Channel your inner Mescal: Smithfield’s lookalike showdown 

By Millie Reid and Alex Keegan

Ten days after an enormous Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in New York, a similar event for Ireland’s Hollywood star Paul Mescal saw crowds of people gather round for a glimpse of potential doppelgangers in Smithfield Square last Thursday. 

The event was announced by a flyer in Smithfield Square, which circulated on social media and offered a prize of €20 or three pints to the lucky winner. But the real hype centred around a potential visit, similar to Chalamet, of Mescal himself, as that evening the Lighthouse Cinema hosted a premiere for Gladiator II. 

Media giants like RTE, Newstalk, The Irish Examiner, JOE.ie and District were all in attendance for the contest as five potential “Pauls” were hoisted to the crowd for all to see. The Five Pauls were named as “Normal People Paul”, “Denny’s Paul”, “Casual Mescal”, “Tall Paul” and “BAFTAs Paul”. 

“The highs are the highest highs I think I’ve ever experienced,” one runner-up, Emmett, aka “Tall Paul” told The Liberty. “When you’ve got worthy winners like that you can’t feel bad, you know. I was handed a little envelope as a consolation – everyone seemed to have got a little something, but its not quite three pints!”

There were roars of approval for that worthy winner, Jack Wall O’Reilly from Ennis, County Clare. 

More than the whopping twenty euro or three pints was the bragging rights of having Paul-like aura. 

“I think there’s a Paul Mescal in all of us,” said Wall O’Reilly on the winning stage. Sadly the man himself did not appear to offer his views on that idea.

Wall O’Reilly said his friends have been telling him for years that he looks like the actor and that he was sent the post about the lookalike competition “a good few times over the last week”. 

Marcus O’Laoire organised the event, all in the name of good craic.

“Paul Mescal represents Ireland so well,” O’Laoire said. “It’s not just potatoes and pints. It’s also short shorts and strength.”