Ulster Talkback special, the comedian describes the way a teacher told him he would be doing a skit in the show.
“If you do not get it done, I am dropping you from the football team for the majority of the year,” he states he was informed.
Which wasn’t a risk to be used lightly, as small Kielty was an adequate Gaelic footballer to enjoy for Down minors, though he can make no claims to sporting prowess. “To place it in perspective, I was in the Down minors for three years,” he said.
“The year that I did not play, they received the All-Ireland. The two years in which I did play, they were nothing. Make of that everything you will.”
Paying attention to tapes of Billy Connolly in the automobile with their dad was among his inspirations for his future profession.
“That was a beautiful memory from when you were twelve or perhaps 13,” says Kielty. The schoolboy speciality of his was performing impressions of the Scottish comedian and the boxer Barry McGuigan. After studying psychology at Queen’s Faculty Belfast, he made the first major measures of his to stardom as compere in the Empire Comedy Club in the community.
“I was enjoying every pub, hole and club in the hedge, before the band, at a dinner dance, before the karaoke,” Kielty describes. Near the same time, he received the 1st rest of his into TV with a children’s programme on Ulster Television known as Sus.
“It was very strange doing kids’ material on a Saturday after which on a Tuesday in the Empire you are sort of performing in that kind of a political gladiatorial venue,” he says. ‘I thought Dundrum was the best place.’
Simply from hearing Kielty talk about the father, it’s apparent they’d be good; the comedian and unique connection have recorded on record the dreadful impact his father’s killing throughout the Troubles had on his family members.
Loyalist paramilitaries murdered Jack Kielty in January 1988.
“For a very long time, I did not wish to chat about my dad; a lot of others went through a great deal even worse compared to me,” he told the programme. This changed as he decided that it “might help a person tell the story” of theirs.
Kielty has lived a colourful life since a youngster in the County Down village of Dundrum with boats, water skiing, and football. “Growing up as a child in Dundrum, I believed it was the best place in the world.”
