Three friends having the craic in a henhouse is the new ‘talk therapy’
Shifting, sex and being fleeced — nothing is off limits in the Tommy and Hector with Laurita podcast, says Rodney Edwards
WAIT ’til you hear my experiences of a Sunday drive,” says comedian Tommy Tiernan with a smile. “My mother would stay at home and insist we take the cat with us. I swear to f **k, we were the only family driving through Navan in a Ford Granada or a Hillman Hunter with a f **k*ing cat in the back.”
Unpredictable and hilarious, Tiernan is full of divilment and it’s not even lunchtime. Sitting in his henhouse at the bottom of his garden in Connemara, he reels off the yarns one after another.
There’s the tale about hiring a helicopter to fly to a poker tournament “only to get knocked out in the first round of a f **king Texas No Limits” or the scuffle with a garda. “A f **king squad pulled up and this guard pinned me to the wall and said, ‘You’re in Cavan now, so you are!’”
Tiernan is joined on our Zoom interview by his friends TV star Hector Ó hEeochagáin and former radio presenter Laurita Blewitt, who go to his house each week to record the podcast which has become a tonic for thousands of people during lockdown since its launch last September.
“We are really excited to go to Tommy’s each Tuesday,” says Ó hEeochagáin. “He has the kettle on and it’s the simplicity of a cup of tea or coffee, then closing the curtains and going for it.”
The Tommy and Hector Podcast with Laurita Blewitt, with its surreal storytelling, has already been listened to more than two million times. With tales of shifting, sex, and Tiernan being fleeced by the IRA while gigging along the Border, nothing is off limits and none of it is scripted.
They have gained listeners in Korea, Trinidad and Tobago, Zambia, Yemen and even Mongolia.
“Finding out who listens gives us a real window into where people are,” says Ó hEeochagáin.
“So where the lad from Offaly is, where the girl from Strabane is. We even have a listener in Kuwait.”
“Yeah, but Hector,” interrupts Tiernan, “it might be an actual Mongolian in Mongolia. There could be an iPhone in outer Mongolia and some fella in a yurt.”
The idea of a triple header in terms of a radio show “isn’t that new”, says Tiernan. “But the fact we are good friends and are always looking to slag and encourage one another means it works.
“When we’re in this room recording it, we’re not really thinking of anyone else, we are trying to make each other laugh.”
Blewitt, who fundraises for Mayo-Roscommon hospice — “a real job” — and is a cousin of US President Joe Biden, says some people struggling with their mental health have told her the podcast has given them a boost.
“There’s a few psychotherapists around Ireland who are recommending the podcast as a good thing to listen to,” she smiles.
Tiernan says they realised after six months’ podcasting that Tuesday, the day they record it, was “our favourite day of the week”.
“It’s that joy of doing something you enjoy, rather than thinking ‘let’s try to do something successful’. I love that.”
The trio receive a Covid test before every show, provided by Irish company Covisal, before opening the mics and letting the conversations run wild.
“We never end up sticking to one topic of conversation,” says Ó hEeochagáin, which makes the editing process all that more challenging for producer Yvonne Tiernan, who also happens to be Tommy’s wife. Each recording lasts for about two hours, with the odd break in between.
Having been offered the use of a camper van, the friends would love to bring the podcast on the road but, says Tiernan, “one of the keys to this is you have to strike when the sap is rising”.
“If we got into a car and drove for two hours and then had to record the podcast, all the craic would be gone. We’d have to pick a location and each of us make our way independently and then to start talking when we meet,” he says, revealing they plan to broadcast the show from Paris, Washington and Glasgow.
“Would that be considered an essential journey?” asks Tiernan, “Or would a guard stop us in Athlone? ‘Och, the podcast? Sure hold on there and I’ll drive ahead.’”
So is the success of the podcast down to the simple art of conversation? “Yeah,” replies Tiernan, “which is available to everybody. It’s not like we’re tightrope walkers, or people are amazed at our needlework skills. It’s a very ordinary thing we are doing.”
Their use of words, phrases and slang, and even a sprinkling of the Irish language, makes each podcast very Irish — and very relatable. I ask them for their favourite colloquialism (mine own is Ogeous Handlin’).
Hector: “The conversations meander like a good country road, we never end up sticking on one topic of conversation. The level of laughter for me is a level of giddiness that I haven’t had since I was in secondary school having such fun at St Pat’s. That giddy laughter that you, as an adult, almost forget — laughter that makes you almost cry.”
Tommy: “You didn’t really answer the question, Hector. What he asked you was, ‘what’s your favourite phrase?’”
Hector: “What’s he [Tommy] f **king like on a f **king Zoom call? Jesus, just go with the interview, Tommy.”
Tommy: “He asked you a question and you went off wandering around roads.”
Hector: “Oh f**k off! That’s the way you answer a question like that. What’s my favourite word? Well … there’s gusset.”
Laurita: “There’s giblet flicker.” Tommy: “My favourite phrase is horse’s ass. I’d use that when we’re stuck in the house as a family. I would just be walking around and if I walk into a room and there’s someone I don’t want to talk to, I just go ‘horse’s ass’ and then I walk into another room.”
The three of them fall about laughing again, poking fun at each and other topics.
It’s the irreverent musings, the silliness and craic that the three of them enjoy and are now sharing with the rest of us.
But back to Tiernan’s story about the travelling cat. “So there we are sitting in the car in Navan and we’d pull up beside the traffic lights and the other drivers would go, ‘Right, I think the Tiernans have a f **king cat in the car. A f **king cat — in the car!”