David O’Doherty has a fascinating family history with a unique insight into the events of 1916
DAVID O’Doherty has done some exceptional things. He’s one of only four Irish comedians to win a prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award. He’s published several books. He’s written and staged theatre plays for children. He’s fronted TV shows, appeared on QI, and his new comedy album, You Only Live, is riding high in the charts. He has not, however, had “a good war” unlike, say, his great-grandparents who were at the epicentre of Ireland’s revolutionary years a century ago.
“The reason I know about this,” he says, “is because my grandfather died in 2006. Six years before he died, he wrote a book — mainly for us — about where the family had come from. But then academics started to become interested because there was a lot of new history in it that people didn’t know about. It was called My Parents And Other Rebels. It was about the period 1916-23. I come from a highly influential family in a way and can’t help but think that I’m a terrible disappointment to them.”
