RTÉ Press Centre

Documentary led by comedian Alison Spittle as she grapples with her identity as part English blow-in, lapsed culchie, and wistful twenty-something. Meeting a variety of very different young culchies, Alison explores what it means to them to be a country person and why they feel such a connection to their home.

The divide between the Pale and the rest of Ireland is both legendary and increasingly immaterial, as broadband, motorways and a more mobile population erode the differences. However, the stereotype of the backward culchie doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast.

Alison’s hilarious family are her first stop, to talk more about how she ended up as a culchie in the first place. Her recent sitcom, Nowhere Fast explores this from a fictional point of view, but Alison really did struggle after returning to her home town as an adult. Now older and wiser, sees that the town isn’t the problem, it’s her own feelings about identity.

Kerry Comedian Shane Clifford is a good sounding board for a chat about notions, the complex grading between culchies, townies and dubs, and how Kerry has made him who he is.

Next is a visit to a very different Kerry personality, the glamorous influencer Erika Fox of Retro Flame, home from New York to the rural paradise where her career began. Taking Alison on a vlog shoot to her favourite local spot, Erika explains that being from Kerry gave her a resilience and underdog status which was key to her success.

Confounding expectations of Ballina locals is Bradley Brock, make-up artist and drag queen, who lives with his close-knit family up a botharín miles outside town. Alison visits as Bradley is preparing for the first ever Mayo Pride festival, and helps with his accessorising, as well as feeding time for the family’s many animals. Bradley is proud of his county and determined to pursue his career in the west of Ireland, rather than upping sticks to the Pale.

Stereotypes about culchies often hinge on the farming community, but the young farmers Alison meets in Meath are fully modern young women, with more responsibilities than the average teen. Catherine Smyth and her friends are passionate about pedigree cattle, and keep up to date with marts and prices via Snapchat and Twitter. Alison gets a lesson in herding cattle, and hears how the girls can’t imagine what urban people do with all of their free time. “You kind of wonder what they do with their summer holidays, like. Do they just… go on holiday?”

Oldcastle Agricultural Show seems like a good place to see the best of country life. Alison bumps into the Tully Twins, learns to jive and has her first tractor driving lesson, from Macra na Feirme member Mícheál who tell her his theory on urban isolation, and why a rural upbringing is superior.

The journey is completed with a trip to see the proudest culchie of them all, Cavan man Kevin McGahern, whose connection to home, Alison has always envied. Over fishing rods and cups of tea, Kevin describes how the burgeoning arts scene in Cavan filled him with local pride and brings a different perspective to her identity questions, by pointing out the positives in her unique upbringing.

While some think that the country is just a few years behind Dublin, Alison discovers that there is far more to connect to in culchie life than an Ireland of the past. With so many different ways to be a culchie, who wouldn’t want to join the Culchie Club?