'This is where it all started and I'm back': Conan O'Brien visits ancestral home in Limerick

The chat show host has traced his roots back to the village of Galbally, south-east Co Limerick

Conan O'Brien in Galbally, Co Limerick.

Former US chat show king Conan O’Brien told of his delight at visiting his ancestral home of Galbally, Co Limerick, on Wednesday.

Mr O’Brien’s successful career in the entertainment industry began in the 1980s, as a writer for the legendary NBC sketch series Saturday Night Live and the Fox animated sitcom The Simpsons in the 1990s.

He went on to become one of the most recognisable faces on US television, producing and interviewing A-List celebrities on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, and Conan, and has been hosting a podcast Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend since 2018.

But O’Brien has traced his roots back to the sleepy village of Galbally, south-east Co Limerick, the native home of his great grandfather Daniel O’Brien, who married Margaret Dempsey from nearby Emily, Co Tipperary.

Conan O'Brien @ConanOBrien Twitter/X: 24 hours of straight Guinness and my face has doubled in size.

Visiting Galbally yesterday, the 60-year-old US television presenter from Brookline, Massachusetts, ran into his “good friend” and local historian Jim Fitzgerald, who also runs the Galbally Community Facebook Page.

“Hello, Conan O'Brien here from America. I work in television there and I do comedy, but I hail from Galbally, I come from here, and I've run into my good friend here, Jim Fitzgerald. Jim Fitzgerald is telling me all about the O’Briens and Galbally,” Mr O’Brien told the Galbally Community in a video posted on the village’s Facebook page.

“My great-grandfather, left Galbally, I think in the 1870s, and we're gonna go see where his house used to be.

“But this is where it all started. And now I'm back. This is very nice.” 

Conan O’Brien with local historian Jim Fitzgerald in Galbally, Co Limerick. Picture: Galbally Community Facebook

Mr Fitzgerald told the veteran host of US comedy and chat shows: “This is where it all started.” 

“The village is here since, I suppose, the 1400s,” Mr Fitzgerald added.

Embracing Mr Fitzgerald, Mr O’Brien joked: “That’s amazing, to come back to this town, to meet Jim, and the only awkward thing is his hand is resting firmly on my ass, right now.” 

Mr Fitzgerald said Mr O’Brien was a “good comedian” and he was thrilled to have encountered the US TV star in the village: “What a day, I met one of America's most famous TV presenters in Galbally village. Galbally had a very famous visitor today. It was none other than Conan O’Brien, he is in the area searching for his roots.” 

“We had a good chat which will be broadcast in the USA later this year, a very interesting day.” 

Mr O’Brien later tweeted a photo of himself holding a printout of his family tree.