What's The Craic?

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Okay, let's get started.

What's the crack?

What's the crack?

What's the crack?

What's the crack?

Never heard that.

That's sort of, correct me if I'm wrong, Henry, but what's the crack means?

What's the scuttlebutt?

What are you guys talking about?

What's the gossip, the hot goss?

Is that right?

What's the scuttlebutt?

That's exactly what we mean.

Yeah.

Scuttlebutt is an ancient Greek term.

Henry, your name is Henry.

What's your last name, Henry?

God bless you.

It's nice to talk to you.

Tell me, tell me a little bit about, I'm just, I'm fascinated.

You've probably heard me talk about this, but my people have been in the United States

for over a hundred years, but I am still genetically 100% Irish, which is disgusting if you really

get into it.

I'm with you on this one, Shona.

Now, tell me, Henry, but I think to myself all the time, there are people in Ireland

who are a quarter Spanish or half French, or they've got some belt.

What about you?

What's your story?

As I think Bill Hicks once said, we have, like if people in America have bloody tan

skin and white teeth, we have tan teeth and white skin here.

Yeah.

I am, I'm pretty much, I think I'm 100% Irish like yourself, and I think you're probably

one of our, you're our best guy.

I think it's a, it's a, it's a terrible burden to bear to be a hundred percent Irish.

Do you have crazy nightmares?

I do.

I feel like I'm somewhat insane.

You must, do you find that it's a burden being a hundred percent Irish?

You could be worse things in fairness, you know, you know, you know, we've got, we're

lucky enough to have a lot of whiskey to try and drown them sorrows.

Irish or something?

Huh?

Wow.

Yeah.

The bar is always closed.

Um, but you bring up a good point, Henry, there are many worse things.

I can't think of any at the time, but, uh, I'm sure there are.

And I, and I like your attitude.

You have a very positive attitude, Henry.

Usually, usually I'm a, I'm a very cynical, um, uh, annoyed person, but today I'm on cloud

nine today speaking with yourselves.

Oh, that's so nice.

See the thing in the behind me there?

Oh, that's a sketch.

Dimitri Martin did.

It was a very funny sketch.

Yeah.

My wife bought it for me.

Yeah.

So when you were finishing up with late night, I believe you could have auctioned off a lot

I don't think I did.

I, I think you have that.

I think someone was selling shit at NBC, but it was not me.

So, uh, I'm glad that your wife got it and I'm glad that it went to a real fan, but no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm bloody hit.

It was a cost a pretty penny as well for something that's been in the attic for, for like 10

Oh man.

Yeah.

I, I, I really want to investigate this now because someone at NBC way back in 2009 said,

well, Conan's leaving let's, uh, let's sell all of his stuff and keep, and keep the money.

And I have some ideas as to who it might've been.

She also bet, uh, she bought me a night with Andy Richter as well for some reason.

You will not regret it.

You will not regret it.

I've never, I've never been held more tenderly in my entire life, Henry, than my night with

Andy Richter.

No, I was going to say, no, I'm a, one of your OG fans.

I believe from back in the, back in the day.

Well, you're a young lad.

You must've, did you grow up watching the late night show?

I was a teen.

So in Ireland here, we don't have, uh, NBC the same as yourself there.

So, so full disclosure, the way it came to scroll for you was, uh, back then I used to

watch it on satellite TV and my brother emigrated to America and he didn't pay the satellite

bill.

So we had no other channels to watch, but MSNBC or something from Germany.

So I discovered your show from that.

They re-ran us for a while on MSNBC, I think, or CMBC, one of those, one of those.

to no choice.

monsters and the whirlpool.

fans.

The fact that you basically were forced to watch, uh, that works for me too.

As long as you, we got you in the tent, I'm happy.

You know what?

I could have, couldn't have been a better default fan than, than a Conan O'Brien fan.

It was fantastic.

What's your, what's your livelihood?

I run my own business.

That's dunegaltourguide.ie.

And I am a tour guide and I drive people around Donegal every day, showing them all of the

lovely country.

There's another one.

There's some really green grass.

There's a guy with a hat standing by the side of the road with a shovel.

There's more green grass.

What are you showing them?

Gorgeous.

I don't want to ostracize from the other 31 counties here in the country, but, uh, no,

it's a beautiful, beautiful spot here.

Um, it's, uh, it's, uh, the fourth largest county, we've got 1200 kilometers or well

over 1200 kilometers of coastline.

And it's also known as the Fricotten County of Ireland.

So, uh, people, hasn't been a lot of visitors coming here in the past few years.

So, um, now we've been here.

If everyone in Ireland forgot about it here, that wasn't our fault.

Really?

Yeah.

We have no infrastructure coming up here.

Uh, there's no motorways and we're bordered by Northern Ireland as well.

So beautiful.

Yeah.

Even though the rest of the country, they forget about us, but you know what?

We don't, you know, we're, we're okay with that.

Can you just point on a map to where you are right now?

Do you mind?

Yeah.

Oh, there you go.

Oh, wow.

He emigrated eight minutes ago.

My family from there.

My family from there.

Yeah.

that against you.

Let me ask you something.

Uh, Henry, what kind of tour guide are you, or do you, are you pretty serious or do you

keep it light?

Yeah.

This is a new meaning to the term forgotten.

You see, you see, like you have people coming on every night for maybe 30 minutes or two

to talk to.

I have a captive audience for about eight hours a day and I get to talk and tell all

my own jokes.

And then at the end of the day, when they've given me a positive view, I give them back

their luggage and they're free to go.

I used to do that with my audiences at the late night show.

I used to confiscate all their phones and wallets before the show.

And if they didn't laugh, they didn't get them back.

So it worked out very nicely.

You would love this.

You would love tour guiding with him.

I think I would.

I think I would be, how do you think I'd be as a Donny Gall tour guide?

and everything.

And like, you know, you're the king of that.

humbles me more than the times I've been to Ireland because I think I'm a pretty funny

person and then I'll get into a taxi cab and the driver's much funnier than I am.

It just runs in the water there.

So that's a compliment.

That's the main thing.

Everybody likes to, you know, you don't be too high on a pedestal before we take you

down.

I know.

That's funny.

Uh, that is exactly how my brothers and sisters operate.

And uh, and my family, it's always, you can't start to think you're something cause they'll

take you right down.

And that's the thing, like, you know, your self-deprecating humor, that's, that's like

myself and so many other people, uh, have kind of emulated your kind of sense of humor.

There it is, by the way.

I wouldn't take the time to learn anything.

I'd make it up.

And it would just be a bunch of lies.

It would be, as you people say, shite.

Yeah.

You see that the key is you get them out of the car before they realize, and the worst

thing to have is Google, because once people start Googling and find out the truth, then

you're in trouble.

But yeah, it's a lot of making it up as you go along.

Yeah.

I meant to go this road, even though it's a dead end.

That's the way you do it.

Just make it up on the fly.

Uh, you, you, uh, you're married or you're in a relationship.

What's happening?

I've been married to Leanne, my lovely wife there for, since 2009, I've got three lovely

kids who are all sleeping there soundly right now at the minute, Harrison, Drayda and John.

And they're the best kids you could ask for.

They're lovely.

And, uh, yeah, thankfully they've all been, they've all been sent to bed with duct tape

over their mouths for the recording.

here, did it?

It's just what you do every night.

So, um, and, and your wife, is she supportive of your humor?

when I'm not working, it's all about bets and doing joke, having jokes and just making

fun all the time.

And the poor woman has nowhere else to go.

Well, guess what?

She's sticking with me and she's a wonderful mother and a great wife.

But there are times where I'm doing my bits, my shtick, running my mouth in the kitchen

about nonsense.

And she says, you've got to take this outside.

You've got to go outside and do this with a squirrel because I can't take this anymore.

Yeah.

things I said to her, I said, she went to, she was going to pick me up, sorry, we're

going to go for a date.

And she said, what time could you pick me up?

And I said, well, I can't drive.

Couldn't drive a car back then.

She's like, you can't drive.

And I said, you'd be surprised by the amount of things that I can't do.

You've got to be honest up front.

You need to tell her that.

There are a lot of people who would think, well, I'll lie.

I'll bluff my way through this.

I'll say I can't drive tonight because I had my eyes dilated by the optometrist.

You'll have to do it tonight and then quickly go and figure out a way to get a license on

the side.

But no, you, you, you, you put it out there.

You put the truth out there.

And that's what I did with my wife.

I decided on our first date that I was going to just be as foolish as I could possibly

be.

And if she made it through that night, then I'd be okay.

And she left me.

But then I met someone else who became my wife.

Best thing you do is honesty up front.

No BS at all.

That's the best way to do it.

And that's the way I run my tours.

I just like to tell everybody as it is.

And, you know, back, back to that again.

When I came back after a good few tours and I threw the money down the table and my

wife said, my God, I can't believe we found something that you're good at.

Yeah.

They're just you're riding.

You're driving the double decker bus through the countryside.

And you say, by the way, I don't have a license.

Well, it's you sound I mean, I first of all, I take a tour from you any day.

You seem like you'd be a terrific tour guide.

I'd be a pleasure to take a tour around Donegal next time you come to Ireland.

I expect you to come here and I will drive you around.

What are you going to show me?

That's the coolest thing you're going to show me.

Yeah.

On this tour.

accessible sea cliffs in Europe.

They're here in Donegal.

You'll want to go up to the most northerly point, Mallinhead, where they filmed

Star Wars Episode seven.

Wait a minute.

This is mine.

What did they film there?

Sorry.

Oh, eight.

So, yeah, the planet Act Two, I believe.

Where they got porno.

Well, I'll just continue on if you don't mind.

So and what's the name of this place?

So that's why I thought for a second someone who knew me in high school

named a point after me.

Hey, Mallinhead, get over here.

Wow.

That's incredible.

Did you get to hang around the set while they were shooting the Star Wars

installment?

at all.

Wow.

Henry, you and I have a lot in common.

I'm banned from most movie sets throughout the world.

And theaters.

Well, that's for a different reason.

That was considered a perversion.

That's a little different.

Come on.

I was wearing a raincoat.

Don't go with it.

We got it.

Anyway.

Is it about the raincoat?

Yes.

Because it can stand up on its own.

No, come on.

Sorry.

Sorry about that.

I'll clean it up, Henry.

I apologize.

So you, as you know, self-deprecating humor, you always run yourself down.

And that's the way I would have always run my kind of, as I say, comedy to

nobody, you know, when I'm being popular.

conversations?

Say you had a plumber in your house who was doing a bad job and you had to

try and explain to him, no, I want it done a certain way.

But he knows you've been like wearing a dress or dressed as a cow the night

before that.

catch his interest.

But I will say...

You're shooting a little movie there.

Yeah, yeah.

No...

With the raincoat.

Yeah.

No, Henry, it's a good question.

I am very bad at confrontation.

So I'm not very good at telling people...

You know, it's interesting, and this is true.

I'm being serious with you.

For just a moment, I'll be candid.

I am not very good at telling someone who's doing some work for me that I

would prefer it done a different way.

Or someone cooking for me or anything like that.

I'm not good at that, and I'll probably hold my tongue and let them ruin my

sink or my disposal or my bathtub, whatever they're working on.

Where I am able to tell people my mind is in comedy.

So there I feel...

Nope, nope, it needs to be slower, and then this needs to speed up,

and then this has to happen.

But that's the one area of my life where I'm very comfortable speaking my

mind, and my writers will attest that that's true.

So...

other people then like to jump on you and pile on you and using your own

jokes against you to run you down even more times.

And then I just, you know, it's funny because sometimes when you're doing

self-deprecating humor, other people pick up on it, and so they don't even

know you that well, but they walk up to you and say,

hey, you're a piece of shit, right?

Isn't that funny?

I don't think that's related.

Well, then why did you say it?

But anyway, I know what you mean, Henry, but for the most part,

people understand where you're coming from, which is...

I do have some self-worth.

So, not a lot, but I do have some.

And the humor just, it's just, I didn't choose that sense of humor,

that's just who I was.

And that may come from being so Irish.

I do think it is something that we do.

Not all Irish people, some are very happy to be blowhards,

but it was very much in my blood to have fun at my own expense.

And sometimes that's just as a defense mechanism against the tall poppies.

I want to make fun of myself before anybody else cuts me down.

So, there's many psychological reasons.

It all goes back to Ireland.

Yes.

Well, do you know what?

It's nice to hear that you feel it as well because, you know,

it's something that, you know, I know we don't have the same type

of audience when I'm talking to my friends in the pub or something like that.

I'm telling you, it is the same.

I don't think about it as being a big audience or all those years I did my show

or this podcast, I don't think of in terms of a large scale of people listening.

I never have thought about it that way.

I try to make people laugh the way I do one-on-one if I were in a pub.

It's the same.

It's exactly the same.

There just happens to be a microphone here and some cameras

and there's a bunch of people that listen to it.

But it is really no different.

Scale doesn't change it.

It doesn't change it at all.

If you and I hung out in a pub, you'd find me just as annoying in person

as I am on the podcast.

I promise you that.

because I think I'd out-annoy you any day, I think.

It's on.

Hey, man, Henry, it's on.

It is on and I'm going to win.

Very good.

I'm going to win.

Henry, a real delight talking to you.

You seem like a very nice, funny guy.

You have a great spirit and I'm very happy that you've found your niche,

you've found what you love to do, and you've got this great family.

Just before I go, I just want to say once again to yourself

and to everybody on Late Night, because I know you've done so many things,

but online now and on YouTube and everything,

everybody can find a community very easily.