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Abstract
This article examines the work of white Irish American stand-up comedian Des Bishop in the context of Ireland's changing demographics. In particular, it situates Bishop within current and controversial debates on ‘undocumented Irish’ in the USA versus ‘illegal immigrants’ to Ireland, debates in which Bishop himself has explicitly intervened. A New York native who has been living in Ireland since the age of fourteen, Bishop's comedy draws upon the convention of the US stand-up as ‘ethnic’ outsider who exposes the foibles of the dominant mainstream, while he also self-consciously asserts his comic persona within the ‘returned Yank’ tradition in Irish American culture. In an increasingly multicultural Ireland, I contend that Bishop has established himself as a mediating figure between white (read: desirable) and non-white (read: undesirable) immigrants to Ireland, a strategy which, I argue, must be approached with caution.
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my gratitude to the Leverhulme Trust for awarding me the fellowship which has made this research possible.
Notes
2. Olivia Kelly, ‘Census Shows Dramatic Rise in Non-Irish Population’, Irish Times, 8 August 2007, 3.
3. CitationJoyce, Ulysses, 42.
4. It is difficult to measure popularity, but one indication might be that Bishop sold out twenty-one consecutive nights at the thousand-seat Opera House in Cork, Ireland's second largest city, in 2006. Brian Lavery, ‘Irish Eyes are Winking, You Can Hear the Angels Laugh’, New York Times, 24 March 2006, A4.
5. Davin O'Dwyer, ‘How's your Fada?’, Irish Times Magazine, 25 August 2007, 20.
6. Stop You're Killing Me Citation 2 .
7. Des Bishop: Live at Vicar St.
8. Ibid.
9. CitationGarner, Racism in the Irish Experience, 158.
10. An important example is Donal O'Kelly's play The Cambria, first staged in Dublin's Liberty Theatre in 2005. Framing the story of Frederick Douglass's journey to Ireland aboard the eponymous ship 160 years previously, with the story of a Nigerian school student recently deported from Ireland, the play's première on 17 March – St Patrick's Day – was a clear attempt to yoke together the history of racial relations in the USA with issues of race, citizenship and immigration in contemporary Ireland.
11. Garner, Racism in the Irish Experience, 50.
13. Corcoran, ‘The Process of Migration’, 304.
14. Population and Migration Estimates, 8.
15. CitationFraiberg, ‘Between the Laughter’, 318.
16. CitationStott, Comedy, 105.
17. Brian Boyd, ‘Off the Bar-stool’, Independent, 18 March 1991, 15.
18. CitationDixon and Falvey, Gift of the Gag, 95.
19. Quoted in ibid., 98.
20. Ibid.
21. Brian Boyd, ‘Off the Bar-stool’, Independent, 18 March 1991, 15.
22. Davin O'Dwyer, ‘How's your Fada?’, Irish Times Magazine, 25 August 2007, 20.
23. CitationMintz, ‘Standup Comedy as Social and Cultural Mediation’, 74.
24. CitationKoziski, ‘The Standup Comedian as Anthropologist’, 63.
25. Ibid., 57.
26. CitationO'Leary, ‘Yank Outsiders’, 259.
27. Des Bishop: Live at Vicar St.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. CitationHansson, ‘From Reformer to Sufferer’, 90.
31. Ibid., 89.
32. Citation Des Bishop Live .
34. Ibid.
35. Des Bishop Live.
36. Citation The Des Bishop Work Experience , episode 1.
37. CitationLloyd, Ireland after History, 105–6.
38. CitationMoynihan, ‘“Ships in Motion”’, 43.
39. CitationEagan, ‘Still “Black” and “Proud”’, 43.
40. CitationNegra, ‘Irishness, Innocence and American Identity Politics’, 355.
41. Ibid., 358.
42. Ibid., 365.
43. Caitriona Palmer, ‘Fear of the Irish 9/11 Heroes’, Irish Independent, 2 September 2006, Review 8.
44. CitationIrish Lobby for Immigration Reform, A Voice for Change, http://www.irishlobbyusa.org/.
45. CitationJensen, ‘“No Irish Need Apply”’, 405.
46. Eagan, ‘Still “Black” and “Proud”’, 21.
47. Sarah McInerney, ‘Irish United in States of Anxiety’, Sunday Tribune, 26 February 2006, 9.
48. CitationNegra, ‘The Irish in Us’, 1.
49. Citation Tubridy Tonight .
50. April Drew, ‘In the Name of the CitationBishop’, Irish Voice, 16 January 2008, http://www.irishabroad.com/news/irish-voice/news/Articles/In-the-Name-of-the-Bishop190108.aspx (accessed 15 February 2008).
51. W. Dudgeon, ‘Illegal Niceties’, Letters to the Editor, Irish Times, 22 March 2007, 19.
52. Denis Murphy, ‘“Undocumented” Irish in the US’, Letters to the Editor, Irish Times, 24 March 2007, 17.
54. CitationGibbons, ‘The Global Cure?’, 104.
55. CitationMarc, Comic Visions, 11.
56. Bishop, Tongues.
57. CitationSollors, Beyond Ethnicity, 132.
58. CitationJody Corcoran, ‘Why Racism and Violence Cannot be Tolerated on Any GAA Pitch’, Sunday Independent, 1 July 2007, http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/why-racism-and-violence-cannot-be-tolerated-on-any-gaa-pitch-892479.html (accessed 15 February 2008).
59. The Des Bishop Work Experience, episode 4.