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Friday night’s quizzing adventure took me to the town of Kilmaine in Mayo, along with friend Ger.  Due to a miscommunication regarding a funeral, that was our team.  But that’s a story for another day.

My wife’s people hail from Kilmaine and their name is Murphy.  That’s all I knew about Kilmaine before Friday night – the place is full of Murphys.  My lack of knowledge of other facts pertinent to Kilmaine would prove costly before the night was out though.

Firstly, we struggled to find the quiz.  “Where’s it on?” I asked Ger, as we arrived in the town.

“Murphy’s” he said.  That sounded plausible.

So, into Murphy’s Bar we went, only to find the place practically empty, just two patrons, the barman and the Late Late Show on in the corner.

“Is there a quiz on here tonight?” we asked.

“No.  It’s in the other Murphy’s – up the street there.”

Anyway, when we eventually found it, the quiz itself consisted of five rounds of 20 questions.  This is a nice idea, it certainly speeds the quiz up.  However, when one of those rounds is a ‘local’ round, it doubles the pain for those who live outside of five miles from the venue. Why publicize the quiz to the ‘outside world’ if you’re going to rig it in favour of your friends?

Some of the questions in this local round were beauts. Here’s a few I jotted down (Hint: the answer to at least one of these is Murphy):

• What does the name Kilmaine mean?
• When was the Kilmaine GAA club founded?
• What team did they play in their first ever match?
• Who went in goal for the girls’ U-15 soccer team when they won the Mayo title via a penalty shoot-out this year?
• Who played the postman in the recent production of the play The Real McCoy in Kilmaine parish hall?
• Who won this year’s Kilmaine Strictly Come Dancing?
• Which bog is being cleaned this weekend as part of Kilmaine’s Tidy Towns?

Oh yes, a question starting with the words “which bog…”

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