'Home of comedy" only fifth in giggles league

One would have thought that, having produced such fine entertainers as Noel V Ginnity, Tommy Tiernan, Dylan Moran, Joe Rooney and Hector O Whathisname, Meath would rank higher than being Ireland"s fifth funniest county. However, according to those people who do ridiculous surveys that may be of interest to sociologists somewhere sometime, Meath is neck-and-neck with neighbours Westmeath and Louth in the funny stakes. This determination that we share the same sense of humour as or neighbouring counties has been made by 3, one of Ireland"s mobile media networks, based on the amount of customers downloading comedy clips. Kilkenny, home of Ireland"s best known comedy festival, is apparently Ireland"s 'funniest" county, downloading more comedy clips than any other county in Ireland. This result was found as 3 revealed its findings from 'Ireland"s Talking Habits", an extensive study by 3 of its customers" phone usage, habits and trends. How reliable the result is cannot be certain as, presumably, customers of other networks like Meteor, O2, and Vodafone weren"t surveyed. Bringing telly favourites to mobiles, 3"s comedy offering includes downloadable clips of popular comedies such as 'Fr Ted", 'Little Britain" and 'The Office". Fun-loving Roscommon came in second with 93 per cent as many comedy downloads. In joint third, comedy downloaders enjoying a bit of a giggle, are Offaly, Waterford and Donegal with 66 per cent as many side-splitting downloads. Meath landed in fifth place with 53 per cent as many downloads, neck-and-neck with Westmeath and Louth. Another interesting finding from the study is that 79 per cent of mobile comedy fans are male, making the ladies pale in the 'craic" comparison. Almost 30 per cent of comedy-loving lads were in the 18-24 year--old category, where the majority of laughter-loving ladies were in the 25-34 year--old category. Rachel Channing, head of PR and communications at 3, said: 'Irish people are best-known for having a wicked sense of humour. 3"s revelations of comedy-loving counties are no surprise, as Kilkenny is the original home of the comedy festival. Meath is clearly up for the craic and, surprisingly, the Dubs aren"t as gas as they think with a mere one third as many downloads as top of the laughs, Kilkenny.' Coming in last for laughs is counties Cavan, Longford and Leitrim, with 27 per cent, 20 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, as many downloads than Kilkenny 3 customers - suggesting the more northern counties have less of a penchant for giggles.