Writer Roddy Doyle is amused at the Irish obsession with writing about being Irish: “Being Irish has changed ‘about 17 times’ in the last hundred years. He finds the image put out by the tourist board of Ireland these days hilarious in its cheek, particularly since all around the world people have swallowed it. ‘It’s a big con job,’ he says. ‘We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it’s a dreary little dump most of the time. Try getting a pint at one in the morning and you’ll find just how raving it actually is’.”