It’s exhausting, getting Irish. The continuous self-flagellation will do to place anybody off their breakfast.

Why are we so hard on ourselves? Is it the post-colonial overhang pursuing decades of oppression as a result of a litany of foreign invaders? Or could it be collective guilt for sending Westlife out in to the wider world?

In Surviving Ireland, acclaimed comedy writer Colm Tobin* calls for the reader with the hand for any satirical romp through modern Irish life. Aswell as providing all the tools about Making it through Ireland you will have to navigate this frequently tricky little island (except a compass or anything even resembling a fact), the reserve will need you through some of the country’s fraught background, asking some searing questions along the way: how did we get here, where are we going and who in the name of God will pay for it all?

Surviving Ireland consumes culture and politics, town and country, drink and food, delivery, death and everything among. Let it become your definitive guideline to this unusual and bewildering rock, cowering from your cold Atlantic swells. Oh, and it’s really got some funny drawings in it as well.

* Not the Booker Prize-nominated writer Colm Tóibín.