Tommy Tiernan Show recap: Jono Lancaster on life with Treacher Collins syndrome
Jono Lancaster on the Tommy Tiernan Show
Author Jono Lancaster spoke on Saturday night’s Tommy Tiernan Show about Treacher Collins syndrome, a “sporadic mutation” that affects his facial features.
Lancaster, who was put up for adoption as a baby, described the difficulties he faced particularly as a teenager due to the condition.
“In my teenage years, I started to question why I look different from everybody else,” he explained. “I just wanted to look like my friends and I became very angry with my parents. Thankfully, as a grown man, I actually love my face, but it's taken me a lot of years to reach that point.”
He said he came to terms with having Treacher Collins syndrome as he grew older and realised it “hasn’t stopped me from doing anything, but I stopped myself from doing so many things”.
Lancaster recently published his first book, Not All Heroes Wear Capes, and has travelled the world meeting other people with Treacher Collins. He said he feels particularly happy to meet young people with the condition.
“There’s a saying that goes ‘Be who you needed when you were younger’ and I've been blessed to be able to do that.”
“I was the world champion belt-carrier, not boxer.” 😉🥊
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) January 27, 2024
Roddy Collins demonstrates to @tommedian his key role in his Boxing champ brother Steve’s entourage #TommyTiernanShow @tommedian pic.twitter.com/1OqnYgjKyD
Tiernan also heard from former professional footballer and manager, Roddy Collins, who spoke about his life and his career and said he has been blessed with good luck.
“I got to this age and no major catastrophes bar losing my father,” he said. “I met my wife when I was 15 which was absolutely winning the lottery for me.”
Collins’ brother is former professional boxer Steve Collins and he spoke about his role in his brother’s entourage in the 80s and 90s, describing himself as “the world champion belt carrier, not boxer”.
Collins said he misses football and thinks his potential return to it would be “by mistake rather than design”.
Finally, Tiernan spoke with historians and creators of The Bad Bridget project Elaine Farrell and Lianne McCormick. The project focuses on Irish immigrant women who committed crimes in North America between 1838 and 1918.
“And now they just go see Joanne McNally and Vogue Williams”
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) January 27, 2024
Elaine Farrell explains that groups of Irish Emigrant women in North America in the nineteenth & early twentieth centuries could be rounded up and charged with drunkenness#TommyTiernanShow @Tommedian @badbridget pic.twitter.com/7VgSGBHG8f
“Prior to this, most of the work about Irish immigration had been about positive stories — good wives and good mothers and nuns and teachers and we didn't really know what happened when things went wrong,” McCormick explained.
Farrell said they discovered over 80% of the population of many female jails in North America at the time was made up of Irish women.
“We were not prepared for the scale, for the numbers,” she said, explaining the crimes ranged from drunkenness to serial killings and everything in between.
They said from a modern point of view they can identify many causes for some of the women’s crimes, for example, poor mental health and addiction, and many of the women did not have any support after they left Ireland.
“I wouldn't say that I would be sympathetic towards them, but I very often would most definitely recognise the context in which these crimes are taking place,” Farrell said.
