Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is a fictional character created by Irish journalist Paul Howard. The character of Ross is a satirical depiction of a wealthy, self-obsessed, Foxrock-dwelling rugby player. Howard distances himself from his protagonist's viewpoint by describing himself as being "as working class as curry sauce, processed cheese slices and borrowing money from the credit union". The Sunday Tribune newspaper features a regular column, written in the first person from Ross' perspective. The columns (which have been adapted into a series of books) chronicle the events of Ross' life, much in the manner of fictional diarists like Bridget Jones or Adrian Mole. Paul Howard is a journalist with the Sunday Tribune, an Irish Sunday newspaper. ... Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject (individuals, organizations, states) often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. ... Foxrock (Carraig an tSionnaigh in Irish) is a suburb, formerly a separate village, in Dublin, Ireland, in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, in postal district Dublin 18. ... Image from a test-match between Ireland and the New Zealand All Blacks. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... An Indian chicken curry A curry is any of a great variety of distinctively spiced dishes, best-known in Indian and Thai cuisine, but curry has been adopted into all of the mainstream cuisines of the Asia-Pacific area, from Pakistan in the west and even eventually to Japan. ... Cheese is a solid food made from the curdled milk of cows, goats, sheep, or other mammals. ... A credit union is a not-for-profit co-operative financial institution that is owned and controlled by its members, through the election of a volunteer Board of Directors elected from the membership itself. ... Sunday Tribune is an Irish Sunday newspaper humourously referred to as The Turbine, especially in the magazine The Phoenix. ... Third person redirects here, but can also mean: Third Person, a New York City improvising trio A perspective (storytelling) Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ... An appointment diary A diary or journal is a book for writing discrete entries arranged by date. ... Bridget Jones is a fictional character created by English writer Helen Fielding. ... Adrian Albert Mole (born April 2, 1967) is the fictional protagonist in a series of books by Sue Townsend. ...

Language

The column is written in a phonetic representation of the intonation peculiar to Dublin 4 and other affluent areas of South Dublin. This accent is one of the primary targets of satire in the columns. Though the basic idioms are derived largely from standard Hiberno-English, the D4 accent as represented by Howard has distinguishing features Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Of all Dublin postal districts, Dublin 4 (D4) is probably the most famous outside the city, due in no small part to it being the location of the national broadcaster RTÉ. The district also contains the RDS and Lansdowne Road stadium, venues of many sporting events and concerts, adding to... South Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath Theas) is an administrative county in the Republic of Ireland which forms part of the traditional county of Dublin. ... An idiom is an expression (ie. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

• 'Car' is written as 'cor', 'arts' as 'orts' and 'fuck' as 'fock'.
• The "soft T" prevails: 'Right' becomes 'Roysh', 'DART' becomes 'Dorsh'.
• A form of rhyming slang exists: A taxi is a 'Jo Maxi' (or simply a 'Jo'), and a love-bite is a 'Denis' (referring to the rugby player Denis Hickie). The act of masturbation (a wank) is an "Allied Irish" (referring to the Allied Irish Bank.) This can be confusing to overseas readers, especially when overused - "the pen is padraig" meaning "the stink is fierce" ("pen ink" meaning "stink" and "Padraig Pearse", "fierce").
  • Other forms of wordplay (occasionally employing equallly obscure references) are also common. For example, a girl who has "fallen to the communists" or has "Munster playing at home" is (or is speculated to be) having her period.
• Sentences are often punctuated with frequent use of the words 'like' or 'roysh'.
• Female characters in particular use American figures of speech, usually in an American accent, gleaned from shows such as Friends. For example: "OH my God! I SO know what you mean!"
• Character's names are frequently unusual Irish language names. For example, 'Pól' (Irish for 'Paul') or 'Mícheál' ('Michael') would not be acceptable, but 'Fionn' or 'Sorcha' are.
• Female characters names are often spelt in unusual ways, which necessitates referring to them as, for example, "Jayne with a 'y'" or "Amie w/ an -ie".
• Ross, in particular, describes women by comparing them to female celebrities. For example "A total Ali Landry", "A bit of a girl-next-door vibe, if your next door neighbour happens to be Cheryl Tweedy."

A typical statement from one of Ross' columns is "So there I was, roysh, class legend, schools rugby legend, basically all-round legend, when someone decides you can't, like, sit the Leaving Cert four times. Well that put a focking spanner in the works." An 8200 Class DART unit, Iarnród Éireann 8203, at Grand Canal Dock station in 2001 The Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) is a suburban railway system in Dublin, Ireland, running primarily along the coastline of Dublin Bay, from Greystones in Wicklow to Howth and Malahide. ... Cockney rhyming slang is a form of English slang which originated in the East End of London. ... A love-bite on the neck. ... Denis Anthony Hickie is a professional rugby player employed by the Irish Rugby Football Union. ... Masturbation is the manual excitation of the sexual organs, most often to the point of orgasm. ... Allied Irish Banks plc (AIB),(ISE: ALBK) , (LSE: ALBK) , (NYSE: AIB), (Ireland not to be mistaken for Anglo Irish Bank. ... Patrick Pearse Patrick Henry Pearse (known as Pádraic Pearse or, in the Irish language, as Pádraic Anraí Mac Piarais) (November 10, 1879 - May 3, 1916) was a teacher, poet, writer and political activist who led the Irish Easter Rising in 1916. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... The Irish Rugby Football Union Munster Branch (also known as Munster Rugby) is one of four branches of the IRFU, and is responsible for rugby union in the Irish province of Munster. ... The menstrual cycle is the periodic change in a womans body that occurs every month between puberty and menopause and that relates to reproduction. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Ali Landry Ali Landry (born July 21, 1973) is an actress best known as a spokesperson for Doritos, for whom she appeared in celebrated commercials aired during the 1998 and 1999 Super Bowls. ... Cheryl Tweedy Cheryl Ann Tweedy (born in Newcastle, England; June 30, 1983) is a British singer and member of the group Girls Aloud. ... The Leaving Certificate Examination (commonly referred to as the Leaving Cert) is the final examination in the Irish secondary school system. ...

Although the main satirical targets of the columns are affluent South Dublin dwellers, elements of working class culture (sometimes called skanger culture, similar to the British chav phenomenon) are also parodied, again, primarily through language. The Southside is not an official administrative area but a colloquial term. ... Scanger or skanger is a derogatory term for members of a youth subculture group in Ireland (especially Dublin). ... Look up chav and charva in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

• Common exclamations include "Ah Jaysus!", and "(Wat's de) Story, bud?" (which is taken to mean "How are you, my friend?").
• The 'th' sound becomes a 'd' sound: "Wudja looka dat young fella over dare" ("(Would you) Look at that young man over there").
• "The Herald" becomes "The Heddild", 'aren't' becomes 'arden't'.
• The word "but" is sent to the end of the sentence rather than the beginning: "Didn't he do a whole lot for the country, but."
• Working class people are sometimes referred to by Ross as "Howiyas" (based on the dublin accent rendering of "How are you?"), and the women as "Jacintas" (a name perceived to be common among working class Dublin women).

The Evening Herald is a tabloid evening newspaper published in Dublin, Ireland by Independent News & Media. ...

Characters

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (born Ross Kyle Gibson McBride O'Carroll-Kelly) - The protagonist and narrator. His initials, given to him by Tribune journalist Gerard Siggins, are ROCK. This is a double reference - Ross attended the fictional school Castlerock College, which is known as 'Rock, but in reality, 'Rock is the nickname of the rugby playing school Blackrock College. Ross is dimwitted, vain and a heartless womaniser. Though Ross performed well in schools rugby, his natural laziness meant that he never progressed in the game as an adult. Ross has a near psychotic contempt for "skangers" or "skobies" (as he refers to working class people) and "boggers" or "culchies" (as he refers to people from outside the Pale). His marriage to Sorcha has done little to hinder his prolific womanising (at least, if his account is to be believed). Once he has had his way with a girl, he rarely replies to her calls or messages, unless he needs to use her for some ulterior purpose. The protagonist is the central figure of a story, and is often referred to as a storys main character. ... The Narrator is the entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. ... Blackrock College (Irish: Coláiste na Carraige Duibhe) is a Catholic, voluntary, fee-paying secondary school for boys, located in Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland. ... Scanger or skanger is a derogatory term for members of a youth subculture group in Ireland (especially Dublin). ... Bogger is an Irish insulting term for someone not from a city. ... The following is a list of ethnic slurs that are, or have been, used to refer to members of a given ethnicity (or in some cases, nationality, region or religion) in a derogatory or pejorative manner. ... The Pale or the English Pale comprised a region in a radius of 20 miles around Dublin which the English in Ireland gradually fortified against incursion from Gaels. ...

Charles O'Carroll-Kelly - Ross' father. Ross treats him with contempt, often while obtaining large amounts of money from him. Is very proud of his son's rugby skills & demands the utmost respect for him from sports columnists. Ross' nicknames for him, possibly suggested by his initials, include "Dick-features" and "Knob-head". Remarkably these daily insults seem to fly clear over his head as he readily hands out cash without hesitation.

Fionnuala O'Carroll-Kelly - Ross' mother. Often gets involved in campaigns (such as "Halting Sites Where They're Appropriate") to keep working class and disadvantaged elements out of Foxrock. Again, the initials of her name form a lewd joke in Ross-speak. The term working class is used to denote a social class. ...

Hennessy Coghlan-O'Hara - Charles' solicitor and friend. He shares Charles' concerns about the working class, and is in trouble with the law for tax evasion. It transpires that "Hennessy" is merely an alias, and his real name is "Frank Awder". Is quite fond of the female natives of South East Asia. This article contrasts tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax resistance and tax mitigation. ...

Christian - Ross' oldest friend. An obsessive Star Wars fan, he talks of little else and often merges movie scenes and quotes in to his day-to-day life. He married Hennessy's daughter, Lauren, in 2005. The cover of the 2004 DVD widescreen release of the modified original Star Wars Trilogy. ...

JP - A friend of Ross' who prior to 2005 spoke "fluent morkeshing," i.e. marketing. He talked entirely in business slogans and catch phrases. (For example, "Sounds like there's a highly resourced, precisely targeted results drive going down here.") According to Ross, he is doing an MDB (Managing Daddy's Business) at the fictional real estate firm Hook, Lyon and Sinker. However, this all changed following the death of Pope John Paul II, when JP embraced Christianity and rejected materialism. He recently entered the seminary, and is in training for the priesthood. Nicknames currently include JP III. 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A slogan is a memorable phrase used in political or commercial context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. ... A catch phrase is a phrase or expression that is popularized, usually through repeated use, by a real person or fictional character. ... Real estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings. ... Pope John Paul II (Latin: ), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005) reigned as pope of the Roman Catholic Church for almost 27 years, from October 16, 1978 until his death, making his the second-longest pontificate. ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on the life, teachings, and actions of Jesus of Nazareth, known by Christians as Jesus Christ, as recounted in the New Testament. ... In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ... A seminary is a specialized university-like institution for the purpose of instructing students in religion, often in order to prepare them to become members of the clergy. ...

Oisinn - "One of the goys", a mountain of a man with the stomach of an elephant, as proved following his victory at the annual UCD Iron Stomach eating competition. Deliberately goes out with the ugliest girls. An aspiring perfume creator, he is able to tell exactly what aftershave or perfume his friends are wearing. His "old dear" is a "yummy mummy".

Fionn - The only one of Ross' friends with academic ability. Currently studying for a PhD. Though they respect each other as rugby players from their time on "the 'S'" (Schools senior cup team) together, Ross and Fionn are almost polar opposites of one another, and as a result the pair have often fallen out with one another. Their antipathy is compounded by the fact that Fionn harbours romantic feelings for Sorcha. He is widely rumoured, via the medium of toilet-wall graffiti, to have had an affair with Sorcha and indeed in some rumours to be the father of Ross' second child, Honor. Ross' jealousy about Fionn's infatuation was the catalyst for his marriage proposal to Sorcha. PhD usually refers to the academic title Doctor of Philosophy PhD can also refer to the manga Phantasy Degree This is a disambiguation page — a list of pages that otherwise might share the same title. ...

Sorcha O'Carroll-Kelly (born Sorcha Eidemar Françoise Lalor) - Ross' recurring love interest, and eventually his wife. She is a benevolent character and is concerned with issues such as poverty and various endangered species. Her main interests are shopping and watching Friends, Dawson's Creek and The O.C. Ross repeatedly cheats on her but is possessive of her nonetheless. Her signature scent is Issey Miyake perfume. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Dawsons Creek was a popular American serial television drama aimed at teenagers, which aired in hour-long episodes from 1998 to 2003. ... The O.C. is an American television drama program broadcast on the Fox Network in the U.S. and on various networks around the world. ... Issey Miyake (born April 22, 1935) is an international Japanese fashion designer. ...

Erika - Femme fatale and Sorcha's closest friend during college despite the fact that she cannot stand Sorcha's caring nature. Hobbies include horse riding and dating super-rich men. Totally uninterested with the predictable topics her girlfriends talk about (favourite moment in Dawson's Creek, Weight Watchers points etc). Can put down a man with one lash of her tongue and thus became something of a forbidden fruit in Ross' eyes. She repeatedly toys with the idea of seducing Ross (who knows he would be unable to resist), with the sole apparent intention of hurting Sorcha. Weight Watchers NYSE: WTW, founded in the 1960s by Jean Nidetch, is a company offering various dieting products and services to assist weight loss. ...

Ronan - Ross' illegitimate 8-year old son, who, to Ross' eternal shame, is a prime example of the skanger subculture. Though only a child, he has many criminal connections, and is tipped by his neighbours to become "the next Genoddle", i.e., The General, Martin Cahill. Surprisingly he is the only character in the series who has been able to make Erika smile and - despite the vast social gap between them - she has grown quite fond of him also. Scanger or skanger is a derogatory term for members of a youth subculture group in Ireland (especially Dublin). ... Martin Cahill, (May 23, 1949 - August 18, 1994) was a prominent Irish criminal. ...

Father Fehily - Principal of Castlerock. Rugby is all-important; students on the S are excused from all discipline. (for as long as they are successful). He intersperses his motivational speeches with quotes from Nazi speeches, which apparently goes unnoticed by even the more intelligent students. (Incidentally, Castlerock's school song is "Castlerock ǖber alles".)

Influence

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is something of a cultural phenomenon within Ireland, and his name has become a byword for all that is perceived to be wrong in Celtic Tiger Ireland. Though it is largely viewed as satire, there are those who view Ross O'Carroll-Kelly as a role model and an idol. For example, some people have imitated Ross' pastime of driving through disadvantaged areas in expensive cars, shouting "Affluence!" at passersby. So infamous has the character become that local radio station FM104 feature a weekly phone-in with a R.O.C.K-minded person named Gavin (and his northside counterpart, Paudgie) on their morning show The Strawberry Alarm Clock. Cartoon of the Celtic Tiger - the press media in Ireland use pictures of green striped tigers to symbolise or sometimes mock the Celtic Tiger The Celtic Tiger is a nickname for the Republic of Ireland during its period of rapid economic growth between the 1990s and 2001 or 2002. ... Role model refers to a person who fills his or her role as a good or bad example for others. ... A teen idol is a famous person who generates attention from large numbers of teenagers. ... FM104 is an Independent Local Radio station broadcast across Dublin, Ireland, on the frequency FM104. ... Colm Hayes & Jim-Jim Nugent are the presenters of Dublin’s number 1 breakfast show. ...

Books

Five Ross O'Carroll-Kelly books have been published:

• The Miseducation Years
• The Teenage Dirtbag Years
• The Orange Mocha-Chip Frappucino Years
• PS, I Scored The Bridesmaids
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress

In addition, a Ross O'Carroll-Kelly CD, Twelve Days Of Christmas, has been released, with the voice of Ross provided by Risteárd Cooper, and Lisa Lambe as Sorcha. The CD is available to buy at online at Easons [1] Risteárd Cooper is an Irish comedian famous as one of the stars of Après Match. ...

Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Ps-i-scored-the-brides-cover. ... Image File history File links The-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-nightdress-cover. ...