At home with Carol Tobin

Carol Tobin now lives in Oakley Road in the south Dublin suburb of Ranelagh. But it was while she was living in the area about seven years ago that she was barred from a number of places. First up was the local Spar.
“That was a bit of an over-reaction on their part,” she says. Apparently she was going home from the local chipper one night and felt that her chips were missing the necessary quota of vinegar. “So I just popped into the Spar shop and poured some vinegar out of a jar on the shelves. I only used a little drop, but they barred me, “ she confesses.
Not far away from her house is Jason’s Snooker Hall. She’s barred from that place too. “I was there one night when these people were trying to play a game of snooker and I kept messing, stealing their balls and what not. I was only having a bit of fun, and I gave the balls back. But they still barred me,” she admits.
Beside Jason’s is a bar. She’s barred there too, although this time she claims it was a case of mistaken identity. “I got blamed for something somebody else did. But they barred me anyway,” she claims. Next door is a post office, and there’s a chemist too, maybe she’s barred there too? But let’s get back to her residence before we’re both barred.
Although one can’t help suspecting that the presence of Tobin in the district might not exactly adds noughts to the value of their properties, she lives quite close to the homes of Liam O Maonlai, Neil Hannon, Ann Doyle and the Minister for Justice. “That fucker,” she says at the mere mention of his name, “his name should be spelt McDo-fuck-all”. Only too happy to oblige.
She shares the large two-bedroom apartment with her sister Debora who, she tells me, is hardly ever there because she’s lately been seeing a top Munster rugby player. When she’s in, the aroma from Debora’s baking often fills the apartment and her paintings are scattered around the place, paintings she does, according to Carol, when she’s angry. You have to feel for the neighbours, really.
But her very most favourite possession is an Elvis Presley mirror. “Debora picked it up at a jumble sale years and years ago. When the sun shines in a particular way it reflects the image of Elvis onto the wall. It’s beautiful,” she says, revealing an unexpected sensitive side.
She also happens to be a serious music fan who plays music very loudly. You’ll find albums by such hip acts as Interpol and Hard-Fi in her collection, but what’s this – one, two, make that three copies of the same Modest Mouse album? As I’m waiting for her to explain that she’s also barred from the local record shop she offers an equally bizarre explanation. “You see, I’m a bit of a music nerd really. I’d go without food to buy music. In fact wouldn’t that make a great new diet, the Tobin Diet! Buy records you can’t afford and lose weight the Tobin way!” And the three copies of Modest Mouse, please? “That album is the greatest album I’ve ever heard and I’m so terrified of it wearing out or getting scratched and not being able to get another one that I had to get a couple of spare copies,” she tells me.
With the same straight face she tells me that although the apartment is not a haven for fellow comedians, Dylan Moran has a spare key so he can slip in late at night. I don’t believe her.
She also has a small, child-sized guitar, even though there are no children in the house. “I’m doing this gig in Edinburgh and I want to use a guitar as part of the act. I thought I’d start on a small one and build up to a proper guitar,” she says. She also keeps the games Countdown and Connect 4 handy for when, she says, “I’m off the drink and bored.” Or barred?
Although she doesn’t watch much television, not even to see her hero Dylan Moran of the imaginary spare key, but she adores The Sopranos. “I have this boxed set of The Sopranos. I’m addicted to it. One day I watched 13 episodes in one stretch,” she tells me. I remind her that’s about 12 hours of viewing and she nods like it’s the most normal thing to do. The only other DVD she has is American Psycho. The start of a major collection? “No. I don’t intend to get any more DVDs unless somebody makes something better than these two,” she says. Either that or she’s barred from the local video library too.
Being barred from so many places has its up side though, as it allows Tobin time to get on with her novel-writing. “I’ve no discipline and I’ve low concentration, so deadlines are great. The book I’m writing is a kind of dark, sad comedy. All comedy is sad. All comedians are sad, depressed, and repressed. It’s all to do with the places they come from, like Kerry, ” she reckons.
That perhaps explains why she doesn’t encourage comedians to drop in, in case they just depress her. “Life’s awful. Shit things happen to most people. How could you not be depressed, being fucked around by awful people?” she asks, a little rhetorically I suspect.
There are no pets in the house. “I’d like a cat, but Debora can’t handle cats, and I can’t even have a goldfish,” Why not,” I foolishly ask. “Well a couple of times I got drunk and ate the goldfish, so I’m not allowed near them any more. It’s the whiskey that does it,” she says, making it all sound quite reasonable.
Fortunately she doesn’t live in Bray where the National Aquarium is located, as she’d probably be barred from that too. Let’s see how often she’s shown the red card during the Smithwick’s Cat Laughs.
Photos: Cathal Dawson