All Episodes
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly @ The Irish Times — 588 episodes
We filled a skip with all the things Sorcha decided she can live without, until she changed her mind
‘There’s nothing wrong with Bray, Ross,’ the old man says. Literally. Word for word
‘Sorcha, I don’t need ChatGPT to tell me how to talk to my daughter and the girl she’s seeing’
‘Potatoes au gratin? My old dear used to say they’re for people with money but no class’
We’re driving through Donnybrook and Sorcha shouts ‘Stop!’
‘Ross,’ Sorcha goes, ‘we’re not going to Dubai. We cancelled because of the war.’ I’m there, ‘What war?’ and I genuinely mean it
‘We’re losing, like, 32-0. The Blackrock first years are taking us aport’
‘I’m so full of myself this morning that I’m actually making myself sick’
‘There you go with the school rivalry thing again. You need to move on’
‘The woman is as C as M – as my old dear used to say. Common as muck’
‘How embarrassing is it for me to have three kids who are absolutely focking useless at rugby?’
The words every south Dublin rugby parent dreads: ‘Dad, I want to join the drama society’
‘I’ve never said a word about Bray that wasn’t 100% warranted’
‘We’re getting rid of the cor. Right focking now’
‘What’s this about my old man being on the apps?’
‘Dude, you’re going to have to choose between science and rugby’
‘There’s a Londis in Foxrock? I’d say my old dear is turning in her–’
‘We’re going to run up the Sugar Loaf carrying rocks. Work through the pain barrier!’
‘Elf went missing and Sorcha’s old man went loop-the-focking-loop. He actually rang the Gords’
Christmas or no Christmas, I’m frankly disappointed by Sorcha’s lack of killer instinct
The old man goes, ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t muster any enthusiasm for Christmas this year’
‘We’re going to buy a sh**load of frozen turkeys - if there’s a shortage I can sell them for €500 each’
‘Ronan is hanging out with the absolute scum of the earth: my old man and Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara’
‘Dude, if you insist on coaching Blackrock, you can forget about me being your best man’
‘It’s all right for you,’ Honor goes. ‘You can have any woman you want’
‘I don’t like who my son has become since he started playing rugby. He’s full of himself’
‘There’s no such thing as academic-sporting balance. Not in schools that are serious about being winners’
This is my son now – north Dublin’s leading wine snob
‘I’m not going to call you Mister anything,’ I tell the deputy principal, and the boys all stort sniggering
Honor’s date for the debs is a looker. She clearly takes after her old man in that regord
Ronan pours the wine and goes, ‘It’s a surprising little number with notes of candyfloss, anchovies and balsawood’
‘You were mugged in Dalkey? Things like that don’t happen there’
‘I didn’t do a tap in school and yet life worked out pretty well for me’
‘The old man running a restaurant is like asking me to teach physics through Irish’
‘Rugby is the best idea we’ve ever come up with as a species,’ I go, channelling Fr Fehily
Sorcha goes, ‘The Dalkey Lobster Festival is this weekend. How am I going to show my face?’
‘I think you should have a conversation with Honor about her drinking,’ Sorcha goes
‘I got thrun out of Amedica,’ Ronan goes. ‘Me visa was revoked’
When Honor drops the news, I sit there with my mouth open like someone from Roscommon seeing escalators for the first time
The old dear made a seating plan for her own funeral. She didn’t want ugly people in the first three pews
I get this sudden flashback to when I was six or seven and I’d hold the wheel steady for the old dear while she drove home, half-cut
The old dear goes, ‘Sorcha? I don’t know anyone of that name. Is she one of your tarts, Ross?’
Oisinn goes, ‘Dude, you’re saying goodbye. You do realise that? You’re saying goodbye to your old dear’
Brett goes, ‘She’s close to the end, Ross. I was thinking we should arrange a living funeral for her’
I’m always telling Sorcha to tone down the southside when we come out to Bray but she never listens
‘I haven’t really been living before now,’ Brett tells his wife. ‘Ross has slept with more than 800 women’
‘I’m not even a bit stressed,’ Honor goes, ‘I haven’t done a focking tap for these exams’
He obviously decided that he’d wasted his life, focusing on career, marriage and family goals
We’ve been through so much. I slept with two of JP’s ex-girlfriends, and Christian’s actual mother and even that didn’t break us up
Honor goes, ‘People will talk about my speech for years to come. And that’s just in the libel courts’
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘My old dear doesn’t have the embarrassment gene. It’s a South Dublin thing’
Honor is staring at Brett like he’s an ATM and she’s sitting in a JCB, trying to work the levers
‘That picture The Last Supper is weird. They’re all sitting on the same side of the table’
Honor goes, ‘I’m editing the school yearbook photographs of anyone who pissed me off’
‘Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can,’ the old dear sings. Her earrings cost more than my cor
‘I most certainly do have an American accent,’ I tell my supposed half-brother. ‘I’m from south Dublin’
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘I hate my children too. Like, how could three kids of mine turn out to be such dicks?’
Most schools fear Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara like they would a typhoid outbreak
I’m there to Honor, ‘You’ve never been good at school. I always thought you took after me’
‘I haven’t come here today to listen to you badmouth my mother – the axe-faced old trout'
‘My old dear said you had a kid together. Well, I’m its half-brother. Or half-sister if it’s a girl’
‘Only cheat with someone who’s married. It’s the principle of mutually assured destruction’
‘I strip down to my boxers. I can always drive home commando. Wouldn’t be the first time’
When Ronan was 10, I said, ‘I need to have the chat with you about sex.’ And he said, ‘What are you wanting to know, Rosser?’
The dude goes, ‘The famous Rosser, what?’ looking me over like I’m a buffet item gone cold
‘You wouldn’t last one day as a girl,’ Honor tells me
‘You’re both loved and feared, Honor – and I’m so proud’
‘Why do you want to go disinterring the past, Ross?’
Sorcha is standing at the island with a boning knife in one hand and an espresso in the other, grinning at us like a serial killer
The old dear goes, ‘I don’t want my vital work on the campaign Move Funderland to the Northside to die with me’
‘I remember Past Ross thinking, you need to stort being nicer to Future Ross. He’s a genuinely good bloke’
‘Sorcha, I’m wondering is climate justice maybe a bit above Santa’s pay grade?’
Sorcha goes, ‘I make no apologies for saying it, Honor. You are a danger to democracy’
When they see the copper, the triplets think it’s about them gobbing on the cauliflower and turmeric latte crowd - which I’m not even sure is a crime’
‘We’ve no idea what caused the fire. And we’re sticking to that story’
‘People in the crowd are staring at Honor like she’s a cold sore on debs night’
‘The thought of booking a table for one at Shanahan’s on the Green got me through my prison sentence’
JP is staring at me like I’ve said I’m really enjoying his old dear’s OnlyFans account
‘A threesome?’ Sorcha goes. ‘Why would you think I’d be into having a threesome?’
‘Things have changed since you were at school, Sorcha,’ the old man goes. ‘We recognise that traditional media is our enemy now’
The competition gets under way. The entrants are each told to remove a sock and put it in the pint glass in front of them
‘Your father is a moral eunuch, Ross. Those aren’t my words. That was a main finding of the Mahon tribunal’
The porty invitations were returned with the words, ‘Honor O’Carroll-Kelly? Are you focking kidding me?’
A lot of things are storting to make sense, including the violin case Leo carries around with him like a Chicago gangster
‘Our daughter is nothing like Donald Trump, Sorcha – aport from the tan and the vengefulness’
Sorcha knows my game. She can read me like the instructions on an airplane vomit bag
It’s a miracle Sorcha’s old man has never killed me, though he did buy me a plot in Shanganagh Cemetery for my 40th
‘Are you aware that your children are Protestants now?’
How do you become a Protestant? ‘You have to drink the blood of a Sussex chicken on Dalkey Island under a gibbous moon’
Honor has picked a theme for her year as Mount Anville head girl: ‘Vengeance’
‘Protestants are not that much different from us. I mean, they’re definitely less craic, but they get sh*t done’
‘What’s on offer,’ she goes, smiling, ‘is eternal life,’ and I do believe she’s flirting
‘Ross, it’s not just a case of filling out a form and – hey, presto – you’re a Protestant’
Honor goes, ‘I was into Taylor Swift before, like, anyone?’
Sorcha goes, ‘You had an erotic dream – about my mom?’
Sorcha refuses to meet my eye. And I don’t blame her – setting up her own daughter like this
‘I want it gone, Ross. I want you to get it lasered off’
Honor and Liesel are both smiling and it’s like driving towards a cor with its lights on full beam. I end up having to turn away
‘Goys – it’s time that I got the tattoo’
‘Ross, someone has put up a poster of Honor on Foster Avenue.’ Apporently kompromat is the solution?
‘What if she wins, Ross? I’ve already heard some of the other moms refer to her as the Trump candidate’
Can’t a father and son go for a pint without there being some, I don’t know, anterior motive?
Honor is only running for Mount Anville head girl to downgrade her old dear’s greatest life achievement
‘There’s a video of me doing the rounds on this famous Tick Tocks dot com’
‘You should be ashamed of yourselves! We’re old enough to be your parents and we’ve taken you to three sets!’
‘If you play that match, Ross, our marriage is over’
‘You are not having a hort attack! I’m not allowing it!’
‘I didn’t play football for Rathnew. I didn’t play football for anyone. I resent the allegation’
Three European Cups, three Six Nations, one Grand Slam – but never winning a Leinster Schools Senior Cup clearly still rankles Heaslip
‘Don’t tell me I don’t know Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. You bullied me for most of secondary school’
‘I haven’t cheated on you in, like, 10 years, though – well, let’s just say a long time’
Honor rubs at the graffiti with a dainty, circular motion, like she’s applying foundation to the face of an elderly loved one
Sorcha goes, ‘I don’t need a 26-old copy of Cosmopolitan to tell me that I married the wrong man’
Our daughter came out of the womb with two middle fingers raised to the world. That’s not down to us
'I’ve got my top off, and Réaltín’s looking at me like my old man turning his nose up at cheap steak'
‘Honor O’Carroll-Kelly is not the victim. She is a highly intelligent young woman from a privileged background’
‘How could the child of a mother who puts the mental into environmental action grow up with a moral compass?’
'She’s hord work, my new padel portner. But the girl fascinates me. She’s like a female me'
‘Ross, this was my sliding doors moment. And I made the wrong choice’
‘The Leopardstown Races, eh, Ross? A great way to blow off the old cobwebs after Christmas!’
Honor is like, ‘There’s no chocolate Kimberleys left,’ and that’s when I end up suddenly losing my sh*t
‘Oh my God, is this really all the books that we own as a family? I’m so ashamed’
‘You need to look up the difference between mincemeat and minced meat. Merry focking Christmas’
‘I’ve never even cleaned up my own children’s vomit, I’m not mopping up after some randomer’
‘Sneaking around behind my wife’s back is something I’m very, very good at, in fairness to me’
I wake up on Sunday morning thinking, am I having one of my famous erotic dreams?
Sorcha is like me before every Ireland squad announcement – in other words, focking delusional
‘When I close my eyes at night, I can still see that bird’s horrible, leering face’
‘Sorcha, I honestly don’t think we can just saunter in here like nothing has happened’
‘Ross, this is all your fault, you sniggering halfwit - that daughter of yours has been going wrong since the day she was born’
‘Ross, didn’t you get a present of an All Blacks jersey once and use it to wash the cor?’
‘What does being Johnny Sexton’s hype man involve exactly, Dad?’
‘I’ve never seen Sorcha so upset - and given my record as a husband, that’s a genuine achievement’
‘Dad, you need to ask yourself what do you want to be – a rugby fan or a good father?’
Some things are more important than family. Rugby happens to be one of them
‘There’s no caps for your so-called matches against Mexico and, I don’t know, Guava Larva. I made the entire thing up’
‘It turns out that every single vehicle in the Mount Anville cor pork has had its tyres done. Except one’
‘A chap taught me how to hot-wire a cor this morning,’ the old man goes
I’m no stranger to seeing my old man standing in the dock accused of serious crimes
Camino Royale: the final exclusive excerpt from the new Ross O'Carroll-Kelly book
Camino Royale: the second exclusive excerpt from the new Ross O'Carroll-Kelly book
Camino Royale: an exclusive excerpt from the new Ross O’Carroll-Kelly book
‘Honor, there has to be a better way of trying to save the planet than this’
Dude, you’re not allowed to just, like, shoot seagulls
Father and son. From the same city. And we might as well be a donkey talking to a parrot
‘We caught the so-called SUV avenger tonight, in the actual act!’
People like us don’t get embarrassed. That’s how we’ve ended up where we are in life
‘What if the SUV Avenger turned out to be your daughter, Sorcha?’
The SUV Avenger has slashed the tyres on Sorcha’s cor
‘Bloomsday is God’s way of telling middle class people they have too much time on their hands’
There’s nothing like the school sports day to get the old competitive juices flowing
‘I want to have – oh my God – everything done?’ Honor goes. ‘My chin, my nose, my forehead, my lips’
‘What does Patrick Kielty have that I don’t?’ asks the old dear
The old man is a focking embarrassment at rugby matches
The two of them are staring at me like this is the worst thing I’ve ever done. It’s not even in the top 10
Honor says Joshua just wants to be friends. Better than nothing I say, but I hate lying to the girl
I’m the father of a 15-year-old girl. I think, by this stage, I’ve earned the right to embarrass her?
‘I’ve been polyamorous since the late 1990s’
Here we are on the roof of the house, vaping away to our horts’ content
The old dear arrives at the door, smelling like a distillery tour, asking to see her granddaughters
We’re a father and daughter vaping away to beat the band, properly bonding
I’m 43. Andy Farrell would want to be pretty focking desperate for a 10 to pick me
What a day . . . I’ll just send a quick congrats text to Johnny Sexton
Girls, if Johnny Sexton was here, he’d tell you – you are never, ever beaten
Now I’m doing something that I never do, doubting myself
I want this school to be a conveyor belt of women’s rugby talent
I’ve ended up on a poster for adult incontinence treatment on a gable wall in, like, Ranelagh
I’m getting the tattoo of J-Lowe, a late 40th birthday present to myself
One day, there’s going to be a Leinster Schools Senior Cup… for girls!
I’m surrounded by people who keep me grounded. I wish they’d focking stop
Sixmas is what I call the Six Nations Championship – the most wonderful time of the year
Would I have to take my top off for any of these jobs? That wouldn’t be an issue for me
If women’s rugby is ever going to be treated seriously, they’ll have to embrace the whole obnoxiousness thing
I silently curse myself for giving St Michael’s College credit that they don’t deserve
‘You put the focking Quality Street, the focking Roses and the focking Celebrations in the same bowl!’
'I’m having a slash when in walks Santa, and all my Christmases come at once'
It’s the Castlerock College mince pie-eating contest, and Leo is stepping up to the plate
‘I’m not having a Terenure College Christmas tree in the house’
'Honor isn’t for everyone. She takes after her old man in that regord'
The neighbours have visions of the Vico Road turning into Morbella
‘Schoolbooks shmoolbooks ... I didn’t do a tap at school and look at me’
‘Newpork is famous for kids with pierced lips...They don’t even care about rugby’
'It’s Halloween week and we’re living in a house that’s, like, haunted – literally'
'I’ve been shocked by the change that has come over my daughter since we moved to Terenure'
'Already I feel like I’ve created a team in my image – in other words, winners'
'I’m a big believer in overpraising my children. Never did me any horm as a kid'
'Honor storts screaming at the top of her lungs. But no one hears her. Because mine are louder'
'Ronan is a – what’s the word – Republican? As in, he’s got the names of the whole crew from 1915 tattooed on his upper orm'
'The girls are staring at me in just, like, awe – they’re ready to learn from the master'
‘Just because I’m a serial liar doesn’t mean that I can’t be trusted’
‘How much would it mean to the girls storting school here to have the legendary Ross O’Carroll-Kelly teaching them rugby?’
‘Sorcha Lalor, you were the best Dalkey Lobster Festival Queen we ever had’
I’m lying by the pool, doing my daily sit-ups with my top off, when I hear Honor go, ‘Oh, for fock’s sake! Not these two focking clowns!
‘Pissing in a swimming pool is a bit like farting at Mass. The trick is to squeeze it out quietly’
What are the girls in Mount Anville going to say when they find out you’re living in a housing estate?
I look fantastic for a man of 42, abs like speed bumps and pecs like bay windows
‘No focking way. I’m not breaking into the dude’s office’
‘I wonder sometimes are these kids definitely mine’
Our daughter is completely devoid of human feeling
Noah is graduating from creche. (Who the fock is Noah?)
Sometimes you have to break the Mount Anville code
‘You didn’t think I was going to sit back and watch you allow girls into this school, did you?’
‘I love Honor’s attitude. Not everyone does, but I’d be a major, major fan’
Sorcha is still serious about knocking gaff and turning it into aportments
"Three triplets and only one can be a mascot for Leinster. Who will it be?"
‘We want to build a block of aportments... affordable ones’
‘There are millions of people who would give their right orm to live in Killiney’
Women’s toilets? I mean, what’s next? A hockey pitch?
‘My antigen is still positive, but I’ve never felt better’
‘I will never forgive your old pair for treating us to this trip’
‘You focking idiot, Ross! Chocolate is poisonous to dogs’
‘Fifteen rooms is a lot to put down.’
‘Girls learn differently to boys – and when I say differently, I mean slowly and not as well’
‘A co-educational school has never won the Leinster Schools Senior Cup!’
'Do you mean there’s going to be, like, girls going to Castlerock?'
'It’s off to Budapest for Dr Holger Esterházy’s miracle hair restoration treatment'
‘You lifted the Leinster Schools Senior Cup – does that mean nothing to you now’
‘Fifty grandingtons!’ – that’s the cost of the Budapest hair clinic
'Just because we have money, we can't keep Killiney all to ourselves'
Rezoning Dalkey for affordable housing? The natives are up in orms
‘I feel like my old man – the pub bore, shouting opinions into the air while everyone zones out’
‘When I say it’s oaber, Rosser, Ine thalken about me and Hodor’s business. It’s boddixed’
‘Like a great many politicians, I have a public position, as well as a private position’
‘This is killing me, Sorcha. I feel about as useful as a focking Orts degree’
‘Andrea Shotton called me maskier than thou,’ Sorcha goes
‘Oh, please, God, no. I can’t become a father again at, like, 42’
‘It’s such a good present I actually wanted to smash it to pieces – just purely out of spite’
Sorcha injures her foot, while Honor makes a shocking discovery
The Christmas cards are out, but a problem arises
‘If you have to hide a cash incentive inside a food, it’s almost certainly not worth eating’
'Johnny goes, "My daddy says we’re going to eat a reindeer"'
Of course Santa exists – who do you think drinks all the Heineken?
‘I lead the boys at gunpoint up the Shelbourne Road’
‘I can lie – very easily – but not when it comes to rugby’
‘They talk about the Collison brothers, but those chaps have got nothing on you, Honor’
‘You are not giving me a combover’
Ross O’Carroll Kelly: ‘I can’t go bald. I’m 41 – but I’m, like, a young 41?’
'My children are storting to grow on me'
‘He has a dreamcatcher tattoo on the back of his wrist. It’s like he does these things deliberately to make me hate him’
"I’m having Vietnam-style flashbacks here"
"Sorcha did Fake Sincerity as an extracurricular subject in Mount Anville"
"First day in Willow Pork for the triplets – the absolute shame of it"
"My fingers are actually shaking as I type my exam number into the laptop"
‘I genuinely don’t think I’m ready to be a Blackrock dad’
"Honor says she’s not getting the Covid vaccine"
"You don't seem angry, like a lot of people who are into the Irish language" - Normal Sheeple excerpt #4
"It's a ball, but not an ordinary-shaped ball. This one is, like, round" - Normal Sheeple excerpt #3
"Out of the hundred or so people seated for dinner, I'm the only one wearing a Leinster jersey" - Normal Sheeple excerpt #2
"Everyone's clapping as Sorcha steers Samantha Power to the front row" - Normal Sheeple excerpt #1
‘His wife moves the cursor on his work laptop every five minutes, so it doesn’t go into sleep mode’
‘I want you to, like, Insta-story my Covid test journey’
'Are you suggesting I pretend to have Covid?’
‘Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara taught me how to drink a Mortini in three mouthfuls’
‘Ronan showed me how to light a fire and make it look like an accident’
‘I’d rather rip out my molars with a pliers than holiday in Ireland again’
‘You’ve massively disimproved with age ... The big, fat rugby head on you’
‘I’ll throw on my nudey lady borbecue apron’
I’m like Cersei Lannister – refusing to leave the throne
‘There wasn’t even a turn-down service, Judge. I’ll be having flashbacks for as long as I live’
‘Rugby banter is taking a dump in someone’s shoes’
‘Rugby is not pass the porcel, Morcus’
'Then she says it – the words all south Dublin parents dread'
‘They brought a corvery dinner to my room!’
‘We’re looking for Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly. She absconded from quarantine this morning’
'I just assumed quarantine wouldn’t affect people like us'
‘Get in before they change their minds and haul your orse back to jail’
My opening line in the Irish oral was ‘Bonjour’. I never really recovered after that
‘The judge tells us – in, like, legal language – to shut the fock up’
‘We’re not a priority for the vaccine.’ ‘Even though we’re rich?’
‘I urge you all – standing here, in the People’s Pork – to remove your masks!’
‘Netflix is port of the conspiracy! A form of methadone’
‘We can’t just dump all our rubbish in the front gorden, Sorcha'
"Wuthering Heights is basically the story of my life"
'After a year of being locked up together, we are sick and tired of the sight of each other’
‘Have you seen the chemtrails over Foxrock this morning?’
‘I know every mork on the floor, the walls and the ceiling of this bor’
‘75? What on earth makes you think I’m 75?’
‘Honor has been, like, homeschooling me’
‘The pressure of being the cool parent ends up being too much’
‘Do Dry January? That’s crazy talk’
‘I want a Christmas that Tony Holohan would approve of’
‘How much moo are we talking – for, like, midnight Mass in, say, Foxrock?’
‘One of your Three Wise Men stuck his middle finger up at me’
The kitchen smells of rum. Either my old dear is over or Sorcha’s baking a Christmas cake
‘I’ve storted a rumour Matt Damon wants to build a house on Coliemore road’
‘Honor was walking around with the blond wig and Make America Great Again sweatshirt’
‘Where is Flavian Way, anyway? It actually sounds more Glenageary than Dalkey?’
‘You can’t end a relationship with someone by climbing out the window’
I can hear the old dear’s hysterical voice going, ‘Better men than you have eaten my one-pot stews!’
‘Johnny actual Sexton is at the front door’
‘Ross,’ the old man goes, ‘I’m afraid I’ve made a dreadful mistake!’
‘Oh, right – you’re one of these maskier-than-thou people’
‘I’ve never been much of a conversationalist, but I’m on fire with this woman’
‘They want us to vacate this place so they can use it as a love shack?’
‘I wouldn’t expect an animal to live in that place. And, besides, it’s rented out at the moment’
I’ve seen her drink turpentine and still be sober enough for nine holes in Foxrock
This is still the Vico Road. Pandemic or no pandemic
Your old dear is no scene-stealer... she has sticky-out ears and legs like the William Dorgan Bridge
‘I’m going to ask you something,’ Sorcha goes, ‘Have you two been sleeping together?’
‘We could be in DeVille’s among people who get where we’re coming from. Literally the Vico Road’
We’re not American. This is how people from south Dublin talk?
‘I know none of us should be travelling - but Fock it’
‘We’ll be eating soup in Drizzle Mór while everyone else is sipping pina coladas’
‘You see, the 50-person limit has made Mass tickets a hot commodity’
‘That’ll teach him to challenge the Rossmeister to a mickey-swinging contest’
‘I’m the same as you. I hate it when other people are good at stuff that I’m not good at’
‘We give our children everything they ask for, if that makes us bad parents – guilty as chorged’
She saw a goy in a white coat and shouted, ‘Hero!’ And he was like, ‘Er, I work in Kiehl’s’
‘We’re having a fancy dress porty and I’m going as the wife of a philanderer’
‘Adultery is like getting a dent in a new cor. Once you’ve done it once, it gets easier’
‘It’s a shame it took a global pandemic to get Ross to keep it in his trousers’
‘Dad, you can shove your offer. I’m going to sit the Leaving Cert’
‘I’ve been booking supermorket delivery slots weeks in advance. Then selling them for €70 each’
‘Ross, how would you like to make love to a woman with grey hair?’
‘Sorcha has an – I think it’s a word – alterior motive for the Zoom call’
Joe Wicks goes, ‘That’s our warm-up completed.’ I’m already focked
‘We’re not going to eat the banana bread. We’re going to give it to the neighbours’
‘We’re fine up here, Ross. I just can’t imagine this thing coming to Foxrock’
‘Ross, from this morning, you’re going to be home-schooling Honor.’ I laugh out loud
‘The O’Carroll-Kelly Saliva Stakes is the closest thing we have to live sport now’
‘Ross, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Your mother is on Tinder’
‘I recognise the look instantly. One cheater knows another’
‘Samuel Beckett’s a writer. He wrote Waiting for Bobo’
‘I just shake my head... The dirty dog. The filthy hypocrite’
‘Sold to the man in the Ireland jersey with a bowtie tied around his neck!’
‘I want you to flirt with the girl on the reception desk’
‘I want this to be as big as the Statue of bloody well Liberty!”’
‘Críost on a rothar. It looks like Chorlie Haughey’
I hate my father-in-law the same way dogs hate lampposts
"You’re a camel hair coat away from being your grandfather, Ro"
‘We should have maybe hired a professional jockey’
‘Is anyone going to own up to this Kris Kindle? Is this some kind of joke?’
‘Ross, you can’t hold a note. I don’t want you embarrassing yourself’
‘Goys, does Ronan look like he’s actually in control of that horse?’
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘We may need to cuff him when we get to Lapland’
‘Tubs sees the boys then and – in fairness – he gives them the benefit of the doubt’
'The dude goes, The horse is a maniac. He's the maddest animal I've ever seen'
'Oh my God', Honor goes, 'there's a focking horse in the gorden!'
'Me and the goys are thinking of buying a horse'
‘It’s supposed to be like Quinta do Lago – except outside it’s Ballymahon’
"It absolutely kills me to say this, but people hate our kids"
‘Munster didn’t beat the All Blacks in 1978. This video proves it’
‘No, Sorcha. I’m going to Japan. The team needs me’
'All these early morning matches are taking their toll on me'
'My meal was served on a 1986 edition of the 01 phone directory'
Isn’t everyone wearing a kimono to watch the rugby?
‘Munster beat the All Blacks. We’ve all heard the story... but did it really happen?’
‘How does another dog plus five grand sound?’
‘How dare they leave out the hyphen?’
Schmidt Happens: Excerpt Three
Schmidt Happens: Excerpt Two
Schmidt Happens: Excerpt One
As one girl puts it, ‘Send him back to Google in a focking wheelchair’
‘The dude pats me down to make sure I’m not packing heat’
‘You can’t fire me as a godparent. I resign’
A south Dublin borbecue – what could possibly go wrong?
‘I wouldn’t be shocked if she was running a meth lab out of her bedroom’
‘You found 10 bags of cocaine and you go to the police?’
‘It’s coke, Rosser.’ I’m there, ‘Well I knew it wasn’t Shake n’Vac’
I’ve tried my best not to love my son any less since he storted wearing glasses
Honor has suddenly started to think about environmental issues ... but why?
Honor leaves Love Island to admit to driving the cor
‘While I hate lying to him, that’s my job as a parent’
‘Sorcha says the words that every rugby father dreads’
'The Lambo my old man gave Ro is having a strange effect on him'
‘We’re going to be doing what I call, Maths Through Rugby’
‘You’re a Montessori teacher. A babysitter with good insurance cover’
‘I know deep down she actually hates that I’m the cool parent’
'I don't mind being buried in Deansgrange. It's a good address'
'What the fock are you doing in a red Lambo?'
‘We’re going to miss the Easter Bonnet Parade in Dalkey’
‘I’m just saying that our kids are three little yobs’
‘Let’s just say the match is not a good advertisement for rugby’
‘I dedicate each sit-up to someone who’s done me wrong over the years’
I’m remembering Fr Fehily hyped up to fever pitch after listening to his Hitler 45s
‘Gout? What the fock is gout? And please don’t say it’s caused by rugby’
‘We would have beaten you with or without Fr Fehily’s doping programme’
The old man takes his truth bus to UCD’s snowflakes
No one warns you as you leave Holles Street, “Kids can be seriously focking annoying”
‘A convicted criminal is what this female student person called me!’
''Fock England!’ they shouted as we passed actual England supporters'
‘Ugly right-wing views? Is this about my letter to The Irish Times?’
‘I’m entitled to know why taxi drivers seem to think so little of me’
'How does this sound: The O’Carroll-Kelly Institute of Rugby!'
‘Honor can be terribly cruel – it’s hilarious if you’re not the one on the receiving end’
‘Honor cops me standing there, staring at her like she’s a dog explaining Brexit’
‘Croia called me a Gender Binarist because of my Goys and Dolls party’
‘Our way of dealing with our children’s anti-social behaviour has been to totally ignore it’
‘I’m sorry but that’s where this Santa Claus draws the line’
'I shan't be moving. I've got a full stomach and an empty bladder'
‘I’m sorry for crying. It’s just my brain feels like it’s turning into paté’
‘I swear on my children’s lives I’ve had no contact with Peter Casey’
‘Our bogey group should be lactose-intolerant Border-county cyclists’
‘I’m now a member of nine Mount Anville WhatsApp groups'
‘Just because people are vulnerable doesn’t mean they’re not taking the piss’
‘Honor was actually conceived in this cor?’ ‘We should push it off a cliff’
‘You grew up in south Dublin, but it’s like you arrived from space an hour ago’
‘I’m with The Girls. We’re getting along like doughnuts and Blanchardstown’
'There’s a girl who works in the Bailey. And before you say anything,we were on a break at the time'
‘I had no idea how difficult being a Mount Anville mom was going to be’
"Limerick’s definitely been tidied up a bit since ‘Angela’s Ashes"
My sons take after me in their love of being surrounded by admiring females
Dancing with the Tsars Excerpt #4
‘Working remotely is modern business-speak for on your own time and for no extra money’
Dancing with The Tsars Excerpt #3
Dancing with The Tsars Excerpt #2
Dancing with the Tsars Excerpt #1
‘I suddenly feel like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society’
‘Goys, this is Tayto Pork!’ The triplets’ faces light up’
'A chill goes through my body as I notice her - get this - kissing an actual boy'
"There’s a lot of Oh! My! God!s – even by normal South Dublin standards"
‘You cried once when Elaine Crowley was on holidays and someone else was presenting Midday’
‘Tag rugby is, like, speed dating for South Dublin people’
‘I’m reminded of an old rugby saying of mine: never be afraid to let the opposition see your abs’
‘The hosepipe ban isn’t for People Like Us. It’s only €125’
‘I considered driving over a cliff just so I wouldn’t have to hear their focking voices’
'I'm close to cracking up and we're not even on the runway yet'
'I'm morking the 20th anniversary of failing my test for the first time'
'Unless it's escaped your attention, I'm a complete moron'
‘Are you saying you want me to be one of those stay-in-bed fathers?’
‘I’m the best estate agent you have – and that’s not me being big-headed’
‘If she’s never met a brat like Honor before, she mustn’t be from around here’
‘He was basically saying I’m Leinster and Ireland’s unsung hero’
It turns out that I’m not as blue-blooded as I thought
‘Priced out of Killiney? That’s what you get for choosing an orts degree!’
Kielys of Donnybrook could be lost forever
‘I can sense Sorcha tensing up when Honor is asked, “Do you reject Satan?”’
‘I’m not posting bail for Conor McGregor. He dresses better than I do’
‘People need to realise ‘Room to Improve’ is just a TV show. It’s not reality’
‘I’ve chosen Vladimir for my Confirmation name. After Vladimir Putin’
‘It’s 500 yoyos to secure a seat, non-refundable in the event of cancellation’
‘Bouncy castles attract undesirables. They’re not for People Like Us’
‘You’re going to need to find another sucker – Mother’s Day or no Mother’s Day’
‘You went down a different route, Sorcha. You had a family. Three beautiful children. Plus Honor’
‘Why am I driving a shit cor? Because rugby is no longer a guarantee of anything’
Grab It, Trouser It and Leg It – a proper name for an estate agent
‘All these years, I’ve taken the rap for being the unfaithful one’
The Gord goes: ‘Do you ever inquire as to what your daughter gets up to online?’
‘We’re from South Dublin – none of us want to work for anything’
‘When Dricmas falls on a weekend, people are entitled to the Monday off’
‘To my ears, Irish always sounds like someone is hurting a Norwegian’
I’m the most high-profile Irish rugby player who never got the Leaving?’
‘Your resolution was to become part of the Irish coaching staff. How did you get on?’
‘Oh my God, it’s Christmas – and we’ve just been told there’s no room at the Inn’
‘Don’t forget to leave a very, very large gin and tonic out for, ahem, Rudolph!’
‘Dave came back from that HR course like a soldier who’s been to war and can’t speak about it’
‘Grandad!’ Rihanna-Brogan shouts. ‘Don’t call me that! Call me Rosser. Or Rossmeister’
‘You don’t discriminate. You’re a complete pig to absolutely everyone’
‘I have no prejudices. Except people who aren’t from Dublin’
‘I know HR is an actual thing now, but to me it’s like homeopathy or dinosaurs'
‘A brain like tiramisu.’ ‘Multi-layered?’ ‘No, soft and full of custard’
‘I have to say my year in UCD was possibly the happiest three months of my life’
'Believe me,’ Honor goes, ‘she’ll thank us for this in the long run’
‘You’re a bloody good estate agent. I’ve heard of your lack of emotion and basic humanity’
‘If white collar crime is a crime, then why does no one ever go to jail for it?’
‘This is my actual Dad, Ross. He’s a kind of fat rugby has-been’
Operation Trumpsformation: On Referendum Day, The Cornival Atmosphere Turns Sour for Ross
Operation Trumpsformation: Micheál Mortin Calls The Old Man's Attitude Cavalier & Irresponsible
Operation Trumpsformation: Honor, The True Heir to The O'Carroll-Kelly Rugby Name
Operation Trumpsformation: The Old Man's Vision for A New Ireland
‘There could be anything in there: a gun, €100k in cash, one of her teachers gagged’
The old dear goes: ‘I will never forgive you for this, Ross’
‘It’s the Vico Road. Do you think anyone around here cleans their own gaff?’
‘It still hasn’t dawned on Sorcha that Honor is the wrong crowd’
‘The anaesthetist is a total knockout – no pun intended’
‘Public transport is for the poor and fallen’
‘You drove to LA to hear a man from Crumlin swearing? You should have just gone to Crumlin’
‘Ross,’ he goes, ‘you marbles-in-your-mouth, soft-as-shite, South Dublin mammy’s boy’
‘The doctor says it’s an old rugby injury – I can’t tell you how proud that makes me’
‘Is Honor double-bluffing me? Or is she double-double bluffing me?’
"We need a name that says it’s for welfare cheats”
‘I hear someone blubbing and I suddenly realise it’s me’
'He dresses like shop security from the 1980s'
‘We’re southsiders,’ I tell her. ‘We don’t really do feuds’
‘We’re about to have our first openly second-tier-private-school-educated taoiseach’
‘Look me in the eye, Rosser. Did you hab sex with my wife that neet?’
‘We all make mistakes, Ro. . . Just try not to sleep with the wives of any other gangland killers’
‘Look, the recession was a fluke. No one knows why it happened, just that it did’
"It’s like if Tarantino directed Wind in the Willows"
‘I stop seeing them as criminals, and more as a normal family, like the Kordashians’
‘All estate agents know how to make bread. It’s one of the first things they teach you'
'Your daughter is malevolent, belligerent and discourteous'
"Ronan, I'm terrified of you being sucked into the world of guns, drugs and non-rugby nicknames"
‘I push the stick towards him with what resembles a dead rat on the end of it’
I am so excited thinking about all of the people’s lives we can change with this money!
Ross will pay it, Shadden. As a matter of fact, Ross will pay for absolutely everything
I genuinely feel like grabbing that wig right now and focking it in the Liffey
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: “I’m here to watch Denis O’Brien wipe the floor with you.”
‘It’s the Celtic Phoenix, Sorcha. People are thankfully being stupid again’
"The Dublin accent was invented to allow criminals to talk to each other"
‘If you showed Dermot Bannon around the inside of my head, he’d say the design was minimalist’
They’ll have to rename it ‘Don’t Tell the Bride I Did the Dirt on Her Again’
The old man wants to build Trump’s Mexican wall
‘I actually like Trump. I like the way he pisses people off. I can see a lot of myself in him’
‘I thought Pythagoras was something the Greeks dipped their bread in'
"She unbuttons her coat and that’s when I notice that my old dear has had . . . augmentation"
‘I win Most Ingenious Yet Borderline Illegal Use of the Phrase “Within Commutable Distance” award’
‘The two of us listen to them roaring at each other’
‘The turkey shuffles into the room and jumps onto the sofa beside me’
Going through Honor’s Santa list must be what it’s like to go on Tonight with Vincent Browne
‘The old man is making a complete orse of himself’
Have you ever had an episode like this before? You could use his orteries for attic insulation
‘I wouldn’t be any kind of best man if I didn’t try to persuade you'
I think it was John F Kennedy who said that politics was the something of something else
When she was born, the midwife smacked her orse and Sorcha fake-smiled her back
Don’t be frightened, it’s just latex and make-up – but you can call her Granny
‘Mount Anville took out a High Court injunction banning me from their debs one year’
‘You’re a dirty dog. And I can’t tell you how proud that makes me feel’
Women want more. I say let them have it. I’m just not sure I’m the man to give it to them
“ It feels like you’re.”“What?” “I’m going to use the phrase ‘pimping me out’.”
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘No one goes to lectures before Christmas’
‘Her ex worked as a risk assessor for an insurance company. I call him Love Actuary’
‘Did you hear that, Shadden? George Clooney is one of Hennessy’s neighbours!’
‘Honor is pacing in front of the cage, glowering at 200 terrified kids’
RO'CK Game of Throw-ins Extract 4
RO'CK Game of Throw-ins Extract 3
RO'CK Game of Throw-ins Extract 2
RO'CK Game of Throw-ins Extract 1
We can hear them chanting through the walls of the dressing room
‘You’re so transparent. You’re trying to butter me up so I won’t humiliate you too badly’
‘After 2km, I’m wheezing like a 60-cigarettes-a-day man while Garret isn’t even breathing heavily’
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘He’s got 12 months of hord training behind him. All I’ve really got is drugs’
‘That’s a side-effect of taking these pills, by the way – short-term memory, em . . . thingy ’
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘What’s happening with your face?’ ‘I’m thinking. I’m thinking deeply’
‘I suddenly feel the kind of shame that only a couple of lunchtime pints can help erase’
"See that little island down there. Lambay Island. Or – as it will soon be known – Aquatraz"
“Do you want to be the fedda puking his ring up on the soyud of the road?
‘I find myself standing on Vico Road, hand on the wall, throwing my breakfast up’
‘Claire doesn’t have, like, a Wicklow Wicklow accent? she’s very, very nearly South Dublin’
‘Are any of you familiar with Countdown?’ Of course they are – they were in UCD
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘You’re like a young Katie Hopkins – except more, I don’t know, evil?’
JP’s dad won’t be able to show his face in Doheny & Nesbitt’s again
‘I can see Honor standing in the wings, giving Miss Pallister the famous one-finger salute’
She might have fitted into the dress on our wedding day, but now, well..'
‘I put Leinster on the Census form as my religion’
‘If at first you don’t succeed, it’s a pretty good indication you’re never going to’
‘I could tell you the word she used except The Irish Times probably wouldn’t print it’
‘I can’t wait to see Denis O’Brien wipe the floor with you in the High Court'
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: doing a hard sell on Inchicore as an estate agent
Honor is naturally gifted on the piano. She’d want to be – we’ve spent about 12 grand on lessons
‘The last time JP had his hand on a breast, it came out of a bucket’
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘I haven’t heard the word pronoun since I sat the Junior Cert’
‘Are you the same guy who first called Mullingar the Gateway to Dublin?’
‘I make sure to just say it in my mind. Because that’s being a good husband'
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘Chorles wants a prison colony for people who don’t pay their water bills’
‘The government is planning to come down hord on people not paying their water bills’
Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘Keep your friends close. But make sure you have the means to destroy them’
This is getting ridiculous. It’s like being on a spa weekend with Sorcha
He smiles with the same smile he uses when choosing his lobster in Cavistons
These apartments will be so small, there won’t be room for two people to break wind
These are going to be our Family Date Nights
Has she been drinking or is she still pissed from last night?
I just don’t consider it a sport. It’s like watching CCTV footage of a fight
You look like something Dr Marie Cassidy should be going at with rubber gloves and a bone saw
I actually love women. If that makes me a feminist, then so be it.
Christmas is a time of year when, er… you get loads of stuff
I’m the porty spokesperson on Gender Issues
Ross, we need to take Pang to the Beacon – right now
My son’s nickname is Manslaughter.
Sorcha hasn't touched her chicken
“Ireland won alright. Which means we’re into the semi-finals of the World Cup!”
“A lot of children are just born that way – they’re d**kheads.”
I’m there, “Pang, give me those cigarettes.” She goes, “Get away from me, you racist!”
If you can do it on the upper deck of a no 40 bus
‘If you bought a gaff in Tenerife, they'd say they bought one in Elevenerife’
I should report you – underfloor heating is a human right
Seedless in Seattle Extract Five
Seedless in Seattle Extract Four
Seedless in Seattle Extract Three
Seedless in Seattle Extract Two
Seedless in Seattle Extract One
RO'CK: It's here. A day I thought I'd never see
Ross goes to Electric Picnic: “I’m not staying in a focking tent”
People are chanting, "Co'ck for Taoiseach!"
‘His dog just bit me,’ Honor goes. ‘Get up off your knees. We’re going to the Gords’
‘Why don’t you just tell Denis O’Brien’s solicitor that you’ll stop having Denis O’Brien Hair?’
‘Whatever you think about two men kicking the humanity out of each other in a cage...'
I've got to stop thinking about my old man as an ATM
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly - JPs old man
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly - You know that smell
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly - I've genuinely never seen Sorcha so angry ...
Ross O'Carroll Kelly: ‘Why would I want to date you? I’m already married to you.’
Ross O'Carroll Kelly (June 20th - 2)
Ross O Carroll Kelly (20th June)
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (May 23rd)
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (June 6th)
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (June 13th)
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (May 30th)