History Podcast takes the Jimmy Hasty story to Spirit Store in Dundalk

The fascinating story of Jimmy Hasty, the one-armed footballer who played for Dundalk and Northern Ireland, and who was murdered in a sectarian killing in Belfast, will be one of the topics of conversation this Thursday 23 May at the Spirit Store, as Kevin Larney and Jason Brennan bring their “Sh*te Talk - An Irish History Podcast” live show to Dundalk for a second time.

For the past few years, comedians Kevin Larney and Jason Brennan have been hosting their podcast, as well as travelling the country with their live show, retelling the local stories of the places they visit. They describe the podcast as “a somewhat accurate retelling of Irish history stories”

Kevin, from outside Dundalk, and Jason, from Carlow, met through the Irish comedy scene and spoke to the Dundalk Democrat ahead of this Thursday's gig. For their last gig in Dundalk in 2022, they brought their live show to Dundalk Gaol, where they chatted about the 1922 jailbreak led by Frank Aiken, for the 100 year anniversary of the event.

Kevin reveals, “At the Dundalk Gaol gig, people brought documents and files of relatives who had been involved in the prison break. People had interviewed people who had broken out of the prison. It was interesting to see people's connections to it. They were delighted to come up and talk about it then afterwards”

The night is pretty much the same premise as it was two years ago - similar to two lads telling stories over pints, “now the stories are a little bit more researched”, Jason adds.

Looking at the podcasts they have done recently, politics has come to the fore for the past while, with topics like Bertie Ahern, Ben Dunne, tribunals all being covered. 

“That's the great thing about the podcast”, Kevin explains. “After doing that for a few months, we're able to jump back into a load of fun stories from 150-200 years ago, just so we don't keep it 100% serious the whole time. But there's plenty of laughs in the Bertie Ahern episode."

Looking forward to this Thursday's gig, Kevin continues, “after doing all the political stuff the past couple of months, we're going to do something a bit different, we're going to do the story of Jimmy Hasty. The story is very interesting, played for Dundalk, and had an unfortunate end to his life. There's a lot of different things you can talk about there along the way – Dundalk football, Northern Ireland politics.

The pair have learned some incredibly interesting stories about people and the places where they have performed over the past few years, and Dundalk has more than its fair share.

Kevin continues, “We were doing a thing a while ago about one of the brewers, Herman Muender. He was an ex World War Two German soldier, fought for Germany, then after that got into brewing and was brought over to Dundalk to set up Harp brewing. So his signature is on all the cans of Harp. He would have fought for the Nazis but he wasn't a Nazi officer – he would have been conscripted into the war.”

Kevin goes on to mention factoids relating to Dundalk and the area, including Shaggy, the RnB star who is married to a Dundalk woman, and Patrick Kavanagh commentating for RTE during the 1966 World Cup.

“And John Moore, the director”, Jason adds, referring to Louth man John Moore, who directed movies including Behind Enemy Lines and one of the Die Hard movies.

“I would have been in school when they were coming out”, Kevin comments but adds, laughing, “there was no town crier, saying there's someone over in Hollywood making these films.”

If reports from the previous Dundalk gig are anything to go by, this will certainly be a fascinating night. Doors open on Thursday night at the Spirit Store at 8pm. There are some tickets left, but act fast, as they are bound to go quickly. To book tickets, go to https://spiritstore.ie/event.php?eventID=Shite24