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9->''"Better come clean with ya now, sweetheart. That was an outright lie I was giving ya about me revolver being wet. You see, I'm not too fond of shooting. It's my preference to blow things up. Once you blast the roof off a pub, and see all the parts flying off people, a little bang-bang's never going to match the sight of that. And here I am with all these fine grenades, and such a sweet beauty of a remote."''
10-->-- '''Brian''', ''Film/SinCity''
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12Ireland is famous for many things. The lush, green countryside. The friendliness of the people. Their red hair and mellifluous brogues (accents). The song, the music, the dance (céilí). [[BreadEggsMilkSquick People skilled with the use of explosives.]]
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14A Subtrope of {{Oireland}}, DemolitionsExpert and MadBomber, the Irish Explosives Expert is a person hailing from the Emerald Isle whose use in the plot is that of the explosives expert. As the {{Oireland}} page says, a great many Irish characters in action movies tend to be this trope. This trope is derived from UsefulNotes/TheTroubles, a dark period of time for both the North and South, where bombings were carried out by various paramilitary groups (most notably the Irish Republican Army) against targets both military and civilian. In a real life inversion of this trope, the [[UsefulNotes/PaddiesWithPropellerPlanes Defence Forces]] has a bomb disposal unit that makes regular callouts to disarm or perform controlled detonation on suspect devices that are a result of this.
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16Often found as part of a WesternTerrorists cell. This trope also tends to overlap with YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters.
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18As this is TruthInTelevision and an [[StealthPun inflammatory]] issue even today, Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease In a less inflammatory sense, likely also TruthInTelevision due to the number of Irish workers involved in railway construction in Great Britain, Canada, the United States, and Australia.
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20[[noreallife]]
21----
22!!Examples:
23[[foldercontrol]]
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25[[folder:Comic Books]]
26* ''ComicBook/TheFurtherAdventuresOfIndianaJones'': In #29, Indy clashes with IRA agent Michael Cobb, but is [[TeethClenchedTeamwork forced to join forces with him]] in #30 after they realise they have a mutual foe. Although Cobb is happy wielding a Tommy gun, he has an especial fascination with dynamite--referring to it as his 'calling card'--and wearing an overcoat lined with sticks of it sealed in waterproof pouches.
27* One storyline from ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' involved Irishmen planting explosives around TheThemeParkVersion of Ireland, which is what Ireland has become by that time.
28* The Kitchen Irish arc of ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'' has one, though his face is completely mangled from the time one of his bombs exploded in his face.
29* The page quote is provided by Brian from ''ComicBook/SinCity'', a former-IRA bomber turned mercenary who admits that explosions are his preferred method of killing. But still, he feels the need to try to take a knife to Dwight [=McCarthy=], only to wind up shanked himself by Deadly Little Miho.
30[[/folder]]
31
32[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
33* ''Film/BlownAway'' gives us Ryan Gaerity and Liam "Jimmy" Dove. One's a PsychoForHire that ''loves'' making StuffBlowingUp while the other is a ShellShockedVeteran of UsefulNotes/TheTroubles that decided to apply his explosives expertise (taught by Gaerity) in working for the Boston Police's Bomb Squad.
34* John Mallory from ''Film/AFistfulOfDynamite''. His demolition expertise is put to good use by the rebels.
35* Seamus Finnegan, from ''Franchise/HarryPotter''. Various projects of his exploding are a RunningGag throughout the movies.
36* ''Film/JonahHex2010'': [[TheDragon Burke]] is a rather psychotic Irish mercenary with a fondness for explosives, though he also likes to kill up and close with his Bowie knife.
37* In ''Film/TheHallelujahTrail'', the real reason Wallingham hired the Irish teamsters was to look after the wagons secretly loaded with dynamite.
38* In ''Film/Ronin1998'', a mysterious Irish woman hires the characters to move a briefcase but won't tell them what it contains -- the leader assumes that it's a bomb. [[spoiler:It turns out to contain documents crucial to the Northern Irish peace process.]]
39* ''Film/VivaMaria'': [[OneSteveLimit The Maria]] played by Creator/BrigitteBardot is half-French, half-Irish and learned all about the art of making bombs and setting them off from her father. She puts them to good use in a rebellion in a BananaRepublic.
40[[/folder]]
41
42[[folder:Literature]]
43* ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheDurbervilles'': The group of Irish revolutionaries includes a notorious bomber, Tyrone Mountmain.
44* ''Literature/RatsBatsAndVats'': The [=BombardierBats=], cybernetically uplifted and gengineered giant bats that mostly fight by emplacing and her using high explosives. Part of their soft-cyber implants was "Irish revolutionary songs and old 'Wobbly' tunes", causing them to all speak with broad Irish accents and adopt Irish names.
45* A heroic example is found in ''Literature/RainbowSix'', where the demolitions expert of the team is the Irishman, Paddy Connolly.
46[[/folder]]
47
48[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
49* Owen Slaeter of ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'' is a former IRA enforcer who stayed in Atlantic City because being a mobster paid better and is shown to be very proficient at bomb making.
50* Fiona of ''Series/BurnNotice'' is a former Irish Republican Army operative that Michael met years ago while undercover and fell in love with. She plays [[RedOniBlueOni Red Oni to his Blue Oni]], although those roles start to shift in later seasons, and she usually argues for the most violent of all possible options. Whenever Michael needs explosives--or, for that matter, guns--Fiona tends to be the one supplying them.
51* In an early episode of ''Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'' Pa goes out looking for work and joins an Irish "powder monkey" who knows where they can get jobs blasting tunnels for the railroads.
52* ''Series/{{Oz}}'' had an arc where Padraic Connelly, an IRA terrorist, was put in the titular prison while awaiting deportation to the UK. Ryan O'Reily, the show's main member of TheIrishMob, palled up with him and basked in the reflected glory of being friends with a "freedom fighter" for a time... until he discovered that Connelly was a MadBomber who was planning to blow up the whole wing and kill everyone.
53* Luke Dillon in the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Rigid Silence" is a member of the Irish terrorist organisation Clan na Gael, who sees himself as an expert on dynamite. Julia goads him into talking by discussing how ''inept'' one bombing was, which he insists would have been due to his instructions not being followed, had he been involved, [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial which he wasn't]].
54[[/folder]]
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56[[folder:Music]]
57* A novelty song by the Glencoves from 1963 is "It's Sister Ginny's Turn To Throw The Bomb," which details an Irish family of {{Mad Bomber}}s. "It's sister Ginny's turn to throw the bomb. / The last one, it was thrown by brother John. / Mom's aim is bad, / And the coppers all know Dad, / So it's sister Ginny's turn to throw the bomb."
58[[/folder]]
59
60[[folder:Radio]]
61* A non-violent example shows up in ''Radio/TheMenFromTheMinistry'' episode "A Slight Case of Demolition" with O'haggoti's Demolition Company Ltd., an Irish demolition company that manages to knock down the Potters Green public convenience very efficiently in a single weekend. [[spoiler:Too bad Lamb accidentally gave them the address of Sir Gregory's new house instead of the toilet...]]
62[[/folder]]
63
64[[folder:Theater]]
65* Macmorris in ''Theatre/HenryV'', who is in charge of mining the town of Harfleur, is a curious example in that the play predates the events, or at least the technology, that led to the existence of the stereotype. Macmorris's quick temper and defensiveness about his nationality reflect both English sterotypes of the Irish and the fact that there was a rebellion in Ireland going on at the time ''Henry V'' was written, but of course it would be several centuries before bombing became a tool of political violence pertaining to Ireland (indeed, the play itself also takes place before explosives were widely used in any sort of combat in Europe. In medieval warfare, mining involved digging tunnels beneath a city's defenses, but thanks to Shakespeare's tendency toward AnachronismStew the text of the play includes several references to explosives, which had become part of the process by his own time). The association is sometimes PlayedForLaughs in modern productions.
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68[[folder:Video Games]]
69* ''VideoGame/TheBourneConspiracy'', the video game adaptation of the [[Film/TheBourneIdentity first Jason Bourne movie]], has its first mission be to assassinate an Irish bombmaker named O'Connor in the employ of Wombosi.
70* Packie [=McReary=], Niko's main contact in TheIrishMob in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'', will supply Niko with car bombs once the two become good friends.
71* ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2'' features one of these as a local explosives merchant and recruitable NPC.
72* Sean Devlin, from ''Videogame/TheSaboteur'', is an explosives expert working with the French Resistance.
73* ''VideoGame/SilentStorm'' has the party member Colleen "Holly" Cullen, an Irish explosive specialist who joined the Wehrmacht because she viewed World War Two as a golden occasion to harm British occupation of Northern Ireland (personal revenge plays a part in it: her father took part in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising Easter Rising]] and was executed after its failure).
74[[/folder]]
75
76[[folder:Western Animation]]
77* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'', an Irish bomber DisguisedInDrag is revealed to be a man when Archer (accidentally) rips off his dress after drunkenly hitting on him at a party at the house of a British Lord. Archer throws a serving tray into the bomber's head before he can detonate his suicide vest.
78[[/folder]]
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