Remember when we talked about this book? Author David Lynch filled us in on all the fortunes and misfortunes of today’s Irish.  

Lynch showed us what you might see on the Irish street, or in the Irish bureaucrat’s office. Getting in to the Irish head and heart is a job for another author and, fortunately, Lynch tells us which one to look for: Roddy Doyle.

I spent a few days reading the short stories in Doyle’s Bullfighting. They were about blokes.

One bloke takes his daily walk and ponders all that has slipped out of his grasp.

Another bloke teaches school, dreaming of the bottle back at home.

Yet another drives his parents to funerals, then to the chipper afterward. It fills the time. His insurance business is slow these days.

Two blokes (different stories) think they’re dying.

Four blokes go on holiday together in Spain. They’ve known each other since they were boys.

“It was the best thing about Ireland, about Dublin anyway; he could still see the men he’d grown up with. He’d gone to school with lads who’d moved to Canada, the States, even South Africa. But no one he knew had ever moved south of the Liffey. They’d either got out of the country or stayed put.”

And in the story I loved the best, a bloke suddenly craves the taste of blood. Temptation was never so funny as it is in this tale.

Photo credits:

Irish flag:   Anna & Michal via Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA

Burberry cap:  Menswear Market on VisualHunt / CC BY

Guinness: Zach Dischner on Visual Hunt / CC BY