P.I.’s of the Emerald Isle
“There are no private eyes in Ireland. The Irish wouldn’t wear it. The concept brushes perilously close to the hated ‘informer.’ You can get get away weith almost anything except ‘telling.'”
— Jack Taylor on the paucity of P.I.s in Ireland, in The Guards (2001) by Ken Bruen
- John Blaine by Vincent Banville (Dublin)
- Bernard Holland by Mike Shelley (Belfast)
- Karl Kane by Sam Millar (Belfast)
- Ed Loy by Declan Hughes (Dublin)
- Mystery Man by Colin Bateman (Belfast)
- Dan Starkey by Colin Bateman (Belfast)
- Jack Taylor by Ken Bruen (Galway)
Preliminary list compiled by Kevin Burton Smith. The photo, alas, is not of two actual Irish private eyes (as far as I know), but of Isidor “Izzy” Einstein and Moe Smith, two Prohibition-era cops from New York City who managed to arrest 4,932 offenders, haul in roughly five million bottles of illegal liquor, and sport a conviction rate of 95 percent from 1920–25.
