Brendan O’Connor has become one of Ireland’s most recognisable media personalities. He’s had quite the diverse career. In the early days of his career, he made his name as a comedian on the show Don’t Feed the Gondolas, as well as as the lead singer on hit ‘novelty’ single Who’s in the House? His popularity skyrocketed during his time as a judge on talent show You’re a Star. Since 2010 he has hosted RTE’s The Saturday Night Show, while maintaining his controversial weekly column in the Sunday Independent.
Brendan joined Pat at the Ploughing Championships to discuss both his career and his personal life.
O’Connor shared a few anecdotes of his many experiences in the Irish media. In terms of difficult guests for his ongoing talk show (now in its fourth season), O’Connor recalls “Helen Flanagan… she sat there, staring at me with blank eyes. I was boring myself by the end of it.”
However, Brendan had kind words for one of his bigger guests, Michael Bublé. “We accidentally got [him last year]... he musn’t have been available on Friday night! Bublé breezed in, he was just amazing. He said ‘ask me whatever you want’. He’d checked out the show on YouTube or something, and he was like ‘you seem like a bit of a piss taker: take the piss all you want’. There was none of this ‘you can’t talk about this, that, or the other’. It was amazing”.
Brendan has repeatedly said his outlook on life has changed significantly after becoming a ‘family man’ in recent years. He spoke at length on the subject, including his second daughter Mary who was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome.
“I try not to bang on about it…” Brendan observed in relation to raising awareness of and working with mental disabilities. “The fact is there are parents out there who are so much more involved in this world; my wife is so much more involved. But the one thing you can try and do is push it out there and normalise it. We’re not special, and you don’t need to be sorry for us.
"We’ll get loads of things wrong I’m sure," he continued. "But we’ve tried to go at this in a way of not treating this like an illness. There’s this amazing world out there… the heroic love of families, the heroism of people with disabilities and the incredible things they do, the lust for life they have. [We don’t] look at it in a ‘God help us’ way”.
You can listen back to the interview via the player above.
(Image: Emma Gavagan)
