WordSmith Column by Gerard Smith

WordSmith: A funny incident in the library…

WordSmith Column by Gerard Smith

Published: Fri 10 Apr 2026, 4:22 PM

“What shall I write about next week?” I asked myself, while battling the Monday-blues in the library. I’d sent off my Cavan News items; and was brainstorming ideas for this column. I try to mix it up emotionally, if I’ve written in a humorous tone the previous week, I’ll meander around reflective stories for the next. But this Monday was giving me blocks. Blocks don’t bother me much, whenever the blocks build and prevent the writing, I look up at the wall and say, “I’ll climb over you tomorrow.”

But this Monday the block-layer was working hard, so I walked away and turned my writerly attentions to a passion-project I’ve been working on. On my laptop I opened the word-document, which I’ve given the working title of ‘The Columns I can’t write’ and I read over my previous weeks' scribing.

Dear readers, for some time I’ve had this notion of writing a one-man stand-up show; an idea that would never have occurred to me had I not been given the opportunity to write this column. You see, I choose to be mindful here, self-censorious, and rightly so, I see it as a professional requirement. But I have a lifetime of stories, which are wonderfully nice, yet wickedly naughty; and I’ve decided print is not the platform for their telling.

Now, I’m no performer, and don’t know if I can perform, but stories must be written first, before we concern ourselves with how we tell them. And so I read over the last instalment of ‘The columns I can’t write'. The latest intro reads ‘Let me tell you about the time a popular soap-star stole the love of my life…’ true story.

Then there’s the time my brother and I were in a New York Irish bar wherein we met an elder English man who told us, “I’m wearing jeans for the first time in my life, and I feel so liberated." A week later my brother calls me from Manchester, “Our kid, turn on the Ten O’clock News, now!” My brother and I had no idea we’d spent the evening in the company of a most eminent member of the British Establishment… true story.

And then there’s the scary evening I found myself in the house of a notoriously prolific serial-killer, with a strange man…true story.

I’m a nobody, but sometimes in those thirty London years I found myself in situations with somebodies; and I want to document those scenarios in an informal and irreverent way. So it was with this in mind that I started to study ‘stand-up’ comedians and raconteurs from all genres. I’ve been watching YouTube videos of the best in the business, not only for their delivery, but the writing; how they turn the mundane into marvellous, hate into humour, pathos into performance.

Now back to that mundane Monday in Cavan library wherein I’m experiencing brain-block about what to write here. Amidst the dishevelment of my Monday mind, I’m introduced to a woman from America called Maureen. She’s in Cavan researching family roots, with the surname of Smith. The introduction is informal and in the spirit of I’m a Smith who might know of Smiths from Drumgora in Lavey. I do have relatives from that area, but I don’t have the knowledge to substantiate them, “I’ll ask around,” I say.

I message my aunt, who replies immediately, “There’s lots of Smiths up that way…” I slump back into Monday with a promise to search further.

Then something about the woman makes me boom; it’s her banter, I recognise it; she begins to make me laugh. I wonder if I’m related to her? I might be. But I discount that for now, because ‘There’s Something about Maureen’ that makes me stand-up, albeit metaphorically, for she’s standing, looking down on me. My mind whirs, ‘Was she on America’s Got Talent?’ I ask my muddled mind. Then Maureen asks me where she can charge her phone, and I respond with babble and blunder, because I’m suddenly star-struck! I know of Maureen, and now I know her – she’s a STAR.

Maureen is an EPIC stand-up, one who was on my study-radar. She’s a mega-star, an internationally acclaimed comedian and more; and I’m babbling in front of her in Cavan library on a mundane Monday afternoon.

Now, with the reflection of a few days, I chuckle about my star-struck melt down in front of Maureen. Perhaps her arrival into my orbit was the universe telling me to continue scribing that stand-up show – it’s funny how life works sometimes, isn’t it?