Colm Williamson Interview

With his website Waterford Whispers, Colm Williamson has over the past few years created one of the most essential voices in Irish satire. After putting out their first book of collected material last year, the WW crew have just published their best-of 2015 compilation, which as an added bonus features a chunk of new material.
“We went with the same publisher this year, Blackstaff Press,” Colm explains. “They approached me about doing one last year and they did a great job. We want to do one every year now. I have been approached before about doing television and different bits and pieces, and none of them seemed right. But I do think we need a book out there every year around Christmas. We actually started work on it around April or May – we were trying to predict the news before it happened (laughs).”
Waterford Whispers made the headlines this year after becoming the latest media outlet to be legally threatened by media tycoon Denis O’Brien, who took exception to an article about himself (despite the piece taking place in a parallel universe).
“We’ve done some stories on him in the past,” notes Colm. “He is an interesting character, and he’s suing the Government, which is a bit odd. He’s suing loads of people! I just wanted to tackle him and see what would happen. I did an article about him being arrested in a parallel universe. It was all based on information I found on Wikipedia and in news reports. But then he got upset about it, and I got a letter from his solicitors saying we had to take it down before 6pm. I thought, I better adhere to this because I’m not going to court and spending 20 grand a day.
“Of course, the article somehow got spread around and it had the opposite effect. It worked out well for us. Broadsheet posted a screen- grab from the article, and he also sent them a letter. But John (Ryan) in Broadsheet, said, ‘No, I’m not taking it down – everyone knows now it’s not real’. O’Brien’s solicitors then sent a letter to Broadsheet’s hosting server, who are actually also based in Waterford, and told them to take it down. So when he couldn’t get Broadsheet to do it, he actually went to their server company.”
Do WW think twice or check themselves now when writing about people who have the resources to take them to court?
“We’ve done a few articles on Denis O’Brien since, but we made sure not to be libellous,” Colm says. “Or whatever he thinks might be libellous. We’ve been quite careful. We’re constantly poking at him and I’m sure he’s seen it, and I’m sure he’s annoyed because there’s nothing he can do about it.”
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Waterford Whispers is when its stories are reported as being genuine. This previously happened with articles about North Korea landing a man on the sun and Michelle Obama remarking on the ugliness of Irish people, and it occurred once again in 2015, when German magazine Focus followed up on a piece headlined, ‘Dozens Injured in Stampede after Second Checkout in Lidl Opens’.
“I love when that happens,” chuckles Colm. “The online commenters are just waiting for people to fall for it, and then they’re straight on to them saying, ‘You fell for it – this is a satire site!’ There was one piece I did headlined, ‘Jesus Not Coming Back By The Looks Of It’, which quoted someone in the Vatican. Then I got all these emails from people going, ‘Oh my god – who is the source you’ve spoken to in the Vatican?!’ There were pastors in the US doing video blogs, reading out the story and going, ‘The Vatican have actually said this!’ There was one video where the guy was saying, ‘He told wwn.ie that Jesus was probably not coming back!’”
Saying he has always had an interest in comedic writing, Williamson cites Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci as his biggest influences. Next year, however, he plans to do something Morris and Iannucci haven’t yet attempted – and take Waterford Whispers into a live setting.
“We’ve just debuted one of our mini web-series,” says Colm of his plans for 2016. “We’re branching out into the video content side of things. We’re going to release a video a week and we’ll be doing news videos, pisstakes of Nationwide, investigative programmes and more. Another project I’m working on is an online idea that’s similar to Funny Or Die. We’ll be doing that with Richard Cook, and I’m looking forward to that as well.
“Also next year we’ll be doing Cat Laughs. We were meant to do it this year, but I was too busy and we didn’t know how to translate the site into a live setting. But we’ll be doing live stuff next year. We’re also looking at doing Electric Picnic and a few other things. Hopefully the Galway Comedy Festival too. It’ll be a very different style of live performance. I don’t want to go into it too much – but it’ll be something that people won’t expect.”

Waterford Whispers News Takes Over The World is out now, published by Blackstaff Press