My childhood with Gearóid Farrelly: My mother had to drag me out of the closet

The comedian and podcaster on being 'a camp kid in an all-boys Christian Brothers school' in 1990s Ireland and the support from his parents

Gearoid Farrelly: '1990s Ireland was a tough place for gay people.'

GEARÓID Farrelly didn’t realise he was gay until he was 21. 

The comedian and podcaster jokes: “I didn’t so much come out of the closet as my mother had to come in and drag me out. She told me she thought I was gay and that there was no need to worry about it.”

Being bullied at primary school might have delayed his self-awareness.

“It was intense,” he says. “I was a camp kid in an all-boys Christian Brothers school, and the other boys teased me for being gay long before I understood my own sexuality. 1990s Ireland was a tough place for gay people. 

"Homosexuality wasn’t decriminalised until 1993, for god’s sake. The fact that I spent years telling bullies I wasn’t gay made things very muddled in my head when I began to question if I might be.”

Farrelly grew up in Finglas as the eldest of six. “One of my ‘sisters’ is a cousin who came to live with us after her mam died,” he says. 

“I always think of her as the final piece of our jigsaw puzzle. There were two years between each of the first four of us kids and then four years between my youngest sister and brother. Jen, who is two years younger than my sister and two years older than my brother, slotted right into that gap.”

He recalls growing up in such a big family as “total chaos”.

“Our house was always happy, but loud, with noise and toys everywhere.”

Farrelly’s earliest memory dates from a time before his younger siblings were born. It’s of himself and his mother using glue, cotton wool and toilet roll to make snowmen after watching Marian and Philip do it on Bosco.

“I’ve often thought the reason I remember is that it’s such a quiet, still moment, not like what was to follow once the others were born,” he says.

Starting school was challenging for Farrelly. “I think, when you’re the eldest, you’re the only child at first and there’s so much space for you in your parents’ lives,” he says. 

Gearoid Farrelly: 'I think, when you’re the eldest, you’re the only child at first and there’s so much space for you in your parents’ lives.'

“That space becomes smaller as siblings are born, and when you go to school there are so many other children there that the amount of attention paid to you is tiny. I found that difficult and then came the bullying.”

His parents, Deirdre and Eamon, did their best to support him and he was grateful for the safety of home.

“My childhood was idyllic, apart from school,” he says. “My parents were fantastic, and everything in our house was focused on us kids.

“We might not have had much money, but they put so much time and effort into raising us. I don’t know how they did it. I’d be far too selfish to do what they did if I had kids.”

Farrelly also recalls a teacher, Brian O’Toole, who helped: “Knowing I had him in my corner made a massive difference to me as a child,” he says.

Secondary school was easier as Farrelly’s parents chose a different school to most of his classmates. 

“It was still a boys’ school, but my time there was better than my time at primary school,” he says. “I had two close friends who are still my friends today.”

Gearoid Farrelly at his First Communion in 1987.

His parents were strict but having rigid rules in place suited him. He laughs as he recalls how his sisters would try to convince their parents to let them go to more discos, while he “loved having boundaries". 

"There’s a safety that comes from being told you can’t do the thing you don’t really want to do anyway. When lads in my class asked why I wasn’t doing something, I’d sigh and say, ‘Mam and Dad are so strict they won’t let me go’.”

His main pastimes as a teen were reading and listening to music. He had a paper round, and his parents made him save a third of his earnings, contribute a third to the running of the house, and allowed him to spend the remaining third.

He used it to accompany his friend Kevin to town on Saturdays, where they would wander around the record shops and eat in McDonald’s before going home. “That’s still my favourite thing to do whenever I’m in a new town or city,” he says.

Stand-up comedy, or performance of any kind, wasn’t on Farrelly’s radar when he was contemplating his career options. He doesn’t remember being particularly funny.

“I certainly wasn’t the class clown,” he says.

His original career path involved studying business at University College Dublin, before working in insurance, IT, and computer programming. 

Gearoid Farrelly: 'My parents were fantastic, and everything in our house was focused on us kids.'

“It was only when I was in my 20s that I started doing amateur dramatics and musicals,” he says. “I enjoyed those so much that I did a master’s degree in theatre and started doing some directing and writing. 

"That led to open-mic sessions, where I tried stand-up for the craic. I told nobody I was doing it until I won the Bulmer’s Comedy Award in 2008 and then I had no choice as my name was in the papers.”

These days, Farrelly considers himself “lucky to come from such a big, close-knit family” and is especially thankful for the relationship he has with his parents.

“They have always been there for me,” he says. “When I’m with them, I still feel like I’m their little boy. I can feel all the love and care they have given me over the years. 

"I know I can be totally myself with them and talk to them about anything and they’ll accept me as I am.”

• Gearóid Farrelly will perform his No Pressure tour in venues around Ireland from September. Show details and tickets are available at gearoidfarrelly.com