All Talk And No Trousers

29 September 2026

2021

R. Linda:

Last night we were sitting around the kitchen table talking about ancestry. Tonya had come upon some piece of O'Sullivan history claiming we were originally farm folk. Well, that be true enough in me family. And the farming ended fairly recently—for good reason.

One of the first homes me parents lived in was a run-down farm in County Tyrone. They weren't there long because me father wasn't very good at it.

Farming, that is.

Here be the story me Mam told Tonya last night. I'm leaving some of her Irish in because I wouldn't dare rob you of the full experience.

"Me hoosband always had more pride than sense; he did. He wus all talk an' no trousers! In the autumn of '74, he set off fer da Pomeroy market in County Tyrone, determined ta restore the "noble O'Sullivan farming legacy" by buying a prize breeding sow. He came back wit a four-hundred-pound beastie named Dolores, and a plan to walk her three miles home on a flimsy piece o' twine to save a few pence. The man wus always tight as a ghost's scream.

Naturally, he made it as far as The Rusty Keg on Main Street before he claimed he was foundered and the thirst took him.

He tied Dolores to a bench outside an' popped in fer "just da one" pint of stout. Two hours later, Dolores got bored. She broke her rope, pushed through the pub's swingin' doors, an' caused absolute ruction. She bolted straight behind da counter, smashin' a dozen pints o' porter an' sending da bartender leaping into a whiskey barrel. 

Me Sully had to wrestle a muddy, screaming pig in a crowded taproom right in front o' the parish priest, who was tryin' to enjoy a quiet Sunday "medicinal" drink an' was thoroughly scunnered by the whole display. Dolores eventually wedged herself under the priest's table an' wouldn't budge until she was bribed with a bowl of tavern peanuts. Sully spent his entire livestock budget buyin' the pub a round to apologise, an' had to haul that smug pig home in the back of a neighbour's turf cart, looking completely foundered and black-affronted. 

When he finally rolled inta da yard, covered in mud, porter, an' absolute shame, I was waitin' on the porch wit me arms crossed, givin' him a doleful eye. He tried to look grand; he did, gesturin' to da cart and sayin', "Look 'ere, woman, I've brought home the future o' the O'Sullivan dynasty!"

I took one look at that pig, one look at his empty pockets, and locked da front door, I did. Sully spent the night sleepin' in da barn, learning da hard way that the pig had better manners, better leverage, and by da end of the evening, a much better spot inside the straw than he did.

Ta dis day, we don't speak o' the O'Sullivan grand farming legacy. We just say that in our family, the pigs have all the financial sense, and the men are just pure melted wellie, or to you, a total soft eejit, who be completely useless in a crisis."

And there you have it. The reason me family eventually left the farming legacy to the O'Leathlabhair family.

As Mam tells it, Dolores was the last successful farmer in the O'Sullivan line.

And she was a pig.

Gabe

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