Following his hugely successful sell-out Crooked Man tour Down Under earlier this year, legendary Irish funny-man Tommy Tiernan is set to return to Australia in 2011. CLAIRE MCGREAL caught up with the multi-award winning Navan comic to get his unique take on Ireland’s economic woes, the all too obvious signs of an Irishman abroad, the thrill of performing Down Under and the infamous controversial tag he can’t seem to shake.

Tommy Tiernan says he can spot an Irish person a mile away anywhere in the world, and Australia is no different.

“They’ve a pale freckly innocence about them no matter how cynical they might be … with the sunburnt heads and the Meath jersey with the sleeves cut off with a pair of scissors.”

The award winning Navan comic is set to return to Australia in 2011, following his hugely successful sell-out Crooked Man tour Down Under earlier this year.

He told the Irish Echo he’ll never forget the “phenomenal roar of hope and approval” he got when he walked out on stage last time round.

“It’s an amazing feeling …part of it is the awareness that you’re playing to people who miss home … and to go to a place like Perth, the most isolated city in the world, and play to 1,600 people was fantastic.

“The roar I got was kind of like the roar I get in Vicar Street back in Dublin. You’re aware of how many people have emigrated … the importance of a night like that for them, and getting to show their Australian friends the kind of stuff they like at home.”

Tiernan’s upcoming Australian tour kicks off in Melbourne on March 30, with gigs lined up for Canberra, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney. He’ll also play two nights in Auckland and Wellington on March 26 and 27. Tiernan says fans can expect “completely different” material from last time round, with a bit of traditional Tiernan “wildness” thrown in for good measure.

The 44-year-old says he’s also hoping for a good mix of Irish and Aussies in the crowd.

“The big thing for me … is not only to enjoy the response from the Irish fans and to hook up with Irish people down there, but to play to Australian people who mightn’t be sure who I am.”

They certainly know who he is in Ireland. Tiernan is second only to U2 when it comes to live ticket sales there, and he was named Ireland’s Funniest Living Person at the People of the Year Awards in 2006. As well as several other UK comedy awards, including the prestigious Perrier Award back in 1998, he has also made a number of appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman in the US.

Earlier this year he co-presented the Tommy and Hector show on 2fm with his best man and fellow Navan comic Hector O hEochagáin. And Tiernan says while he really enjoyed working with his best mate, the medium of radio is not for him.

“I’m more suited to a live audience…the unpredictability of it and the in-the-moment experience…but I couldn’t have had a better partner than Hector in terms of knocking craic out of each other.”

Both Tiernan and O hEochagáin attended St Patrick’s Classical Secondary School in Navan along with fellow well-known comic, Dylan Moran.

Tiernan says there must have been something in the water (“lots of zinc”) in the Meath town back in those days. “Everyone in Navan has the same sense of humour,” he muses. “Just myself, Dylan and Hector are the only people that can articulate it.”

What Tiernan is best known for, and the tag that follows him everywhere, is controversy. Especially after his Holocaust comments at Electric Picnic in Laois in 2009.

But while the father-of-five insists he doesn’t court controversy, it’s not a claim he’s too bothered by either.

“Anyone who’s been to a show of mine I don’t think would walk away thinking I’m controversial … if you’ve never been to see me but have been listening to radio shows and reading newspapers then you’ll buy it …  it creates a story but I really don’t take it seriously.”

Tiernan says his latest show in Galway, where he lives with his wife and manager Yvonne, aims to offer another perspective on the dire economic situation in Ireland.

“Once you start seeing Ireland as an economy, if that’s all you think we are, then we’re screwed, and the problem is the people running the country; that’s all they see.

“I’m personally hoping to connect with the idea that… there’s something more to being Irish than just an economical view of things.”

Tiernan is performing a special Christmas gig for struggling Irish people at the Aisling Centre in London, before nine gigs scheduled for Dublin’s Vicar Street in January.

Then he’s off to New Zealand and Australia, where he says Irish people have fitted right in.

“Australia is able to handle Irish wildness. The only difference between Ireland and Australia, apart from the weather, is that Aussies are probably more enthusiastic about their craic than we are … there’s a darkness to Irish craic that Aussies don’t have.”

Tommy Tiernan Australian Tour 2011. Tickets are now on sale at the usual outlets.

Tommy Tiernan will tour Australia from April 13.

Navan funny man Tommy Tiernan kicks off his first major Australian tour on April 13 when he lands in Perth to play the Octagon Theatre.

It’s been a trying few weeks for the Meathman who recently lost his mother, but tour organisers have told the Irish Echo that the tour will go ahead as planned.

Check out our interview with the Irish comedian here.

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Tommy Tiernan tour dates April 2010 ::

April 13 :: Perth :: Octagon Theatre

April 15 – 16 :: Melbourne :: The Palms at Crown

April 19 :: Brisbane :: Tivoli Theatre

April 21 :: Sydney :: Enmore Theatre

April 24 :: Sydney :: Enmore Theatre

Tommy Tiernan kicks off his Australian tour in Perth on April 13.

Tommy Tiernan’s knack for attracting controversy is matched only by his propensity to put bums on seats. Are the two connected? Does it matter? AARON DUNNE spoke to the Meathman on the eve of his biggest Aussie tour to date.

Tommy Tiernan doesn’t court controversy. Or at least he says he doesn’t. Yet, everywhere he turns, it seems to lie in waiting just around the corner.

Last September we had the latest ‘incident’. At the Electric Picnic Festival in Co Laois, the Navan man went off on one about the Holocaust.

Not your traditional topic of conversation in a comedic arena, but then again, the 40-year-old isn’t exactly your traditional comedian. It was a 20-second throwaway line, he says. Those of an easily-outraged disposition look away now.

“[Being on a comedy stage is] about allowing whatever lunacy is inside you to come out in a special protected environment where people know that nothing they say is being taken seriously,” he began, preluding the knockout punch that was to follow.

“But these Jews, these f**king Jew c**ts come up to me. F**king Christ-killing bastards. F**king six million? I would have got 10 or 12 million out of that. No f**king problem! F**k them. Two at a time, they would have gone. Hold hands, get in there. Leave us your teeth and your glasses.”
The press reaction was damning.

“Tiernan crosses line with Holocaust rant”, announced the Sunday Tribune on its front page. “Look-at-me antics,” decried The Irish Times the following day. Slews of comments flooded into radio stations and calls for his arrest for inciting hatred followed.

And yet it was nothing new to Tommy, who first incurred mainstream ire when he made a gag about the crucifixion on the Late Late Show. Six months later, Tiernan can look back on it all with some perspective.

“I seem to get myself into trouble in September every year. Some people have SAD. – seasonal adjustment depression, I think it’s called – where the decrease in light actually makes people sadder.

“I think I have something similar more along the lines of SAS – seasonal adjustment stupidity,” he jokes down the phone from his Galway home, rather tragically just a day before the sudden death of his mother, Helen.

“I get into trouble once or twice a year, it’s nothing new to me really. But it’s not something that I set out to do. It was a bit different this time in that it went international – I made it onto the front page of the Jerusalem Post. That was certainly a first for a Tiernan!

“I don’t take it very seriously, though, and I think those who do are poorer for it. The people who were actually there didn’t have a problem with the material at all. It’s never the people in the room listening to the material who object. It’s the people who hear about it afterwards that seem to get disgusted.

“It was put on the front page of the Sunday Tribune a full two weeks after it actually happened, and I can tell you this, the motive behind reporting the story the way it was reported was a bad bastard motive.

“I mean the headline in the Jerusalem Post was something like ‘Irish Comic Mocks Holocaust’. I almost felt like sending them an email saying that the clue there was in the job description.

“It [his comments] was actually part of a much longer thing – the thing about the Holocaust took all of five seconds. It was part of an on-stage interview thing where I was taking questions from the floor and someone asked me had I ever been accused of anti-Semitism.

“I just felt that things were beginning to get a bit too serious at that point. I said something ridiculous and outlandish as a way of shocking people into laughter at the stupendous outlandishness of it. And that’s what got reported.

“I’ve no problem talking about it, and I think once people are in the room with me hearing about it they’ll realise the lunacy of it all.”

Tiernan is stung by the criticism that he is a headline-chaser but cheerily admits to being reckless. Part of the job, mate.

“It’s not my job to be serious or sensible and it’s not my job to be straight or careful. I don’t go looking for these controversies, that would be foolish. To go looking for them would be false, and I couldn’t do that. People would think I’m just being sensationalist for the sake of it, but I’m not.

“I go out with a spirit of recklessness about everything, including myself. But I think when you become a well-known comedian in any country there are always serious people who want to take you down a peg or two.”

Tiernan’s popularity doesn’t seem to have been  adversely affected by it. In Ireland last year only U2 put more bums on seats.

He seems to thrive on the moral outrage of others. It’s something we’ll be hearing all about when he kicks off his Crooked Man tour here in April.

The ‘Holocaust’ kerfuffle is just another good yarn to share with his audiences.

“I think Irish people value stories very strongly. There’s nothing like the excitement of hooking up with a friend to whom something fantastically bad or something fantastically brilliant has happened.

“People just love stories and yapping to one another, so I’m hoping not only to arrive in Australia with a few stories but also to come back with a few as well. I can’t wait to get down there properly for the first time.

“I was last there in 2003. I just did the Melbourne Comedy Festival, but I’m really excited about getting to tour the whole country this time. I hope it’s the start of a long love affair.”

Tommy Tiernan kicks off his Australian Crooked Man tour in Perth on April 13, before going on to play shows in Melbourne (April 15 – 16), Brisbane (April 19) and Sydney on April 21.

See What’s On for venue and booking details.