💾 Archived View for eir.mooo.com › nuacht › cor16941240004.gmi captured on 2023-09-08 at 16:05:20. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
EchoLive.ie, 8 Sep
This week, Cork comedian, actor, and writer, Tadhg Hickey launched his
book, ‘A Portrait of The Piss Artist As a Young Man’. JENNIFER HORGAN
chats to him to find out more
Cork comedian explores serious topic of alcoholism through humour in
new book
Tadhg Hickey with his partner Claire and daughter Sadhbh at the launch
of A Portrait of The Piss Artist As a Young Man by Tadhg Hickey at the
Cork Opera House. Picture: Dan Linehan
Jennifer Horgan
CORKMAN Tadhg Hickey’s new book, an oftentimes hilarious memoir
detailing his alcoholism, is one he never intended to write.
“My publisher actually heard me on the radio and felt my angle on
alcoholism wasn’t one people hear too often. It seems intuitive to me
that alcoholism is a type of mental illness. It is a symptom of
something else. But that’s not often how it’s presented.”
Time For Change
The passionate Hickey believes Irish people’s discourse around mental
health and alcohol has failed to evolve. Although the 41-year-old
Corkonian is a comedian by trade, his tone is serious throughout our
chat, without the hilarity and entertainment of the memoir.
“Mental health is a bit of a buzzword. I’m not convinced lads are
talking about mental health a lot. I’m around young people and I don’t
think much has changed since my era.
Yes, we have the buzz word but does that filter into real change?
There is a failure to really engage with alcoholism in our culture, he
believes, a reluctance to take it seriously, to dig deeper.
“Stage depictions of the Irish drunk are still the same. We still have
this idea of the artist and the drunk. Any addict I know is hobbled by
drink, not aided by it. I’m not sure we’ve changed our understanding
much. We have totally normalised hangovers for instance. People think
it’s normal to say they are hungover at work. There is a whole hangover
culture, you know, that ‘get in your jammies and watch Netflix’ stuff.”
He highlights our unhealthy attitude to drink, but also holds the state
responsible for how we view alcoholics.
“Our government still takes a punitive approach to addiction.
A punitive approach does nothing to shed any light on the
responsibility of the family and broader Irish society to care for
people.
It is hard to beat us as a country when it comes to how we groom people
for addiction. And yet, when people naturally act out, they are treated
as morally defective. Nobody bothers looking at the reasons why they
are acting out.”
The book, cleverly titled A Portrait of the Piss Artist as a Young Man
(a nod to Hickey’s degree in English Literature in UCC perhaps) draws
on what the Cork comedian believes to be his biggest talent.
“If I’m good at anything, it is my ability to explore serious topics
through humour. I tell a lot of funny stories in the book but I also
tell my honest story in a truthful way. My hope is that readers will
grasp that you would have to be mentally unwell to risk everything for
drink.”
It is at this point in our chat that the author starts to get personal,
mirroring the candidness running throughout his book.
The Impact of Alcohol
“I know now that my addiction meant that I didn’t live my life in
accordance with my values. One of my daughters is 19 now. I let her
down badly and I had to make amends when I got sober.
“Being around other addicts has really helped me to understand the
nature of the illness, that anxiety at the root of it. Maybe, if I were
a teenager now, people might identify me as someone experiencing a
panic attack and help me. Back when I was young, I just felt like a
freak.”
The memoir provides a vivid, and often amusing, account of growing up
in 1990s Cork. The young, inebriated Hickey retraces his steps around
Barrack Street, into the much-loved Sir Henrys nightclub. Beneath the
fun and the frolics, is a darkness lurking. He is not afraid to share
both a love for and a criticism of his city.
Tadhg says the culture around drinking in schools was destructive when
he was growing up.
“Being drunk or hungover was a badge of honour then. But I knew, I had
a creeping feeling that my relationship with alcohol was problematic.
I stopped drinking altogether when I did my Leaving Cert because I was
clever. I knew I could do well but I also knew that if I drank I could
miss exams completely.
Culture
He believes that if it wasn’t for the consequences of his drinking, he
might still be drinking now.
“I was very aware of letting people down. And I was very good at
internalising that bad feeling, telling myself I was a piece of dirt.”
He also interrogates how people addicted to alcohol are treated in the
community.
“If a heroin addict recovers, they are considered extraordinary. The
media love it. Alcoholism is seen as just a little bit ordinary. The
person is just a bit wild.
"But I don’t know one single alcoholic who doesn’t have a trauma at the
root of their addiction.”
He returns to his frustration with our government.
“As a country, we don’t want to look at the role this repressive,
conservative state has played in creating mental illness. Fine Gael
imposed such horrific austerity whilst indulging in corporate greasing.
Adult children are still living with their parents into their thirties.
The government is creating a generation who are frozen out.
Michael Carr and Victoris Curtis, marketing department Cork Opera
House. Michael Carr and Victoris Curtis, marketing department Cork
Opera House.
“It’s like a pantomime. We must ask ourselves why, as a country, we are
still managing to produce far more than our quota of alcoholics?”
Tadhg equates the failure of our government to British colonialism.
“We took the ball from the British and we just ran with it. We gained
independence and made the country more oppressive.”
Equally concerned with the role of the family, the memoir details his
own childhood which was impacted by his mother’s alcoholism. It is a
heartbreaking account of growing up around addiction and mental
illness.
“The family is hugely important for an addict. An intervention
shouldn’t be about people gathering to shock the addict, it should be
about the family acknowledging that someone is in pain and wondering
why.
Everyone in the family will need to heal, not just the addict.
Therapy Of Writing
“I wouldn’t have written this book if my mother was still alive. I
wouldn’t want to hurt her. I dedicated the book to her because I came
to understand and love her far more through the act of writing it. I
have far more compassion for her now. From university counselling to
various therapies, I have been flooded with opportunities to heal, but
my mum got none of that.”
Sharing his joy at being sober, it is clear that Tadhg has a lot left
to do in life.
“I am very happy to play even a small part in the movements I care
about. My barstool dreams were always about following through on what
I’m passionate about. I can do that now. I do a lot of work
interrogating Southern apathy about the North for instance.”
He is also very excited about his upcoming tour entitled The Marxist
Terrorist-supporting Scumbag Tour, which will run alongside the book
launch. The show is a stand-up comedy act, a new experience for him,
with original songs by Eoin O’Sullivan. The tour kicks off in Cork
Opera House on September 26.
Tickets available at
https://www.corkoperahouse.ie/whats-on/tadhg-hickey-the-marxist-terrori
st-supporting-scumbag-tour/
Read More
Corkman’s debut novel gets into mind of killer