Potatoes, peaked caps and Kerrygold: The New Yorker's humorous take on Cillian Murphy's bedtime rituals

One of America’s most distinguished magazines, The New Yorker, has taken a deep dive into stage Irish tropes in an article that purports to be a humorous take on the bedtime routine of Cork’s own Oscar winner, Cillian Murphy.

There’s no doubt that Irish acting talent is in the spotlight since the Ballintemple man won the Oscar, the BAFTA and the Golden Globe for his performance in Oppenheimer.

Now two of the magazine’s writers have penned a 'humour' article which is rich with tired clichés and devoid of laughs.

Among the ‘notions’ they ascribe to the actor, a man devoid of notions as his father recently attested, is that he would go around to the pub at 5pm for a ‘hearty meal of potatoes, bangers and the knowledge that you are Christopher Nolan’s favourite’.

Or at 6.30pm, the actor who was brilliant in ‘Peaky Blinders’ as Thomas Shelby is supposed to go home to ‘try on various peaked caps whilst drinking bathtub gin’.

Somebody’s trying it on,no doubt, but it isn’t Cillian Murph.

Then there’s a 9pm rendezvous with the ghost of Molly Malone for a bout of ‘gentle but furious’ love-making and, before taking to the bed to sleep, the routine would have him throw open the shutters of his window and shout ‘I am father of the atomic bomb – but in Gaelic’.

Many of the other household names of the Irish acting firmament get to play cameo roles in this article – Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan and Colin Farrell. 

Finally, there’s a reference to the beauty lotions that would never feature in the bathroom cabinet of any self-respecting Cork man, least of all the unsalted sticks of Kerrygold butter which the actor is imagined to use to polish ‘both magnificently chiselled cheekbones’.