What is a culchie, and can he function safely in civilised society?
IN THE WAKE OF A recent article here on The Times, it was suggested quite strongly to me that I am anti-culchie. That I am in fact a culchiephobe, a racist, an intolerant bigot who is a clear and present danger to the culchie community.
Which is an interesting accusation, seeing as I myself am a culchie — in the broadest sense of the word, but also as a member of a distinct culchie subspecies, which I shall get to shortly.
Culchieness is a spectrum, you see, much like everything else. Like stupidity, for example — which ranges from being a bit silly, to being quite dumb, to being fierce thick altogether, to being thick as a ditch, which is about a far down on the spectrum as you can go. Being thick as a double ditch was once the lowest point on the International Eejit Scale (IES), but this has fallen out of favour in recent generations. More of that later.
So yes, culchieness is a broad term. And I would like to take this opportunity now to outline a few of the categories into which a culchie might fall, especially if he is not wearing his wellingtons.
And I hope this will help to clear up any misunderstanding concerning my feelings for our culchie cousins.
So here we go.
And please note: These categories are listed in order of potential danger to society.
The Universal Culchie. This category includes most of the population of Ireland. If you happen to live anywhere outside of Dublin, no matter how big your town or city might be, you are from “down the country”. In other words, you are a culchie.
In this sense, we are all culchies. We are proud of it, and we know in our culchie souls that people from Dublin wish they were us.
DANGER RATING: Harmless.
The Regular Culchie. This is basically anyone who was born and raised in the actual country, surrounded by things like grass, trees, small bendy roads, and various forms of livestock. It may also include those who live in small villages. The residents of Littleton, for example, fall into this category — for the simple reason that they live on the edge of a bog, and as everyone knows, the bog is the most culchie thing in all of Ireland.
Though somewhat removed from civilisation, the Regular Culchie can be every bit as urbane and cultured as the Townie, but with a slightly stronger affection for tractors and the GAA. Which some might see as a concern, but it’s usually nothing to worry about.
DANGER RATING: Mostly harmless.
The Mountain Culchie. Though similar in many respects to the Regular Culchie, the Mountain Culchie is distinguished by his unique respiratory system, which is specially adapted for survival at high altitude.
Here in Tipperary, this species can be found in places like Kilcommon, and in the countryside surrounding the villages of Holyford and Cappawhite. This includes the townland of Faldarraig, from where 50% of my own DNA originates, thus making me a half breed Mountain Culchie. Which might explain my bad chest — I don’t have asthma, I have lungs that are simply not suited to a lowland climate.
Mountain Culchies tend to be a tough, no-nonsense people, and are mostly a grand sort, though they are known to be a tad unpredictable under stress.
DANGER RATING: Exercise reasonable caution.
The Culchie Savage. Also known as the Mucksavage, this is the purest strain of culchie, and generally speaking this is the category I have in mind when I I talk of the culchie and his ways.
Like his cousin the Mountain Culchie, the Savage has a quite remarkable physical attribute, in that his brain is shaped like a hurley. This phenomenon may contribute significantly to typical Savage behaviour — roaring and shouting for no apparent reason, wearing GAA shorts on holidays, wearing woolly jumpers to the disco, and listening to country ‘n’ Irish music while he tears through town in his tractor. That sort of thing. Not to mention the Savage’s favourite pastime — boxing the heads off rival Savages in the middle of a Junior B hurling match.
(There are some who suggest that a Saw Doctors CD in the car is a sure sign of a Savage, but I dispute this on the grounds that The Saw Doctors are actually a punk rock band who simply got sidetracked down a dark boreen. And as anyone who has found themselves wandering hopelessly down a boreen will tell you, it can be hard to find your way back.)
As his name might suggest, the Culchie Savage is an untamed beast who has proved immune to all efforts at rehabilitation. He has no redeeming features whatsoever, except perhaps that if Ireland ever goes to war, we have a ready-made battalion that we can send straight to the front line, where the enemy will literally die of fright.
I spoke earlier of he double ditch, which was in fact invented as a means to repel the Savage and keep him from entering towns and villages. But the double ditch is a rarity now since the invention of the electric fence, which is almost as effective on a Savage as it is on a 1000lb bull.
DANGER RATING: Approach with extreme caution. Better still, stay out of rural areas altogether. If you can at all, move to another country.
So there you have it, the definitive guide to the culchie.
I trust we understand each other better now. And let me just remind you that if you must venture into the countryside, you should arm yourself with bear spray and a large stick at the very minimum. Because you just never know which species of the culchie you will encounter.
Be careful out there.
CURRENT LISTENING: The Saw Doctors — That’s What She Said Last Night
West of Ireland punk. Yes, it’s a genre.
Loughtagalla Times 
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