Four roads and forty islands

NEVER mind the showbands — here’s Tommy Tiernan.

Well, not quite, and not according to the man himself. The country’s most popular comedian has finished his World Tour of the Islands, and in a bar which famously played host to Daniel O’Donnell’s first ever concert, Tommy Tiernan evoked — with near-religious fervour — the name of the showband godfather: Big Tom.

In a packed Early’s Bar on the Co Donegal Island of Arranmore, the son of Navan declared his love and admiration for the man known to his mam as Tom McBride, the man who sang, “You’re going out the same way you came in”, a man Tiernan describes as “the colour of nicotine and ear wax”. Despite the laughs, he was only half joking.