Tommy Tiernan Show recap: Last episode of the series — with Kathy Burke, Peter Claffey, and Dr Tony Bates
Tommy Tiernan Show: Tommy Tiernan with guests Peter Claffey; Kathy Burke; and Dr Tony Bates
It's the last episode of this series of and it definitely featured his classic quirky mix of humour, swearing — a lot of swearing — and an in-depth discussion of feelings.
His first guest was actress and comedian Kathy Burke. She was born in Britain to Irish parents — Paddy from Galway and Bridget from Cork. Tiernan straightway noted her very difficult childhood: her mother died of cancer when Burke was two years old and she lived with her father who was an alcoholic.
"He was quite violent when we were kids."
Kathy spoke about working with Cork screen star Siobhán McSweeney and launched into a tale about being in the early stages of filming Graham Norton's debut novel in West Cork when McSweeney broke her leg.
Burke, 62, joked that she was not impressed with this setback as they had to put a lot of work into hiding the plaster cast. But she did say she had a lot of sympathy for McSweeney as well: "My heart went out to her really, she was brilliant. The amount of pain she was in. She was in agony. But I was delighted when I could see the sweat coming out of her head because she was playing an alcoholic and I was saying 'that's great, we can use that'."
Sometimes it seems like Tiernan almost relishes when a chat goes off track and becomes what another host might call a 'nightmare interview'. Kathy Burke refused answer a question because she said the information is in her "fucking book" — her memoir — and urged him to go buy it. And Tiernan seemed genuinely tickled by this refusal to 'play the game'.
Not content with that slightly awkward moment, he then brought up what would have been a real cringe moment for many other people. He cheerfully described auditioning for a role she was directing and how he didn't get the part. Burke wasn't fazed either and laughed: "You weren't good enough, you were rubbish" before they wrapped up that interview with a big hug.
Next guest was Peter Claffey, the lead actor in hit prequel . Despite the popularity of the series Tiernan had no idea who 6'5" Claffey was and joked: "You're a fine size of a man. Let me guess you're a Montessori teacher."
The actor and former professional rugby union player from Portumna mentioned that he had previously met Tiernan — he described being starstruck though Tiernan didn't initially remember their encounter at all.
Claffey, 29, described suffering numerous sports injuries before opting for a career in acting. He explained to Tiernan that he plays the lead role in the George RR Martin trilogy — as hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall.
For a while Tiernan became very distracted by the concept of a hedge knight — "it sounds like a social distancing thing that people might have done during COVID" — but it's essentially a freelance knight or a 'sword for hire'.
Claffey described being bemused that he was able to maintain his Galway accent for the role and even got a thumbs up for his work from co-actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor.
The final guest was psychologist Dr Tony Bates. Tiernan seemed a little flummoxed or even skeptical initially when Bates spoke about "learning to grow and become ourselves". But Bates spoke movingly about a defining moment in his life: he was very ill as a child and was sent for a month to the Fever Hospital in Cork when he was just three years old.
He mentioned that he was so upset when his mother left after her first visit that the hospital staff recommended that she keep away for four weeks. And then when he was recovered and able to go home he misbehaved in some way due to his distress. His mother thought this meant he was missing Cork and decided to send him back to his grandparents in Cork for six months.
The trauma of these separations and the confusion they caused to a young child was repressed for many years until it emerged as he watched a film about a child being separated from its parents: "Then I started to spasm and vomit and dry retch."
Tiernan seemed genuinely moved by the description of how anguished Dr Bates had been as a child and again later when he learned the extent of that early years separation.
Dr Bates founded Jigsaw (The National Centre for Youth Mental Health) in 2006; and his most recent book is , part memoir, part exploration of the current state of mental health care in Ireland.
He explained that he is a very keen believer in the importance of the first two years of a child's life and urged that "we must protect and resource mothers and parents".
"If we've learned anything from psychology, it is to protect the first two years of life."
And with that we came to the end of this series of .
