Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

The old man steps into the kitchen with a Montecristo the size of a rolled-up yoga mat burning between his fat fingers. Sorcha storts coughing – her passive-aggressive way of telling him that we don’t allow smoking in this house – but he just ignores her, like he did when she tried to introduce a similar rule about shoes.

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How quickly the years go by. That’s what I’m thinking as I’m taking the right turn at Donnybrook Bus Depot.

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I had my nightmare again last night, the one where I have a one-night stand with Taylor Swift and then I ghost the girl and she ends up writing 15 or 16 songs about me and they’re on the radio constantly. And – yeah, no – I woke up screaming.

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Sorcha is upset. I totally get that? But I haven’t seen her over-react like this since I ate a tin of macadamias from the hotel mini-bor on a weekend city break in Ljubljana.

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Réaltín smiles. Which might well be a first for her. Yeah, no, we’re in Baldoyle of all places, playing Thor Frimann and Lisa Murray – the reigning champions – in the semi-finals of the mixed doubles at the Leinster Padel Championships. It’s, like, one set apiece and we’re winning 5-4 in the third.

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I tell Honor that I’m proud of her.

I’m there, “Obviously, I don’t mean that literally?” because all she’s actually done is spend her Paddy’s Day picking litter up off the beach in Curracloe as port of her community service. “I’m proud of the way you’re, like, owning what you did?”

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I’m the first to arrive. I order a pint of the obvious and I do a quick circuit of the place. There’s no one here yet, even though I said eight o’clock and it’s quarter-past already. Fr Fehily wouldn’t have put up with that. What was it he used to say? Better three hours too early than a minute too late?

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I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.

“Ross?” the dude goes, pulling a face at me across the net. “Ross O’Carroll-Kelly?”

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Sorcha asks me straight out if I’m having an affair.

I’m like, “Why would you even think that?”

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I haven’t seen Honor look this angry since the time she spear-tackled a woman who tried to cheat her out of first place in the sack race at the Castle Pork Dalkey Open Sports Day.

She’s like, “What ... the... fock?”

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Sorcha says she’s sorry and I’m there, “Hey, it’s cool,” even though I’ve no idea what she’s even apologising for?

She goes, “Oh my God, I was such an idiot.”

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“If some wooden comes at you with a shank,” Ronan goes, “grab them be the wrist and twist it, then hit them at the base of the nose with the heel of yisser hand, driving upwards. Upwards – that’s it."

irishtimes.com

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So I’m shaking hands with Hugh and Marie Atcheson after our latest victory in the Leinster Padel Championships and the famous Réaltín – as in, like, my mixed doublesportner? – is just, like, glowering at me.

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Honor pretends to sneeze, but instead of ‘achoo!’ she goes ‘fock you!’ to the prosecution barrister

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So Honor is lying on her bed, her nose stuck in her phone, presumably trolling people on social media, when I tell her that Hennessy Coghlan-O’Hara is here to talk about her case.

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Réaltín and I have an intuitive understanding that only great lovers, or an out-half and his inside-centre, could fully understand

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Sorcha has made an alarming discovery during her annual New Year’s Day clear-out.

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Leopardstown on Stephen Zuzz Day is a tradition for the O’Carroll-Kelly men

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It’s three days before the big day and Cornelscourt is like the Battle of the Bastards scene from Game of Thrones

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Sorcha wants to make our own Christmas tree out of books this year. I think she’s been at the eggnog

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We’re off to give my godson Ross Junior his Christmas present, but his old dear will already be in a fouler at the thought of me coming.

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We’re doing the usual volunteering at the annual Christmas fete and this year we’ve been put on toilet-cleaning duties as a punishment

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“If we do this,” she goes, “my husband can’t find out about it. Under anycircumstances?”

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Or is Sorcha standing at the end of the bed, wearing the Tory Burch tennis whites she bought last summer to watch Wimbledon?

She’s like, “Are you ready?”

“Ready?” I go. “In termsof?”

Read Ross O'Carroll-Kelly at irishtimes.com/podcasts/ross-ocarroll-kelly/.

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It’s the Killiney and Dalkey Combined Christmas Fete meeting, and we’re about as welcome as a snot-nosed kid in a bridal shop

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“Sur! Prise!” we all go.

But the old man – standing at the bottom of the stairs in Shanahan’s on the Green – barely raises a smile.

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I’m there, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

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It’s a sad day. Everyone agrees. Not as sad – hand on hort – as Ireland losing to the All Blacks last weekend.

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So we’re in Corcoran’s on the famous Boulevord de Clichy – we’re talking me, Christian, JP, Oisinn and Fionn – and I’m telling the goys why I think we’ll beat the All Blacks on Saturday and why I think it won’t even be close? But they only want one question answered.

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I’m there, “I’d be in Paris now if things had been different,” and when I say different, I mean if my daughter hadn’t been chorged with 277 counts of criminal damage.

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I’ve never seen Sorcha so upset? And given my record as a husband, that’s a genuine achievement. She’s literally shaking with rage and whatever else is bubbling inside her, which is the reason I’m staying on the other side of the kitchen island.

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I love a crowd. Yeah, no, that’s as true of me now as it was back in my days as the best number 10 in the history of Irish schools rugby and the goy that every girl wanted to be with. I love the feeling of people staring at me with their gobs open in just, like, wonder.

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So I wake up in the hotel in Nantes to find a letter on my bedside table, which turns out to be from – yeah, no – my old man?

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The old man is as excited as I’ve seen him since the members of Elm Pork Golf Club voted to name the lateral water hazard on the 12th hole “the Chorles River”. It’s, like, Friday night – the night before Ireland play Romania in the opening match of the Rugby World Cup – and I’m sitting in The Connemora in Bordeaux, listening to him phone pretty much everyone he’s ever known in his entire life to tell them his so-called news.

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Sorcha is tense. Yeah, no, for her, the first day back after the school holidays is like the first day of the Six Nations for me. In other words, a matter of life and death.

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The old man looks surprisingly well for a man who’s been banged up for, like, a week and a bit. I’m sitting in the visiting room when he walks in and he’s, like, deep in conversation with another, I want to say, inmate? It’s a good, like, five minutes before he saunters over to where I’m sitting...

irishtimes.com/author/ross-ocarroll-kelly/

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I’m no stranger to seeing my old man standing in the dock accused of serious crimes – he’s Chorles O’Carrroll-Kelly, for fock’s sake – but I never thought I’d see him in court, aged seventy-whatever-he-is, chorged with the illegal possession of a fireorm.

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This is the final exclusive excerpt from Camino Royale, the new Ross O’Carroll-Kelly novel out today Thursday, August 17th.

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This is the second of three exclusive excerpts from Camino Royale, the new Ross O’Carroll-Kelly novel out this Thursday, August 17th 2023.

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This is the first of three exclusive excerpts from Camino Royale, the new Ross O’Carroll Kelly novel out this Thursday, August 17th 2023.

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Sorcha is sitting at the kitchen island with her laptop open and a pleased-with-herself smile that I recognise from the Mount Anville Class of 1998 graduation photograph on her bedside table.

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So – yeah, no – we’re out in the old man’s boat in the middle of Dublin literally Bay, we’re talking me, the old man and Hennessy, and like the old man says, it’s just like old times.

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So it’s, like, ten o’clock on a Friday night and Ronan’s at the front door. He goes, “How are you fixed for the Oddle Arelint football fidal on Suddendee, Rosser?”

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Sorcha smiles warmly at me – an event so rare that it’s actually worth mentioning. “I’m so proud of our daughter,” she goes. “She’s turning into a wonderful young woman.”

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The old man rings me at, like, two o’clock in the afternoon and goes, “Ross! You’re not busy, are you?”

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“Oh my God,” Sorcha goes, “they’ve struck again!”

I’m there, “What are you talking about? As in, like, what the fock?”

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So – yeah, no – we’re at the recycling centre with a boot full of empty cans and bottles from a recent borbecue to celebrate Sorcha’s 43rd birthday and me having nine penalty points wiped from my driving licence on appeal.

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I’m standing outside the famous Galloper on the Stillorgan dualler when Ronan rocks up. He’s as surprised to see me as I am to see him?

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I have to confess to getting a bit carried away, and I stort shouting things like, ‘Eat it up, you pack of losers!’ at the other moms and dads

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Honor has been walking around under a bit of a cloud ever since a dude by the name of Jonah – Wesley College, before you ask – friend-zoned her.

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There’s no mystery as to why they chose Kielty for the Late Late. He’s not 76 years old. His bodily organs didn’t come from a black morket doctor in Bogotá

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The old man is on the phone, shouting at me in his usual all-caps voice.

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So we’re at a dinner in the famous Rochestown Lodge in – let’s be honest here – Sallynoggin, to raise money for the Seapoint Rugby Club U-8s Trip to Biarritz: Leave No Child Behind.

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Honor goes, ‘It’s because I’m not good-looking.’ I’m there, ‘Looks aren’t important, Honor,’ and I’ve no idea where I’m pulling these lines from.

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He’s, like, standing right in front of the gaff, staring at his phone. I throw open the front door and I’m like, “Whatever you’re selling, fock off before I call the Feds,” which would be pretty much por for the course in these ports?

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People talk about polyamory like it’s a new thing. I’ve been polyamorous since the late 1990s. It’s just that I’ve never told my wife.

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I know they say it’s not good for your health but my relationship with Honor has never been better

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She has so much filler in her face that she looks like she’s had herself embalmed to save us the trouble when she finally pops it.

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If everybody is doing something how bad can it be, Ross thinks, as he submits to peer pressure from his daughter and discovers vaping

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The old dear rings me and asks me to meet her for Sunday lunch in some, I don’t know, random Italian restaurant in Ranelagh.

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The final whistle blows and I burst into tears. The greatest day of my life? It’s definitely up there. People bang on about the birth of their children, but children let you down. This Ireland team never do?

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The big Castlerock College versus Newpork Comprehensive showdown has arrived

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When his ‘back me or sack me’ move backfires, Ross is left in a mild depression having lost his job as the coach of Castlerock College girls rugby team.

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The Rossmeister General finds out about the ‘deleterious effect’ rugby is having on academic and behavioural standards among girls at school

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Only the crookedest lawyer in Ireland can get me out of this contract I accidentally signed with a modelling agency

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It’s, like, Monday morning and I’ve taken the boys for a haircut – or, to be more, I don’t know, pacific, I’ve dumped them in the borber’s while me and Honor are sitting in the coffee shop next door.

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So – yeah, no – the girls have been working unbelievably hord in training, which is why I’ve arranged a little surprise for them. I tell them to meet me in the school cor pork, where the bus is already waiting with the engine idling.

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“Oh my God,” Honor goes, “you’re not actually wearing that, are you?”

And by that she means my black, Canterbury elite protection body ormour vest.

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I go, “Twas the week before Sixmas, and all through the class, nothing was stirring, not even a mouse!”

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So – yeah, no – I’m in Cinnamon in Monkstown, getting all excited about Sixmas, which is only, like, two weeks away now. I’m writing out my storting 15 for the match against Wales into the famous Big Book when I notice a woman staring at me over the top of her Watermelon Shhuga.

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They stagger out onto the pitch in two or three different huddles, their orms folded against the cold of a horrible January morning.

I’m there, “Welcome back, ladies! Hope you had a good Christmas!” and they’re all, like, hating on me for my – yeah, no – cheeriness?

With any subscription you'll get unlimited access to the very best in unique quality journalism from The Irish Times. Subscribe today.

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No less a judge than the great Jerry Flannery once described me as “one of Ireland’s greatest thinkers” – and even though it was in the course of a Charity Roast in the Sin Bin in Limerick, I think his point still stands...

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The old dear is drinking a Baileys with her dental plate out and I don’t think I’ll ever have another amorous thought in my life. The old man raises his brandy glass to me and goes, “Merry Christmas, Ross.”

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So I’m standing at the trough in The Queens in Dalkey, having a much-needed slash, when I hear a voice beside me go, “Is that the famous Ross O’Carroll-Kelly I see?”

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The Castlerock College Christmas Fete has always been a massive event in the O’Carroll-Kelly social calendar.

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“Corlow?” Sorcha goes – clearly worried about me. “Why on earth do you want to drive all the way Corlow for a Christmas tree when we can buy one three minutes up the road in Terenure College?”

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Hey, as I always say, it’s better to be someone’s shot of tequila than everyone’s cup of tea.

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So – yeah, no – I’m in, like, the gorden, throwing the old Gilbert around with Brian, Johnny and Leo, except we can’t complete three passes without one of us dropping the ball and I’m wondering does it have anything to do with us living in Terenure now – as in, the general sense of failure that hangs over the place has somehow seeped into my children’s bones like arthritis.

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The school concert hall is absolutely rammers and the walls are pretty much vibrating with the sound of people being – as we say on this side of the city – up in orms.

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Anyone who follows the Letters to the Editor page in this newspaper will be aware of my old man’s thoughts on the subject of girls slash women playing rugby. 

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I end up pretty much not sleeping for, like, five nights straight. And I know Honor is exactly the same. I’m there, “Can you just explain to me again what you saw and heard — illegibly.” “There’s no illegibly about it,” Sorcha goes. “I saw the ghost of an old man.”

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She’s quiet, cranky and liable to explode in a rage at the least provocation. Mind you, she’s been like that since she emerged from her old dear’s womb with her two middle fingers raised to the world. It’s just that for the first time ever, she seems without – I don’t know – hope.

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“Ross O’Carroll-Kelly!” a voice behind me goes. “Itis you, isn’t it?”

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Sorcha is unpacking her collection of Lladro figurines from a cordboard box. She says she’s worried about Honor.

I’m like, “Honor? In terms of what specifically?”

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So I’m in, like, Dundrum Town Centre with Honor and we’re racing for the lift slash elevator before the doors close. There’s, like, eight or nine people in there and they all do that thing that I always do when I’min a lift slash elevator and someone is rushing for it. They all pretend they can’t see us, while one of them — some random old dude? — makes a movement like he’s looking for the hold doors button but he does it in, like, slow motion.

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Claire from Bray of all places says the miniature Scotch eggs are – oh my God – divine? Sorcha says the secret is to fold some Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco into the pork mince before deep-frying the things in 100 per cent corn oil.

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I’m like, “Okay, listen up, everyone,” spinning a rugby ball in my hands and – to be honest? – loving the way my voice sounds right now.

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Lauren — as in, like, my best friend Christian’s wife? — has never been my number one fan. There are many reasons for that. For storters, she wouldn’t be what I would call a rugbyperson?

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It’s, like, the first day of the school year and we’re standing outside the gates of Castlerock College. Although it would be more accurate to say that we’re blocking the gates — yeah, no, in protest at the school’s decision to go co-ed. There’s, like, 40 or 50 old forts involved — mostly mates of my old man’s — and they’re in their literally element.

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There are – I think we’d all agree? – some great events in the South Dublin social calendar. There’s, like, the Dublin Horse Show. There’s the arrival of Santa Claus in a twin-engine Sikorsky on the roof of Dundrum Town Centre each December. And there’s obviously Bloomsday – or, as I call it, Halloween for wankers.

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The weather in — yeah, no — Portugal has been so good that Sorcha has been suffering the big-time guilts over the future of what she calls our planet? But on Tuesday everything changed when a severe depression suddenly blew in from the west — in other words, her old pair came to visit.

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It’s a cracking day in Quinta do Lago — but then aren’t they all? I’m having my first piña colada of the morning because I drank way too much last night and I’m feeling like dogshit that’s been stepped in twice.

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A well-appointed property,” Sorcha goes, reading from the bumf, “set in the hort of one of South Dublin’s most sagacious suburbs. Oh my God, I love that word. It sounds amazing, doesn’t it, Ross?

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So – yeah, no – I’m in the gym in Riverview, trying to get myself beach body-ready for Quints in the middle of August. Today is orms day and I’m sitting on a Swiss ball in front of a long mirror, with a 6kg dumbbell in either hand, thinking how fantastic I look for a man of, like, 42, with abs like speed bumps and pecs like bay windows.

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The old man has a Cohiba the size of a Wavin pipe wedged between his teeth and I end up having to open the window so I don’t die of smoke inhalation.

“The fock are we even doing here?” I go.

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Ireland are playing the All Blacks but Sorcha has planned a family weekend to Center Parcs.

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It’s here — as in, like, the big day? Honor has reached the final of the Joshua Pim Shield and it’s the most excitement Glenageary has seen since Google accidentally called it Glasthule in the course of mapping the area and 14 per cent was wiped off local property values overnight.

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Sorcha asks me if I’m ready and I tell her – yeah, no – I think so? I’ve got my Rugby Tactics Book on the coffee table, twenty-four sticks of Heinemite in the fridge and I’ve aired out my Cantos with the loose elastic in which I do all of my best thinking.

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“Daddy long-legs,” Leo goes, pointing at quite literally nothing. “It’s a focking daddy long-legs.”

I’m like, “For the fifteenth time, Leo, it’s not a daddy long-legs. It’s a crack in your glasses from when Johnny hit you across the face with the griddle pan.”

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