Dr Norton in need of a dose of love

He may inject humour into millions of homes each week, but newly appointed doctor Graham Norton is in need of a dose of love himself.

The Bandon native, who received a doctorate from his alma mater UCC last week, has admitted he is not in love at the moment and that when he goes home each night, it’s just him and his two dogs, Bailey and Madge. For anybody who might be interested in finding love with him, he joked for them to “tweet me”.

In recent months, he had been pictured with boyfriend Trevor Patterson, with whom he had been sharing his East London apartment, but Norton made no mention of the Canadian partner in an interview broadcast on RTÉ yesterday.

The 50-year-old also admitted he is not likely to walk down the aisle any time soon as he is not a fan of marriage.

“I think I would find it kind of embarrassing,” he told Miriam O’Callaghan. “To me it seems like such a personal thing. Those sorts of things that you say to someone, those vows and stuff. I could hardly whisper them in a room, never mind in a marquee with a bit of cake.”

In the radio interview aired yesterday, the chat show host spoke of how his feelings for Ireland have changed from when he left 30 years ago.

He said Ireland was “an easy place to leave” at that stage. “Those J1 visas were very popular, a big ticket out of here, a lot of us were leaving,” he said. “At least I came home.”

He said both he and Ireland had changed since then to the extent where he now spends up to two-and-a-half months here each year and it is his favourite part of the year.

“The kid who ran out of here, if you said [to him], ‘you will choose to spend that much time here when you don’t have to’, would laugh in your face,” he said.

One of the things which drew him closer to Ireland was the way people here deal with death. He said his father’s funeral and people’s reaction to himself and his family during the grieving process without embarrassment made him “really like and admire Ireland”.

Norton also touched on his career in comedy, the seminal moment when he played Fr Noel Furlong in Father Ted and the huge success of his prime-time BBC chat show.