The new series of Hardy Bucks kicks off tonight and it seems the lads of Castletown are going to have to face up to reality and well, do a bit of growing up.
When we last saw Mayo’s loveable shams, Eddie Durkan was still living in Billy "Buzz" McDonnell’s cottage rent free and enjoying an ideal bromance of working out with empty gas heating canisters and knocking back cheap lager but now that Eddie’s nymphomaniac girlfriend Ciara is staying over four nights a week, the power brotherhood is under threat.
A bizarre love triangle has sprung up and Ciara and Buzz are set to go to war over the love of a good man. That’s Eddie Durkan, by the way. Is it time for Eddie to put away childish things (that's Buzz, by the way) and settle down with full-time head wrecker, Ciara?
Aoibheann McCaul, who plays the sex-addicted interloper, gave RTÉ Entertainment her view on the whole torrid matter. "It’s at the stage now where the relationship has progressed. Ciara and Eddie are together about two years and Ciara doesn’t want to be spending so much time in Buzz’s cottage,"
"So she says herself and Eddie have to move out and take the relationship to the next level. Eddie has been living with Buzz for years so he has to break up the bromance basically."
"I guess we’re all getting a bit older so the relationships and stuff in our lives are a bit more serious," says Owen Colgan, who plays the nice but exceedingly dim Buzz
And the minx with a taste for miniskirts, vertiginous high heels, and schwinging, is not one bit concerned that she’s breaking up this ultimate power brotherhood. "No, not even slightly because they live in absolute squalor and she’s just sick of it - they’re adults now. It’s time to move on." Aoibheann says.
So Eddie may be through with Buzz after all these years of shenanigans and schneaking around. "I guess we’re all getting a bit older so the relationships and stuff in our lives are a bit more serious," says Owen Colgan, who plays the nice but exceedingly dim Buzz.
"Ciara is trying to split up the friendship between Eddie and Buzz so there’s a lot of tension going on between me and Eddie. It’s the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another. It’s something that happens in life with friendships and it’s something that Buzz can’t really accept and it’s something that Eddie doesn’t want to do but maybe he has to."
"Eddie calls her an absolute header but sure, she’d have to be a header to hang around with those lads and to have anything to do with Eddie Durkan because he doesn’t have a lot going for him."
Ciara, of course, met Eddie in a psychiatric ward where she was being treated for sex addiction. "Ciara is a nymphomaniac so that suited Eddie down to the ground and they’ve been together a long while," says Aoibheann.
"Eddie calls her an absolute header but sure, she’d have to be a header to hang around with those lads and to have anything to do with Eddie Durkan because he doesn’t have a lot going for him."
Not as far as Buzz is concerned. It’s clear that he loves Eddie but does Eddie loves Buzz as much? That's the big question in Castletown these days.
"I think Buzz probably loves Eddie more than Eddie loves Buzz but at the same time, Eddie probably loves Buzz more than any other man on the planet," says Owen.
"But he feels that for the betterment of his life and Buzz’s life they both need to go their separate ways and maybe Buzz needs to be off on his own without the stabilizers on the bicycle."
Now in its fourth series after beginning life as a YouTube mockumentary about a gang of shams in the whest of Ireland, Hardy Bucks has even had its own well-received movie. Every town in Ireland has an Eddie Durkan and a Buzz (not sure about a Ciara).
"I think Buzz probably loves Eddie more than Eddie loves Buzz but at the same time, Eddie probably loves Buzz more than any other man on the planet," says Owen.
"There is a lot of improvisation on the show," says Aoibheann. "It’s usually there that the gold is so they always end up with way, way too much footage that they can’t use but that we ourselves would be breaking our hearts laughing at. A lot of it is not appropriate!"
As the bad buzz between Eddie, Ciara and Buzz looks set to turn nasty, elsewhere in Castletown life goes on as abnormal. Local crook The Viper is running an ice cream van to sell 99s and "chronic" under the noses of the local Gardaí, and we’ll dip into the whest’s er, vibrant schwinging scene.
Also coming up over the next few weeks on Hardy Bucks, one of the characters makes a very big statement to see how many people in the town actually appreciate him, Buzz’s uncle comes back from England and brings the lads on a "bit of a wiry journey", and Tommy Tiernan and John Cleary also turn up as new characters.
Owen is from Bohola, just outside Swinford but he lives in Dublin. Hardy Bucks is filmed in Swinford and the locals have welcomed the cast and crew with open arms.
"The great thing about the locals is that, regardless of how anyone else perceives the show, when you come back to Mayo you’re treated exactly the same," he says.
"I’m sure the locals are proud of it but they wouldn’t let you get ahead of yourselves. If we came back from Dublin with a fur coat on and a crown on your head they’d soon tell you where to go."
Hardy Bucks airs on RTÉ2 on Thursday at 10.35pm.
The entire box set for series 1 to 3 of Hardy Bucks is available to watch on the RTÉ Player.
Alan Corr @corralan
