The bore

Origins

Brendan Behan. Patrick Kavanagh. Flann O'Brien. The work of these authors during the fifties and sixties was instrumental in forming the modern Irish consciousness, turning as they did an unwelcome spotlight into the piss-crusted cistern of post Civil War Irish society, forcing the toads and fluke and cockroaches blink manically and scuttle for cover. They took DeValera's pastoral idyll of an enclosed theocracy and pissed and puked on it. In addition to their literary ability-- and some say because of it-- they were also very heavy drinkers and many of them died as a direct result of their addiction. But it was not long before a certain section of the Irish population noticed that one could appear interesting and arty by emulating these mens' drinking habits and brusque social manner without actually having to go to all the trouble of emulating their literary abilities too. And thus the Dublin pub bore was born.

The true pub bore is a man (the bore is invariably male) who missed his calling in life as a hot air balloon. A self-styled commentator on the Irish Condition, he works from the theory that most people can't tell gin-induced monomania from genuine artistic ability. Unlike the equivalent Great-American-Novel-writing bore of the New York scene or the Great-American-Screenplay-writing bore of Hollywood who may actually have some scraps written down in their horrible bedsits, the Irish bore with his deep-seated God-will-provide hedge religion believes that someday his Great Work will condense out of the air with no actual effort on his part. The bore is idolised in Irish tourist material as the `character': the eccentric raconteur whose untrammelled story-talking will gladden the heart of any visitor to these shores. Bollocks. This myth is fostered by bores and wannabe bores who write for Bord Failte and Irish newspapers when they are not propping up the counter in a pub and who ascribe some sort of transcendental powers to heavy drinking.

Age

Middle-aged.

Appearance

Variable. Generally shabby. Usually dressed a couple of decades out of fashion. The bore likes to think that this adds to his eccentricity, but it's really because personal grooming, being something you actually have to work at, is not on the bore's list of priorities. Most bores will have at least one serious hygiene problem that in association with their conversation (see below) will make their physical proximity really disturbing: extreme dandruff, rotting teeth, powerful body odour, etc. Really good bores will exhibit multiple such problems.

Conversation topics

The bore exists to abuse peoples' natural politeness and curiosity and will bend the ear of any unfortunate passing in a 20-foot radius of themselves with a never-ending dribble of ill-formed and incomprehensible opinion. Make no mistake about it: regardless of how `bohemian' the bore appears, he is deeply conservative and will hold many insane and mostly mutually-inconsistent views on unmarried mothers, foreign emigrants, the power of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, and the price of the pint.

Drinks

Whatever the unfortunate victim will buy to get him to shut up.