Foil Arms and Hog are an Irish

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...

group comprising Sean 'Foil' Finegan, Conor 'Arms' McKenna and Sean 'Hog' Flanagan. The group has performed on TV, radio, the stage, and online. The trio write, shoot, and edit a new sketch every week in their office, releasing it on Thursdays for

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and

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. Foil Arms and Hog do not have a specific genre, and make sketches that are often observational and occasionally topical. Popular sketches released to YouTube include 'When Irish People Can't Speak Irish', 'An Englishman Plays Risk', 'WTF is Brexit', 'Countries Guess Who they Are', 'When Meetings are No Longer Online' and 'How to Speak Dublin'. Foil Arms and Hog also perform live shows, primarily in Ireland and the United Kingdom, but also in North America, Australia, and Europe. Since 2009 they have performed at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, the Fringe or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featur ...

. The group's name evolved from nicknames each of the members had for each other. Foil (Sean Finegan) is the comedy foil, Arms (Conor McKenna) is 'All arms and Legs' and Hog (Sean Flanagan) hogs the limelight. The group formed in 2008, after the trio met in the drama society at

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

, when they were studying architecture, genetics, and engineering, respectively. They were drawn together at first by a love of the TV show ''

Father Ted ''Father Ted'' is a sitcom created by Irish writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews (writer), Arthur Mathews and produced by British production company Hat Trick Productions for British television channel Channel 4. It aired over three seri ...

'' and a common interest in comedy. This was at a time just after the

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, and the group say that it "was absolutely the best thing that could have happened. If the

Celtic Tiger The "Celtic Tiger" () is a term referring to the economy of the Republic of Ireland, economy of Ireland from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s, a period of rapid real economic growth fuelled by foreign direct investment. The boom was dampened by ...

had still been going and all our mates were making shedloads of cash, we would have been under pressure to get proper jobs. But instead, we had the perfect excuse to play around for a while and see what happened."

References

{{authority control Irish comedy troupes 21st-century Irish comedians Comedy trios Comedy-related YouTube channels YouTube channels launched in 2008 Alumni of University College Dublin 2000s in Irish comedy 2010s in Irish comedy 2020s in Irish comedy