{"id":1187791,"date":"2026-09-05T11:31:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T11:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1187791\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T11:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T11:31:33","slug":"meet-the-limerick-woman-who-won-edinburgh-comedy-newcomer-irish-people-are-the-funniest-people-in-the-world-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1187791\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Limerick woman who won Edinburgh comedy newcomer: \u2018Irish people are the funniest people in the world\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

How agreeable are you? <\/p>\n

When it comes to making art<\/a>, I\u2019m not agreeable. I\u2019m very adamant about going by instinct. I\u2019ve learned a lot from being a painter and a comedian<\/a> for years and I think it must feel right and authentic. So you have to go with that and you need to stand firm and show people what\u2019s inside your brain and what you believe in. But as a person in everyday things, I tend to go with the flow. <\/p>\n

When you\u2019re doing a club set<\/a>, you have audiences that are there not just for you. You want people to come and have a good time with you all together, you\u2019re trying to bring everyone in. But at the same time, you need to do what you\u2019ve come to do. You can\u2019t pander to everyone. <\/p>\n

If you commit more, they\u2019ll commit to you. Whereas painting is more standalone and you don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to appeal to someone in that quiet moment they\u2019re looking at the work. Whereas in comedy, they\u2019re getting kind of a 360 vision of you. So I think people connect to people more than something that\u2019s hanging on a wall. It\u2019s very different. But I think in both cases I would be very much like: \u201cI\u2019m here to do what I do.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tell us about your middle name and what you think of it? <\/p>\n

I have two middle names, Louise and Elizabeth. And when I was a kid, I thought my name was Marty Louise Elizabeth. My Confirmation name was Valerie, and I picked that just because of the TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I wanted to pick Sabrina but they were like: \u201cYou can\u2019t pick a witch name.\u201d It was too pagan for them. So I picked Valerie because that was her best friend\u2019s name on the show. <\/p>\n

Where is your favourite place in Ireland? <\/p>\n

I have a soft spot for the Limerick School of Art and Design. I learned a lot there about creative thinking and myself as a person. The school was such a massive part of the show I did at the Fringe. I met so many other creatives there that I\u2019m still friends with. They\u2019re friends for life and my best pals. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Breakthrough Irish comedian takes prize at Edinburgh Comedy AwardsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

One of my favourite shows at the Fringe this year was when they all flew over. Half the audience was made up of them. The place was absolutely rocking. It was so much fun. <\/p>\n

But in terms of the landscape of Ireland I love anywhere by the sea. It\u2019s so wild at home and there\u2019s nothing like the Atlantic. It\u2019s just the smell of it and the energy of it. And the Cliffs of Moher, my God, they\u2019re something else. Whenever I see them it makes me feel like I\u2019m so small but also massive at the same time. <\/p>\n

Describe yourself in three words. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m warm, which is an Irish trait. That\u2019s helped me a lot over in the UK, especially being a comedian. I think that helps you source other warm people because warmth responds to warmth. Secondly, I\u2019m quite independent. I think I have to be in what I do. And I\u2019m playful. I\u2019m definitely very playful. I think it\u2019s a good balance with being independent because it\u2019s nice to feel like you\u2019re on stage and your eight-year-old self is up there with you but she\u2019s your equal and you\u2019re both up there. So I\u2019d say warm, independent and playful. <\/p>\n

When did you last get angry? <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t generally get angry, to be honest. But I recently got introduced on stage by a male MC as \u201cadorable\u201d. I just thought that was crazy. But that was probably the last time. I kind of let things slide unless I think it\u2019s a situation where I should say something. I\u2019m quite chill. If I\u2019m in a rush I\u2019ll get angry but just internally angry at myself. <\/p>\n

What is your strongest childhood memory? <\/p>\n

I think when I was a little kid and I\u2019d be playing with my cousins in the summertime in the grass. You could just smell the grass and you\u2019re running around playing 40-40 or something and you all get sniffly noses because you\u2019re absolutely tearing around the place and then going inside to watch a big movie. That night you\u2019d be begging your parents to have a sleepover and then getting to stay up late and watch movies you maybe shouldn\u2019t be watching, like Liar Liar, and we\u2019d all be laughing together. <\/p>\n

Where do you come in your family\u2019s birth order and has it defined you? <\/p>\n

I\u2019m the youngest of two so my sister is four years older than me. And she is very different. She\u2019s an accountant. So I think our brains are different. She\u2019s quite logical and I\u2019m quite creative. Our parents just allowed us to follow the thread of what we were interested in because they had one of each, logical and creative. I think that\u2019s how it defined me. I couldn\u2019t do what my sister does and vice versa. So it\u2019s just natural encouragement from our parents because of how different we are. I guess being the youngest maybe lets you do things that are a bit mad, like stand-up. <\/p>\n

When do you think you were happiest? <\/p>\n

Probably my first time properly performing in Ireland. I did the Paddy Power Comedy Festival in this big tent and I hadn\u2019t performed much in Ireland at all at that point. So I was quite nervous about it because Irish people are the funniest people in the world. I knew I kind of had to really show them what I was made of. <\/p>\n

But also I was like: \u201cWhat are people going to think?\u201d But I got to be exactly who I am and just really bring it. And it was unreal. It was a crowd of like 300 people. The room was humming. It was this kind of surge of electric energy. I loved it. We\u2019re talking about trying to sort an Irish tour now. <\/p>\n

Which actor would you like to play you in a biopic about your life? <\/p>\n

I think the biopic would have to be an animation. It has to be a cartoon. Maybe like Cartoon Network visuals, like Cow and Chicken and then I could do the voice. But if I had to pick someone else it would be a hybrid of different people. If there was a way of putting them into a machine and making it one person then it would be CMAT and Jack Black. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How agreeable are you? When it comes to making art, I\u2019m not agreeable. I\u2019m very adamant about going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1187792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,28728,4884,712,16,15,37368,215814],"class_list":["post-1187791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edinburgh","tag-britain","tag-edinburgh","tag-for-you","tag-great-britain","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-weekendreview","tag-your-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1187792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}