviously taken back by it.
I went home to my mum and I told my mum, “This guy called me a black bastard.” And she goes, “Well, Daryl, you're going to have to find a time where you can defend yourself, you know?” I go, “But this guy was a lot older than me.” So, she got up and she goes, “Okay, where does he live?” [audience laughter] So, me, my uncle, and my mum went over to this guy's house. This was at 11 o'clock. She knocks on the door, and the guy's dad comes out, and my mum goes, “Where's your son? I'd like to have a word with him.” He gets his son, and his son comes out, and my mama goes, “I would like you now to apologize to my son for what you called him earlier.” And he apologized. And then, my mum said, “I just want you to know that my son will grow up to be a bigger man than your son will ever be.”
I just remember walking away from the house, absolutely chuffed, just being like, “Go, mum.” [audience laughter] So, we walked home. I just felt very good about it. About two years later, it's another time where I experienced a bit of racial abuse. I was walking through an estate called Cormac Drive. Cormac Drive was known to be a bit of a rough estate. I used to walk through and used to be a particular kid called Stephen. He used to shout things at me. Sometimes they were funny, sometimes they were like, “Why don't you go back to chocolate town?” [audience laughter] And I'm like, “You can do a bit better than that Stephen. Come on.” [audience laughter]
But he would continually shout things at me. It made me confused, because I was like, “Well, I feel the exact same as anyone else in this town. I grew up here. I played hurling.” It continued for quite a while. A few weeks went by, and one particular time I was walking to school, and I was coming up by the cinema and he came behind me, and he was doing the same thing again. I remembered the way my mum walked up to that door of your man's house and gave out to him. So, I just stopped, and I looked to the ground to try and find something. All I could see was a chestnut. [audience laughter]
So, I picked up the chestnut and I turned back around, I looked at him and I roared, “Fuck off,” and I threw the chestnut at him. [audience laughter] The best thing is I missed. [audience laughter] I didn't hit him. He laughed at me, and I walked towards school. About two days later, who do I bump into as I'm crossing the road, but Stephen? He's crossing this way and I'm crossing that way. I'm waiting here and I'm like, “I'm now about to get my head punched in.” I'm not a fighter at all. I was reared by two mothers, my mum and my grandmother. So, no means streaking me. I can talk for Ireland. I can talk my way out of any situation. [audience chuckles] But this time, I felt like I was just going to have to suck it up.
He came over to me and he just put out his hand and he said, “I'm very sorry about what I said the other day.” I was awkward, because I was like, “I don't expect this.” I'm still waiting for a punch to come up my face. But he just said, “I'm sorry.” And I said, “It's all right.” Don't get me wrong. Growing up in Nenagh, I've had a great childhood. It wasn't all doom and gloom, apart from these two situations. I played hurling with Nenagh Éire Óg, my local hurling club. I felt like I was some Seán Óg Ó hAilpín. [audience laughter]
I remember when I was in school, I got elected for the student president. And at the time, Barack Obama was elected the first black president. [audience laughter] Everyone was like, “Daryl, you're the first black president of Nenagh CBS.” [audience laughter] [audience applause]
But I was lucky, because my mum was always there, as well as enjoying being different and standing out. There was a flip side, and my mum protected me from that flip side. Although she's a Facebook warrior, always messaged me, I'm only now starting to realize how grateful I am for that. She gave me the space to allow me to just be myself and grow as a person, no matter what color, and I suppose I just want to say, “Thank you, mum.”
[cheers and applause]
Lynn: [00:38:19] Daryl McCormack.
Jay: [00:38:23] Daryl McCormack was born and raised in County Tipperary. In 2014, he graduated from the Conservatory of Music and Drama in Rathmines.
Here's an excerpt from the promotional spot that caused the stir in both English and Gaelic.
Daryl: [00:38:39] Every Irish citizen has a vote. No matter what the politicians or the media or any other group in the country want, only you and I have the power to make the decision by voting. [speaks in Gaelic]
Jay: [00:39:05] For more, visit themoth.org. We'll be back in a moment with more live storytelling from Ireland.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange prx.org.
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this show. You're listening to a special edition with stories recorded live at an event held in Dublin, Ireland. Here's your host, Lynn Ferguson.
[applause]
Lynn: [00:39:41] So, “Looking back, is there a night when you went out and you should have just stayed home?” is what I asked my next storyteller. And he said to me, “Yes, many of them.” He said, “But I'm not so sure it made much difference to the outcome.” Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Peter Pringle.
[cheers and applause]
Peter: [00:40:21] It was the week before Christmas. I was sitting in the death cell in Portlaoise Prison. Some weeks previously, I had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death by the Special Criminal Court for a murder I did not commit. The Special Criminal Court is a non-jury court.
As I sat in that dead cell, which was a very dismal place, where the windows had been blocked off, where there was no natural light and a bank of fluorescent lights overhead, which were never turned off day or night, and which after a little while began to burn my eyes. I was forced to be always in the presence of at least two jailers. They would sit quite close to me.
One day, I heard them having a conversation. They were discussing what role they might have to play in my hanging. One said to the other, “Sheamus, were you told also that two of us would have to participate in his execution?” And this was said as if I didn't exist, as if I was not there, as if I wasn't a human being. And Sheamus said, “Yes, that's right.” And he said, “What do you think we're going to have to do?” And the third guy, Eddie, said, “Well, whatever we have to do, they're going to have to pay us extra money, because this is not our usual job, and so we're going to have to get a bonus for doing this work.”
They went on to discuss what role they might have to play, and they came to the conclusion that at my execution, two jailers would be positioned underneath the gallows. When my body came down to the trapdoor, each jailer would have to pull one of my legs to ensure that my neck was broken quickly. And it was as if I wasn't there, it was as if they weren't speaking about me. I was very angry, and upset, and disturbed by this. But it illustrates the inhumanity of the death penalty. It even affects the jailers, because they're not allowed to speak to the condemned prisoner, because it wouldn't do them any good to learn to like the prisoner or to respect the prisoner. Because how can you cold bloodedly help to kill somebody that you like or that you respect?
Now, this was in the year 1980, and it was 26 years since this state had executed anybody. There was a body of opinion which said that it was unlikely they would carry out the execution. But when I heard these jailers discussing their role in my execution, and the fact that the authorities had told them there would be a role for them in my execution, there was no doubt in my mind that I was facing death. I tried as best as I could to distance myself from that, and as best as I could to curb my anger.
Christmas passed in a lonely, dismal way, without any contact with the outside world, without any contact with my loved ones. And shortly after Christmas, as the post was being delivered to the prisoners, jailer came and handed me a postcard. And this postcard was extraordinary. It was written by a woman whom I did not know. And she told in the postcard how the day after Christmas Day, she was walking on the shore at Greystone, south of Dublin, grieving for her brother, whose name was Peter, who had been a seaman and in an accident at sea, had lost his life. She remembered that there was another Peter who was facing death.
You see, I had been a fisherman, and I had spent a long time at sea. She remembered that there was another seaman named Peter who was facing death, and she thought she would write to me to wish me well, and to pray that I would not be executed. When I got that card, it just lifted my heart. That lady, whom I didn't know, restored my humanity to me and lifted my spirits. While I knew with a certainty that I was facing death, I knew with a certainty that the worst thing that they could do to me would be to kill me. And until such times as they did that, I was my own person. While they could imprison me physically, they could not imprison my mind or my heart or my spirit. And so, it was within those realms of myself that I determined that I would live. And so, it was within that dead cell around myself, in that small space around myself, I had my own sanctuary. And I learned to almost totally ignore what was around me.
Sometime later, almost six months later, 11 days before my execution date, my sentence was commuted from the death sentence to 40 years penal servitude without remission. And I was placed back out into the general prison population. Now, I knew I couldn't possibly face 40 years there, and I determined to try to prove my innocence. I studied law in the prison, and I took my own case. And with the help of a human rights lawyer named Greg O'Neill, we took the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal. And in May of 1995, my conviction was overturned, and I was released from the Special Criminal Court.
It was almost surreal. When I stepped outside the court, I was faced with a huge crowd of media people with their cameras and their microphones, and they were all shoving them into my face, and throwing questions at me, and wanted me to do things like give a clinch, fist salute and all that nonsense. I didn't have a moment to myself. And then, my lawyer took me, and we went to the television station and we had an interview for the news. Ad afterwards, my friends had organized a party. We went to this big party, and everybody was drinking and happy and enjoying themselves and talking to me and clapping my back.
I wasn't really in it. I hadn't had time to assimilate my liberty. And that night, I stayed with a friend in the suburbs of Dublin. And the following morning, I woke up early and I went downstairs. The rest of the household were still asleep, and I went out to the back garden, and a lovely back garden was stretched way back from the house. I walked down the back garden, and the sun was shining, and I felt so good, and I began to breathe in the fresh air, and the colors and the greenery, and hear the birds singing.
And down at the bottom of the garden, there was an old, old apple tree. I went up to this apple tree, and I put my hand out and I touched the bark of the tree, which was gnarled. I was thinking about this tree which had been growing there for countless years, season in and season out, every year producing its fruit, shedding its leaves, producing new leaves, and just carrying on its business in nature. Oblivious of the big city around it, oblivious of the hatred and the anger and the injustice and the wars and depredation and the hunger and everything that goes on. Just simply being in nature. And I put my arms. I put my arms around that tree and I wept. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Lynn: [00:50:27] Peter Pringle.
Jay: [00:50:33] Peter Pringle is a human rights and anti-death penalty activist. He lives with his wife, Sunny Jacobs, in the west of Ireland. Together, they founded The Sunny Center Foundation, USA, a nonprofit organization with a sanctuary in Ireland.
We met Peter and his wife, Sunny, through a workshop at The Moth’s Community program conducted with the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted prisoners. For links and more information, visit themoth.org.
That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from The Moth.
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Your host this hour was writer and performer Lynn Ferguson. The stories were directed by Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, and Sarah Austin Jenness. The rest of The Moth’s directorial staff include Sarah Haberman and Meg Bowles. Production support from Whitney Jones, Julien Clancy, and the Sounds Alive Festival. Special thanks to Lorelei Harris, Sinead Mooney, and Sean Rocks.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Regina Carter, and Mark O'Connor.
The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, with Viki Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.
The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.
Dan: [00:52:36] Here we go. Another episode of the Moth Radio Hour right here on the Moth podcast. Stories there from Colm O'Regan, Karen Gearon, Daryl McCormack, and Peter Pringle.
That's it for The Moth Podcast this time. I wanted to give a special thanks to our Dublin producer, Julien Clancy, for putting on a great show and for making those events happen. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Podcast audio production by Whitney Jones.
Catherine: [00:53:05] Dan Kennedy is author of the books, Loser Goes First, Rock on, and American Spirit. He's a regular host and performer with The Moth, when he's not on Twitter.
Dan: [00:53:15] The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org. Thanks to all of you for listening. We hope you have a story-worthy week.