Florence opens the first episode of 2025 by saying that Tadhg Griffin needs no introduction, because most of you will know him. In Boyle that is not a figure of speech. It is the whole premise of the next twenty seven minutes.

There is no chronology to it. Florence says so at the start, that they are not going to go in order from young lad to older lad, they are just going to talk about a few things. What comes out of that is better than an ordered life story, because you end up with the actual shape of somebody’s week.

Saint Mary’s, and friends for life

He was in St Mary’s in the mid to late nineties and did his Leaving Cert in 2002, and he is quick to clarify that this means 2002 and not 1902. He was in with James Spellman, Joe McGee and Darren Roddy. Michael O’Dowd, Daryl Dooley, Richard Connolly and poor old Martin Byrne come up a minute later.

Asked what his favourite subject was, he will not pick one, because they were all good crack. Asked about the teachers, he says they were a great crack and very easy going, and then makes the point that they would have needed to be, teaching the likes of himself and that particular crowd all in together. There was no harm in any of it. It was banter.

His verdict on the place is four words long and it is the one that sticks.

“Friends for life in Saint Mary’s.”

Florence, who was a couple of years behind him, calls the whole era organised chaos, and he agrees.

Gladiators, the Simpsons and a lifetime of WWE

The nineties come back in through the television. Gladiators, Ulrika Jonsson, and the pair of them trying and failing to work out what Awooga actually meant. Bradley Walsh, who Tadhg reckons can do no wrong at the minute and who is fronting the new Gladiators, which he has saved up and not watched yet.

The Simpsons gets a harder read. He thinks the new episodes are like watching Barney the dinosaur compared to what was going on in the nineties, then gives the writers a fair shake by allowing that comedy has moved on too.

These days it is The Apprentice, The Traitors on the BBC, which he says is excellent and which Florence has never heard of, a bit of the soaps, and WWE. He introduces WWE as his favourite sport and then corrects himself, because it is World Wrestling Entertainment, and it is entertainment more than anything else.

The Iron Claw had just come out and Florence had been at it, and he had been on YouTube looking up the Von Erichs, the old matches, the interviews, the whole lot. His own favourites go back to The Rock and Stone Cold. What has him most pleased is the present day roster, because there are three Irish wrestlers on it: Sheamus, Becky Lynch and Finn Balor. Getting to America and doing that, he says, is the pinnacle of a career.

He has seen it live once, in the 3Arena with Joe Ryan, when Roman Reigns was champion. Savage, is the verdict. Great crack. He liked the whole lot of it.

Asked what he makes of Vince McMahon, he does not take the bait, and says himself that it is not to be talked about. That is the end of that, and fair enough.

Two men, one Avengers film, and nothing to say

Marvel and Star Wars are the other long standing thing. He describes a full twelve months at work before Endgame came out where the Avengers was the only conversation anybody was having.

His review of Avengers: Infinity War is the best one you will hear. He and Joe Ryan went into Carrick to see it. When it finished, the two of them sat there, speechless, because neither of them could think of a single thing to say.

The lads

When Florence points out that he has a great circle of friends, he does the thing he does twice in the episode. He starts naming people and then stops himself, because he knows he will forget somebody, and he would hate that.

What he does say is that his family are fantastic, his aunt and uncle in Boyle, his cousins in Dublin and elsewhere, and that the lads are outstanding. He is treated like family. He is invited to everything. Every year he is out watching the Toy Show with Johnny and Donna and the three children. Most weekends he is out with Shane, and the godchild.

An honour to have in my life, is how he puts it, and then moves the conversation on before anyone can make anything of it.

2001

Florence asks him about the year he had the back operation and he answers it straight, with no build up.

He has curvature of the spine. In 2001 they put rods into his back to straighten it out. He had the surgery during his pre Leaving Cert year in St Mary’s, and he says plainly that it was not the easiest time.

Then he does something with it that tells you a good deal about him. He does not stay on the operation. He talks about his mother and father being great, and the lads being great, and then this:

“I was invited to every house in Boyle that time.”

And then, a beat later, that nothing has changed. He is still invited to every house in Boyle. Whether he is welcome or not, he says, he is there anyway.

Florence takes the point and runs with it, that a lot of us have become nearly afraid to call to a house and knock on a door and ask are you free for a cup of tea. His answer is that it is mighty.

Boston, Dallas, and a question he should not have answered

He has been to the States twice, Boston and Dallas. Dallas was for his thirtieth, around ten years ago, and it only happened because Donna could not travel and he went in her place with Johnny.

Johnny, understandably, spent the run up coaching him. Answer the questions, have manners, do not be messing, do not be asking too many questions, no smart comments.

So the officer asks him why he is going over. Holiday. Fine. Then: did you pack your bag yourself.

No.

Johnny is looking at him. The officer asks who packed it.

Mam did.

Johnny, by his own admission afterwards, did not know what to say. A bit further down the line another officer, very serious, asked him whether he was going to ride a bull in Dallas, and he did not know what to say to that either.

They did the JFK assassination tour, which he calls unreal, and went out to Southfork, which he also calls unreal. Then on the Friday night they landed into a rodeo in Fort Worth by pure chance. He thought it would run an hour. It ran four or five, with a big concert at the end of it. Such an experience, he says. Would he go back? He will see.

Jurassic Park, and sitting in the aisle

Before they hit record he had been talking about the old cinema in Boyle, so Florence brings it back up.

Jurassic Park. They were only children. The man on the door, Brian Kelly, did not want to turn anybody away, so the deal was that they could come in but they would have to sit in the aisle. They sat in the aisle and watched the whole thing. Mighty, is the word.

The other one he remembers from in there is Mister Nanny, with Hulk Hogan, which he still rates.

He thinks it is a pity all the small independent cinemas seem to be gone and it is all multiplexes now. Florence points out that you still find them abroad, thirty seats and lovely, and he agrees that it is a different experience altogether.

The week

This is the part of the episode I would send to anyone who wants to know what a small town is actually for.

Man United on the television, some of the matches rather than all of them. And on a Sunday the phone might go, Martin or Noel or Shane or one of the lads and their families, and off he goes to a match.

Sunday dinner is at Betty’s and has been since COVID. Betty and Johnny, a bit of crack, a bit of fun, a bit of nonsense. Florence says a Sunday dinner is a nice tradition and he agrees, and they both land on the same thing, which is the telly off and the phones and the laptops put away and everyone just talking.

Friday is the best of it. Friday is the Boyle Celtic 50/50 draw with Eddie, Sean, Richie, Patty, Paul and Leanne. He is there every week without fail, and the way he describes the arrangement is worth quoting exactly.

“Every week I’m collected, and every week I’m dropped home.”

Tuesday has its own routine. An hour into the shop with Richard, annoying him, giving him a hand with the papers, and being, by his own assessment, more of a hindrance than a help. Then over to the bingo, where Tom Egan is on the numbers and there is always a bit of banter. Florence asks whether that is not what life is about, and he says exactly.

Five days a week he is in the office doing a bit of admin. He likes it. The people are lovely and he cannot fault them, and he calls them a work family, and says they look after him.

Ask him about plans and he does not have grand ones. Bits and pieces. Then this, which is the quietest and possibly the truest line in the episode: routine is so important, and structure.

The town, and the pubs

There was a fortieth, and Joe Ryan organised it, and got lads from work and lads from college to come. He calls it a brilliant night. The gang back together.

That leads into the Sunday sessions, and the pub scene, and Tadhg is fair about it. The pubs are trying their best. What changed was that people got used to drinking at home, and once you are in your pyjamas with the fire on and rain outside, as Florence puts it, it is hard to move. He agrees you would have to be going out heavy.

What he still loves is the town wedged. Christmas. Patrick’s Day. The Six Nations on and a bar mental with it.

He thinks Boyle is not utilised as much as it should be, and then immediately says that people are doing their best, and points at the Lough Key festival in September as proof. That is going to be great, he says. Night and day.

Could not fault it

Florence asks him does he love Boyle. She barely gets the question out.

Love it. Could not fault Boyle. And then: Boyle is lovely and the people of Boyle are fantastic.

Asked at the very end whether there is anything they did not get to, he does not go looking for a story. He uses the last thirty seconds to thank people. His aunt and uncle in Boyle. His cousins in Dublin and around the world. The lads. The fellows from college. The work gang. Unbelievable, good people, is how he leaves it.

Twenty seven minutes, no chronology, and the clearest picture of a week in Boyle that this podcast has put out.