There was more to Tóibín than just the gags and impressions

THE man on the radio said Niall Tóibín could be regarded as Ireland’s Billy Connolly, which established that the man giving the tribute was probably less than half Tóibín’s 90 years and, as a result,recalled the performer mainly from appearances on The Late Late Show, where he did the equivalent of stand-up before stand-up was cool. Noting a commonality with Billy Connolly made sense, in that context.

That’s one of the oddities of being dead. You can’t choose who remembers you or what bit of you they remember — and that extends to mainstream media selectivity. If you fought on the allied side during the Second World War, for example, the place to die is in the Daily Telegraph.