Tiernan has done his fair share of Traveller jokes as well Jim, as you know. The last one on the Late Late Show even has RTE apologise for the content.

Still, I don't think that makes him a racist. He pushes the boundaries, showing up attitudes. Many of his jokes sail close to the wind, too close at time but he admits to taking risks. Nevertheless, many feel it is the comedians job, and Tiernan is one of those who feel it's his mission, to sail close to the wind and make his audience uneasy playing up existing but often suppressed and hidden, attitudes.

Now, having grown up in a place and time where those who were taken away and never came back were a fresh memory (and a father who was taken away in 1942 to spend years in a German labour camp) I have seen this turn comedians in Ireland are taking already, maybe thirty years ago. There's nothing new and cracking jokes about the holocaust doesn't immediately mean racism to me.

This sort of comedy is an immediate reaction to the mindset that drives this thread: that some subjects should not be made fun of. Mind you, the comedy wave I mentioned above came in a context where some Jewish groups cried racism when the Beatles released 'Hey Jude' with the argument 'Jude' was the German way of calling the prisoners in the camps, so in effect it would be hurtful to all victims to hear the song. And I kid you not, this actually happened.

Anyway, the breed of comedians who make 'nothing is sacred' their modus operandi will respond by cracking jokes at the [i]holier than thou[/i] attitude. Not necessarily very good or successful ones (I am not impressed with TT's latest although the 'Mexican' one got a good chuckle out of me at the time) but that's all it is, pulling at what society holds sacred and making the audience aware of existing attitudes, ones even they may be uneasy with harbouring remnants of within themselves. But it is not racism.