We sat down with comedian Frankie McNamara to discuss his new book, his viral videos and his long list of future plans.
Best known for his viral-worthy videos on his Instagram account, Meditations for the Anxious Mind, Frankie McNamara has garnered over 80,000 fans online thanks to his hot takes on Ireland's many towns and villages.
Now, the funnyman has written The Toxic Travel Guide: Ireland As You've Never Seen it Before - a satirical guide book that delivers some insightful tidbits about Ireland that simply can't be found anywhere else, such as the myths and legends surrounding Balbriggan's takeaway scene, and why Roscommon town is a bit like Lapland ("it's only busy at Christmas").
Despite being light-hearted, with each chapter ending with a 'toxicity ratings' on everywhere from Wexford (9.1) to Offaly (8.7), the book is jam-packed with jokes, coming in at an impressive 271 pages.
"If you threw it at someone's house it would probably break a window," he agrees. "It's pretty hefty."
"Everyone asks how I know so much about Ireland and I always tell them that I've lived thousands of lives. I'm like a family of cats; I don't have nine lives, I have 81. A lot of the wisdom is just wisdom that I've made up on the spot. A lot of it is true because I've said it's true so it must be," he explains, dryly.
"We're not going to look at it with a fine-tooth comb or a tooth comb of any sort."
The book delivers the same deadpan humour found in Frankie's videos, many of which have gone viral thanks to their inherently shareable quality. If you live in an area of Ireland that he's covered in his 'Ancient Mysteries' series, you've undoubtedly seen him appear on your social media feed.
Before he was explaining the imaginary borders of Castleknock or describing the chokehold that the humble chicken fillet roll has on the people of this country, though, McNamara found online fame thanks to his chaotic meditations, urging listeners to repel any feelings of spiritual connection.
The idea for these meditations, he says, came about in lockdown:
"I meditated every morning, I still do, but I would listen to some of these guided meditations and just listen to how - can I swear? - listen to how full of s**t they were. And then I thought, 'I can be full of s**t too', so I started doing comedy meditations where I put on the spiritual voice," he laughs.
"They have to be some of the most unspiritual people, those spirit guides," he adds. "I didn't see anybody taking the piss out of it so I felt it was an untapped market. I started it out by putting up a piss-take meditation with random meditation music and put it on my private page. Loads of people thought it was gas so I made the page, Meditations of the Anxious Mind."
"Straight away I thought, 'Oh God, what have I done?'"
Despite feeling self-conscious of the quirky content, Frankie says that the backing of a family filled to the brim with performers and musicians, along with the encouragement of one particularly good English teacher (shout out to Mr. Walsh), made his decision to pursue a career in the arts an easy one.
"I've always been funny and I've always wanted to make people laugh," he explains. "Maybe in the past it was more of a... it came from insecurity and wanting people to like me. It came from more of a pathological point of a view. Now, I'm a lot more confident in myself. I've always liked entertaining people and making people happy and that's just my way of doing it."
As well as writing, shooting, narrating and editing his videos, Frankie says that "about 90 per cent" of his green screen clips feature music he made himself. Not only that, but he is currently attending Maynooth University to study a degree in Psychology and Sociology.
"The degree is so I have something to fall back on," he explains, "but what I do find with Sociology is that it has really helped my writing in general because it gives me a wider perspective. Some of the more serious topics that I've written about have been influenced by some of the stuff I'm looking at in Sociology."
With his new book hitting shelves across the country and his videos continuing to rake in thousands of views every week, we asked the 27-year-old about his next steps on his own spiritual journey.
"What I want to do after is write another book," he says. "If I can get the time to make it perfect, I would love to do a stand-up gig but I need to dedicate the time. I was doing a podcast for a while that I might get back into. I'm also in talks about a TV series."
"Or I might have so many options that I freak out and just do nothing," he muses.
Namaste.
