Comedian Michael Fry said he knew his viral music video about Ryan Tubridy at the Oireachtas would be “big but maybe not as big as this”.
Mr Tubridy’s testimony was most likely the most anticipated committee hearing in the history of the State and it was even screened in pubs.
Michael often writes parody tunes about current affairs and this week's video has been viewed by 700,000 people on Twitter alone.
“I think at a time when all our engagement on Twitter is falling, people aren’t doing so well in numbers,” he told The Hard Shoulder.
“It’s really broken through but it’s the result of three weeks of this sort of stuff and hearing about the committees and having to watch all this stuff.
“Everyone’s talking about it, so I guess I had to do it.”
The RTÉ Oireachtas Committee meetings but it’s performed by an Indie Band pic.twitter.com/4ioymHTdH3
— Michael Fry (@BigDirtyFry) July 13, 2023
Usually, he composes the music first and then he adds the lyrics to it.
“It started with Mattie McGrath, ‘Who are you loyal to?’ That was the first big quote that came out of it,” he said.
“Then I think when Ryan Tubridy was talking about how the size of his salary doesn't affect his soul, I think I was like, ‘Right, there’s probably enough in this.’”
Big Dirty Fry
When he is not writing music videos, Michael works as a comedian and is currently doing a “a lot of live stuff at the moment”.
To begin with, he had stage fright because he worried that people would heckle him.
He has since realised people who go to comedy gigs are “very nice” and hecklers usually aren’t funny.
“Nobody has destroyed me through heckling yet,” he said.
Michael will be performing live at the Iveagh Gardens Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
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