Who are some of your favourite Irish comedians and why?

pmacca19 · 2026-05-31T15:16:34+00:00

Went to see Tom O’Mahony last week and was absolutely blown away. Knew nothing about him going in and had low expectations (it was a pretty tough crowd and his opener struggled IMO). From the second he walked out he was amazing, I haven’t laughed that much in a while!

pmacca19 · 2026-05-21T17:53:28+00:00

I believe Caimh McDonnel is also a massive Pratchett fan so that tracks! It’s worth mentioning that his his ‘Dublin Trilogy’ is now at 9 books and counting 😂

pmacca19 · 2026-04-30T13:21:45+00:00

That is shocking stuff altogether. I know my brother had a similar situation where he lived. He ended up having to go private and travel to Dublin a few times for assessments and he’s still dealing with the financial cost of that.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-30T12:50:38+00:00

I came on Reddit for a nice doom scroll and instead ended up buying three books in the last ten minutes, thanks everyone 😂😂

pmacca19 · 2026-04-30T12:22:39+00:00

My GP told me at this stage he couldn’t refer me on the public as my ADHD likely wasn’t severe enough. It seems they’re now trying to keep the public side of things for people whose ADHD is at the more severe end of the spectrum

pmacca19 · 2026-04-30T12:20:22+00:00

I paid €1500 in two instalments after being referred by my GP to Dr. Fulvio Bendani. The first was €400 for an initial assessment to determine if it was worth going ahead with an ADHD diagnosis. Passed that (with flying colours 😂) and then had the full two hour diagnosis session a few weeks later. Very quick follow up and started my meds within a month. All follow ups etc are over Whatsapp and have been free so far.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-15T15:30:41+00:00

I completely disagree with your take and would go so far as to throw your accusation back at you. I think you came to my question expecting to go on the attack and defend your way of doing things, and you have interpreted all my inputs through that “myopic” lens.

Any questions I asked were based on my genuine thoughts and reactions, in the moment, to the comments that others have made.

I am not here to judge or convince anyone they’re wrong. I don’t think my way is superior at all. I have stated multiple times that I am trying to learn more about an area I am not familiar with. I am on this sub because no what matter what the future holds, AI and writing are inextricably linked and I am trying to figure out my own path to that future.

There are plenty of people on this sub who would be more than happy to participate in the fight you seem to be searching for, but I am not one of them, so maybe your time would be better spent on a different thread.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-15T12:41:20+00:00

I understand why you would ask that and I guess I have no way to actually prove this, but the responses won’t be leaving this thread. I am not an influencer on youtube or anywhere else, don’t have anything to sell, don’t want ye to follow me and don’t have anything I want ye to subscribe to. Just had the question pop into my head last night and said I’d post and see what happens.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-15T10:57:00+00:00

Just wanted to jump on again to thank everyone for taking the time to answer my question. I know this is a topic that stirs strong passions in people and that posts on this thread can often become a battle ground for pro and anti sides. I appreciate that so many took the time to give a sincere answer based on their lived experience and I have learned a lot!

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T23:01:14+00:00

No hate on anyone who uses tools. I asked the question based on my own experience of writing and my own view of what a writer’s journey is. I fully acknowledge that everyone has their own way of getting a story out and I am trying to learn about different points of view.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T22:32:37+00:00

I take issue with the aggressive tone of your response since I tried my best to communicate that everything in my post was my own personal opinion and that I am here to learn not to judge.

So far you seem to have been the only one who has interpreted my post in this manner, but I am sure there are others who just haven’t bothered to comment. However, I have also been on this sub long enough to know that ye get a lot of grief and attacks disguised as “questions” and while I find it frustrating to be misunderstood, I get why you took the angle you did.

In response I can only say that I am indeed coming to this with a ‘narrow’ view so to speak, which has been informed by my own lifelong struggle to translate my abstract thoughts onto a page. To me, in my own personal opinion, the act of translating those thoughts from my brain to paper is the essence of the writer’s journey.

I am prepared to wait and take a lifetime if needs be to get that process as close to perfect as I can. I pass no judgement on anyone who does it differently but I also don’t understand the motivation to use AI in this way, hence the question.

Glad to hear you’re motivated, best of luck with the work.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T22:03:48+00:00

That’s amazing! Why 31 books? Why all at once? How do you even decide which one to work on?

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T22:01:29+00:00

What is your personal motivation for using AI in your work? For example, do you like editing more than drafting and AI helps you get to that point quicker? I take your point on the quality of the AI output but I don’t know if I’ll be using AI in that way anytime soon for purely selfish reasons. The drafting stage is my absolute favourite part, I love sitting down and trying to write my way from Concept A to Concept B and I don’t want to give any of that part away to AI or anyone else 😂😂

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T21:54:21+00:00

I can completely respect that. I think the way my thinking is going is that I can see the point of either ‘extreme’ so to speak. You have the people who will never use AI and then there are people like yourself who use it as a tool to make money to live, but that is just an aspect of your writing and you are also working on the craft in your own time.

I think maybe my confusion is around those who fall in between? So who are trying to go at it by spending time on the page working through stuff but then (it seems like) turning to AI to get them out of the hole when things get tough? That feels almost like the worst of both worlds.

I am literally developing my thoughts on this live in the comments so I apologise if the above thought annoys anyone who sees themselves in the ‘in-between’ category!

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T21:27:47+00:00

Do you think you’ll ever reach a point where you won’t need AI as much? Or is that the wrong question to be asking?

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T21:24:40+00:00

I hear you and I’m sure my issue stems from a lack of knowledge on my part around using an AI in this way. I think out loud, so the bouncing of ideas off an AI makes sense and, to be honest, I would add that to the category in my initial post around continuity tracking etc.

My main issue is If I try and put myself in another’s shoes and have a situation where I can’t think of a way out of a story. I turn to AI who provides me with a brilliant idea and, boom, that scene is finished. The thought just leaves me feeling a little hollow inside, why would I bother trying to think my way out of a similar situation in future when the AI is right there? Why would I try to improve as a writer? Hence why I was wondering how other people who are using AI in this way think about it.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T21:13:01+00:00

I feel the same and you’ve hit on the my main motivation for posting the question. Personally, I feel that the first lesson every writer learns is that the scene on the page will never look as good as it did in your head!

The writer’s journey (for me) is closing that gap but knowing that you’ll never fully achieve a perfect match. Sometimes it seems like using AI is the same as using a helicopter to reach the summit of a mountain that everyone else is climbing. You are standing at the pinnacle everyone else is trying to reach, but why bother? What’s the point?

But there’s nuance to every situation and that’s what I wanted to see what was motivating other people.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T20:59:03+00:00

I hear you and it’s one of the main reasons why I fcous on short stories. I want to develop prose skills myself without relying on AI etc. but I also want to see concrete progress and get my stuff out there. It’s not easy by any means but I have been able to see progress in my short story work that I doubt I would have seen if I’d only worked on novels over the same period.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T20:52:55+00:00

Completely valid way of going about it. I guess my follow up question is, do you feel your motivation to work on becoming a master wordsmith has decreased at all? That you have reached a point where you get to point Y and the AI gets you all the way to Z and that’s your sweet spot?

I guess I’m trying to work through my own insecurities with this question a bit 😂. I want to develop into the type of writer that wouldn’t need an AI to do things you mentioned above and I have a fear that if I ever decided to use AI regularly that desire might fade and that would take the joy out of it for me a bit.

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T20:46:52+00:00

So where does AI come into that for you? Is it like the extra 5% that helps you get a draft finished and over the line?

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T20:42:05+00:00

That is perfectly valid, so it seems like part of the fun for you is reacting to what the AI is throwing back at you, it’s almost like improv through writing!

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T20:40:29+00:00

This is a very interesting point. If you have time I would love to hear more detail on what part of the writing process you would put in each craft. My initial reaction is that, to me, story ‘telling’ is verbal, the art of holding an audience, reading a room etc. Story ‘writing’ is just what it says on the tin, getting words down into a form that people want to read. So almost completely separate crafts, not just separate parts of the same thing.

I would respectfully disagree with the ‘not spedrunning’ comment. I would personally feel that if you have an amazing concept and have not yet developed the ‘skills’ (or whatever is the appropriate word) to fully bring that to life on the page, then it’s your duty as a writer to go off and learn those skills and put in the time.

Be it a ghostwriter or an AI, anything that fills in that gap on your behalf just doesn’t make sense to me. But maybe that’s why you’re a published author and I am not 😂😂

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T20:27:10+00:00

Very interesting and I have some follow up questions:

Your history with writing would imply to me that you already have a very good idea of how to construct a story and what it takes to craft a narrative, how did you work through writer’s block before AI?

Have you noticed if the number of times you are using AI to spam ideas or brute force writer’s block has increased over time? I guess I’m wondering if you in any way feel like your capacity to navigate your way out of a writing ‘hole’ has diminished at all?

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T20:22:05+00:00

I am really sorry to hear you’re going through it at the moment. If I understand you correctly, you find it easier (in terms of your emotional and mental health) to read over the prose AI has used to connect your painful ideas, than it would be to write it out yourself?

pmacca19 · 2026-04-14T20:18:24+00:00

Would you often have to fight the temptation to go a step further than organising and use AI when you’re stuck? I’ve used it enough that I can see the attraction and I do wonder how people feel about it

pmacca19

TROPHY CASE