Actor and producer producer Mark Wahlberg is doing the publicity rounds in Europe these days for his hit summertime U.S. flick The Other Guys, co-starring Will Ferrell.  He spoke with a correspondent from Irish broadcaster RTE about the buddy comedy, which includes a drinking scene featuring Irish rebel songs.

The interviewer reckoned Wahlberg, a native of the Boston Irish enclave Dorchester, would be well familiar with the Irish bars in the neighborhood, and he was right. 

“There is one of those bars on every corner . . . there’s two of those bars, there’s a Catholic Church and then there’s two more all the way up and down Dorchester Avenue,” the rapper formerly known as Marky Mark said.

“When I really started listening to the lyrics (of the rebel songs), it was like, ‘Oh my God, this is the most depressing thing I have ever heard.’”

Wahlberg will be getting his Irish up later on this year with the December release of The Fighter, based on the hardscrabble life of the boxer “Irish” Micky Ward.  The film is generating all kinds of Oscar buzz, and Wahlberg is said to be a shoo-in for a Best Actor nod.