Having a good laugh in Britain at Irish joke

THERE'S a gag tommy Tiernan does about what happened to him a few years ago in Navan when he approached the town's elders and suggested they stage an arts festival. "An arts festival?" they replied. "Sure, don't we have a shopping centre?"

People love this line and they love it even more when Dylan Moran, talking about the same town, tells them about the bizarre sexual bonding practices in the town ("If you threw up over somebody, it meant they were yours for life") and how when people from Co Meath meet up with people from, say, Co Louth when abroad, they would as likely as not "drag up some inter county cattle stealing incident from years back, just to get a good row going".

The same simple, uncomplicated people who say that Father Ted is "showing up" Irish people in front of the British would doubtlessly say both Dylan and Tommy are "showing up" their home town for the sake of a cheap laugh abroad.

This is precisely what they are not doing, and by not doing it, Dylan has won the biggest stand up comedy award available and Tommy has won its junior equivalent.

It goes something like this: there are plenty of brilliant comics, from Britain, the US and Australia at Edinburgh 96. They're witty, urbane and sophisticated and in the case of Bill Bailey (Britain) and Rich Hall (US) they're good enough to reduce you to tears.

The reason why Dylan Moran is better than all of them is that not only can he match them gag for gag in the witty urbane and sophisticated department but he also has richer and deeper layers of comedy to offer. His tales of growing up in Navan and life as he lived it on the rural urban interface are not something you hear every day in the comedy clubs of London, New York and Sydney. He is, in fact, joking at the crossroads and, far from ridiculing Navan, he is celebrating its individuality and its endearing eccentric ways. I think.

This is also why Ardal O'Hanlon is currently one of the biggest comic draws in Britain. Ardal is able to touch all the usual comic bases - he does gags about sex, drugs and rock n roll - but he is also able to go further and talk about his life in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan.

When Ardal tells tales of how the oil crisis of the 1970s affected Carrickmacross or why he and his bicycle became the subject of controversy in the town, he's delving into areas that the average slick London comic can only dream of.

Similarly, Patrick McDonnell, from Co Louth, (a finalist in the So You Think You're Funny competition) can regale audiences with his jokes about the Prodigy and Oasis but he can also talk about what it feels like to strip down to your underpants and go running in the fields with the new born calves.

And even though Sean Hughes grew up in Tallaght and has only an urban experience, part of the reason he is so successful is that he can tell British audiences about how life is different in Dublin, and how, and more importantly, why we do things differently.

The Irish comics are saying to British audiences that we know all about their culture, we get all their television stations and their newspapers and we support their football teams. But they don't know anything about our culture, except lord some crude stereotypes, so we re going to build a comedy routine around it.

On the subject of stereotypes, Dylan is wise enough to know that the only way to demolish them is to embrace them. "People in Britain say that the Irish drink too much," he says in his set. "And I've just got to tell you that I was home last weekend and I found this to be ... absolutely true."

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Dylan's victory in the Perrier is that it is not remarkable at all. From his first gig in Dublin four years ago, it has always been abundantly clear that this young man is very, very special. The only remarkable thing about Dylan is that until last Saturday night, only about five people in Ireland knew who he was and what he was capable of.

Even though Dylan, Ardal and Tommy have all stormed the festival, there's little point getting too excited about it. There is no real comedy culture in Ireland, no infrastructure and no support in terms of people going to the gigs.

As Eddie Izzard puts it: "Maybe the people think they're funny enough already." And no amount of Perrier winners will change that perception.