Carl Kinsella

IN ITS NARRATED introduction, A Course Called Ireland goes out of its way each week to remind the audience that the show “is not really about golf” and “not even really about Bill Murray” but about Ireland. 

The idea behind the BBC series was to follow Hollywood icon Bill Murray, famous for movies such as Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and Lost In Translation, around Ireland as he plays golf with writer Tom Coyne and some Irish celebrity guests, drinks pints in pubs, sings some auld Irish tunes (also in pubs) and reconnects with the people of his homeland (this, too, happens mostly in pubs). 

So yes, the premise of the show is about as twee as it gets. Sure, aren’t we a great little island? Don’t we love to joke and sing? Aren’t these the greenest golf courses you’ve ever seen? And yet, for all that, there is much about the show that sets it apart from the archetype of cheap diaspora-bait one might imagine is in store. 

One of the show’s nice quirks is that each week one of the people Murray meets is chosen to do the voiceover for the rest of the episode, lending it a slapdash, DIY charm.

Murray himself is about as slapdash as it gets, and it has angered some reviewers of the series, all episodes of which are now available to stream via Paramount Plus. Sarah Dempster, writing in The Guardian, argued that producers failed by allowing Murray’s ‘seeming waywardness to dictate the tone of the production, then get frustrated with the results and overcompensate with an effortful “quirkiness”’. 

There is some truth to this analysis.

By the end of the second episode, Murray is shown seizing control of the production schedule and declining a trip to a Dingle pub with Chris O’Dowd to discuss storytelling. Instead, Murray announced his intention to go to a musical performance in the town’s iconic St James’ Church. 

At this point there’s a snippet of dialogue that plays between a producer and Murray, during which the producer asks “That’s where you’d like to go tonight?” and Murray responds “That’s where I am going tonight.”

While Dempster’s critique of the show is not without merit — yes, it’s a little bit strange to let an ageing actor who flits between ambivalence and enthusiasm and charm and disinterest to take the reins of the production schedule — there are some viewers who will surely find Murray’s self-directed approach to Ireland a breath of fresh air. 

Culturally, we have come to expect a very particular thing from the way in which celebrities — particularly American celebrities — engage with Irish culture.

Typically, it happens in the form of press junkets during promotional tours for movies. Celebrities sit down opposite a succession of interviewers from popular digital news websites. They’re asked questions about pints of Guinness, spice bags, and whatever loose ancestral connection they may have to the island. For the love of Christ, we made Barack Obama pull and drink a pint, and he was the President of the United States. It’s about time one of these people took the traditional Irish celebrity tourism itinerary foisted upon them and told us to fuck off. 

A Course Called Ireland does still have plenty of pint-drinking, by the way, but in fairness to Murray, this feels authentic. He’s been around long enough that the world knows that he enjoys a drink as sure as he enjoys golf. What is refreshing is to see a celebrity of any stripe, let alone one with Murray’s wit, take the reins of his own experience of Ireland. Speaking to real local people as you might imagine he would were there no cameras running, 

There is also a spikiness to Murray that makes the show unpredictable. In the second episode, Bill’s young Irish caddy refers to one of his films as ‘The Phonetic Scheme’ meaning ‘The Phoenician Scheme’. Murray corrects the young man, and it’s telling that this moment made the final edit — rather than spare anyone’s blushes, it is simply a semi-awkward moment caught on camera that lends a reality to proceedings. 

Most importantly, there are many moments across the show’s first two episodes that are genuinely funny. 

Early in the first episode, Murray’s car pulls up alongside a woman out running who sees him and, in shock, exclaims: ‘Bill Cosby!’

Later on in that same episode, Murray showcases some pleasantly nationalist wit when he’s introduced to road-bowling. Hearing about the origins of the game, Murray caustically remarks: “So, the game began with British throwing cannonballs? I suppose they had to occupy themselves… While they were occupying.”

For all the caveats in the intro, however, there is plenty of golf to be seen. A Course Called Ireland is not entirely about golf, but if you don’t like golf, it’s entirely possible that A Course Called Ireland is a little too much about a golf. 

Similarly, it’s possible that any show like this will always be a bit too superficial for an Irish audience. After all, we ourselves have very little to learn about the magic of a “rambling house” from a minutes-long segment. As much of a cult figure as Bill Murray is, there is only so much that an Irish audience can feel for an American speaking about how their family comes from Cork and how much it feels like home. 

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A Course Called Ireland is kind of about golf. It’s definitely about Bill Murray. It’s about Ireland most of all, but its finest moments are not the stage-managed meet-and-greets with Irish people (though of course they all do a fine job of making Ireland looking like a place any septuagenarian American O’Reilly-Collins-O’Connor-McCarthy-Kennedy would be lucky to visit).

Every now and then, Ireland seems to stir something in Murray, and it is in these seemingly authentic moments when the show is at its most worth watching.

During a break from the golf, Coyne and Murray stare out across the grey Atlantic while the old actor opines: ‘It can feel like that. The world can feel like that. Like there’s a whole horizon out there and there’s no sign of life. Life is hard.’

If that’s not a TV show about Ireland then I don’t know what is.