The late Paul O'Grady spoke warmly of his Irish roots and his childhood summers spent in Ireland during his appearance on the Late Late Show on RTÉ One in November 2008.
O'Grady was a guest to discuss his first memoir, At My Mother's Knee... and Other Low Joints, when talk turned to his Irish heritage.
"I used to come every year 'til God knows when," he told host Pat Kenny.
"We spent every summer in Ireland. We always had a stop-off in Dublin off the boat."
O'Grady's late father, Paddy, was from the townland of Ballincurry in Co Roscommon.
"Which is Glinsk - that way," O'Grady continued.
"And your mum, Molly, was she of Irish extraction as well?" asked Kenny.
"She had Irish parents, yeah," O'Grady replied. "Her mother and father were Irish."
"I'm second-generation, aren't I, through and through," smiled O'Grady.
He went on to tell Kenny that he had a farm "because of Ireland".
"I was brought up on the farm," he explained of his trips home to his roots.
"And I thought, 'If I ever get a few bob, never mind fancy cars and all that - I'm going to get a bit of land and a cow."
The broadcaster and comedian went on to discuss his memories of growing up in an Irish household in Birkenhead, Merseyside.
"Me dad, he was on the family farm," O'Grady recounted. "He wasn't actually keen on farming, me dad, so he came over to England.
"He was also a drummer in an Irish band, you know the ones that went 'round doing the carnivals? I don't know how good he was. I remember seeing a photo of him as a child - sweat pouring off him and on top of the piano was about 28 pints of Guinness! I thought, 'That's me oul man, battering away'.
"On a Sunday, he'd go out and he'd have a drink. He'd come back and he'd sing, 'Just Molly and me and the baby make three' [from the song My Blue Heaven].
"Well, we're not a touchy-feely family, so me mother would be knitting and you'd think, 'Gotta watch her with those needles - she'll have ya!'
"I'd be gone out the back door and down the back entry with sheer shame while me dad stood and sang. Anything of Tommy Makem's and the Clancy Brothers, he was there - he knew all the words."
