Brendan O'Connor
Patrick Freyne -“There’s a beauty in accepting that you’re probably just average”
14 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Patrick Frayne, good afternoon. You're very welcome. Thanks a million for having me in. Patrick, people currently mainly know you as a writer with the Irish Times, but you've just published your first novel, Experts in a Dying Field.
Chapter 2: What inspired Patrick Freyne to write 'Experts in a Dying Field'?
And the book is kind of set in the world of music and bands. And you are also a musician and you had like a reasonably successful music career in another life. So we're going to talk. That's a kind reading. We're going to talk around some of that through five songs you've chosen for us today. Where did you grow up? I started in Cork.
I was born in Douglas or lived in Douglas in Cork till I was six or seven. So then we moved to the Curragh when I was that age because my dad was in the army. So we moved to the Curragh camp. What's it like growing up in the guard camp? It's great when you're a kid.
It's a bit mad because, like, I was a kid who was really into, like, Warlord and Victor and you're wandering around and there's, like, soldiers just marching and there's people with guns and there's tanks parked everywhere. So I loved all that. I thought I was going to be a soldier. Did you, yeah?
When I was about 12 because my dad was one and it looked cool and I thought, you know, maybe I could be, like, a tough soldier man as well. Yeah. Were you the type, like... No, I was terrible at sport and I was flaky about those kinds of things. And my head was like in comics and music and art and stuff. Okay. Yeah.
Chapter 3: How did growing up in a military camp influence Patrick's childhood?
So you're a writer. Your brother, David, is a very successful director. He made Dating Amber and people might have seen Eternity recently, which is a big hit. So was it a very cultured house growing up? It sounds unusual for two army brats to go into that world. Yeah. Dad has the exterior of a very tough, macho man, but he's actually quite sensitive and a very gentle man in a lot of ways.
And my mom was a teacher, so there was loads of books. So really early on, I was reading a lot and listening to music a lot. So yeah, I think like a lot of teachers' houses, there's like lots of culture floating around the place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I never felt any pressure to be macho or to be like a, you know, a tough army man. Oh yeah, it wasn't like your disappointment to your father?
No, not at all. I'm measuring how you made your bed. So, OK, so tell us about your first music choice then, The Monkees, Daydream Believer. How did this come into your life? So when I was a kid in Cork, growing up in Ireland, and I think just generally growing up then, all the culture you got was from years before. So like the Monkees were on in the early 80s, late 70s. They were on telly at 12.
I think it was 12 on a Saturday. You know, they were on after anything goes. And I don't think I realised they were from the 60s. I just thought it was happening. This was just a thing. Yeah. And I loved the combination of two things. And they're still like hugely important to me. I love the combination of comedy and the music, which was really, really good.
And I love the idea, which I think is the main reason I ended up being in bands when I was later. Like, it just looked such fun to be in a band. They all lived together in a house. They wore kind of the same clothes. They each had a type. There was a dopey one. There was a funny one. There was a cute one. There was one who wore a hat. You know, there was these kind of different things.
And the music was amazing. And I loved, like, they had the best writers. They had Lieber and Stahler writing for them. And they'd... Songs like Stepping Stone and Last Train to Clarksville. And I think it was the first time I fell in love with both music and comedy. So you would stand over them as a cultural moment and a proper thing like... Absolutely.
I actually met Marty Whelan recently because I was interviewing him for something and Marty agreed with me that he used to go into school and tell people the monkeys are better than the beetles. And I was kind of, I still kind of believe the monkeys are better than the beetles. Daydream Believer, was this written by Neil Diamond? No, the other one, I'm a Believer. I'm a Believer was Neil Diamond.
This was written by John Stewart from the Kingston Trio. They had the best writers in the world. So top quality people feeding into the original manufactured band in a way. Here's Patrick Frayne's first choice today, The Monkees' Daydream Believer.
Oh, I could hide beneath the wings of the bluebird as she sings. The six o'clock alarm would never ring. But it rains and I rise Wipe the sleep out of my eyes My shaven razor's cold and it stings Cheer up sleepy Jean What can it mean To a daydream believer And a homegirl
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Chapter 4: What role did music play in Patrick's teenage years?
That's the best expert in a dying field. And that is Patrick Frayn's fourth music choice today. Listen, before we get to your final choice, can I ask you about one or two personal things you've written about? You got burned out at one point in recent years. What did that look like and feel like for you?
So I wrote a piece about it last year and it was from overwork and it was just me not looking after myself. And I had to take, in retrospect, it was a really good thing. I took three weeks off stress leave from work and because in retrospect I feel it was a good thing I think maybe that's a good thing to happen to people every now and again What did you learn from it?
I learned that it's really important to... I mean, I've learned this a few times and had to relearn it. Firstly, to do good work, you don't have to kill yourself working. You know, you can actually do good work within office hours. And secondly, I learned about just perspective, that it's really important to have other stuff in your life that...
It's really important to have time with your friends and family and to do things you like to be a full person. And I think sometimes men in particular, but I wouldn't generalise because women get burnt out a lot too. In fact, probably more now that I think about it and saying it out loud. But I think people forget sometimes that they're not just their job and they're not just the thing they do.
And actually, the other thing, when I wrote about it six months later, the thing that occurred to me is that there's this constant...
focus on excelling at everything like if you flick through social media everyone is trying to be the best at everything and all we can ever be by definition most of the time is average like you know we're all particularly good at certain things yeah but then the rest of the time average is good enough and you shouldn't be people shouldn't be beating themselves up about it and i think i had been beating myself up a bit about not not excelling at all times um
And when I did that piece, I did an essay for the Irish Times on the subject six months after I'd experienced the burnout. I got loads of responses from people who were burnt out or on the edge of burning out. And that's what they needed to hear. They needed to hear somebody say, you don't have to be brilliant all the time. And there's a culture now of...
And all the anxiety now coming in from AI is adding to that. Now we have to be better than a machine. And all that stuff is very, I think, bad for people. Sometimes it's good enough to be good enough. Yeah. Yeah. And you're right. It is. There's a cultural moment going on there that is driving people to it.
You've also talked about you and Anna don't have children and you've talked about, I know it's pressure, the right word is judgment, the right word around that. So I wrote an essay about it in my first book, OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea, which is a few years ago now. And Anne actually wrote about it really beautifully in her first adult novel, our song last year.
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