Patrick Kielty recalls first 'terrifying' public show

Paddy Kielty talks to William Crawley on BBC Radio Ulster

Patrick Kielty has described how his career developed from a "terrifying" appearance at a school Christmas concert to national TV fame.

In a BBC Radio Ulster Talkback special, the comedian explains how a teacher told him he would be performing a skit at the show.

"If you don't do it, I'm dropping you from the football team for the rest of the year," he says he was told.

That was not a threat to be taken lightly, as young Kielty was a good enough Gaelic footballer to play for Down minors, although he makes no claims to sporting prowess.

"To put it in perspective, I was on the Down minors for three years," he said.

"The year that I didn't play they won the All-Ireland. The two years that I did play they were nothing. Make of that what you will."

Listening to tapes of Billy Connolly in the car with his dad was one of the inspirations for his future career.

"That was a lovely memory from when you're 12 or 13," says Kielty.

His schoolboy speciality was doing impressions of the Scottish comedian and the boxer Barry McGuigan.

Kielty returned to Dundrum for the BBC documentary My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me

After studying psychology at Queen's University Belfast, he made his first serious steps to stardom as compere at the Empire Comedy Club in the city.

"I was playing every pub, club and hole in the hedge, before the band, at a dinner dance, before the karaoke," Kielty explains.

Around the same time he got his first break into TV with a children's programme on Ulster Television called Sus.

"It was quite weird doing kids' stuff on a Saturday and then on a Tuesday in the Empire you were kind of doing that sort of a political gladiatorial venue," he says.

'I thought Dundrum was the greatest place'

Just from hearing Kielty talk about his father, it is clear that they had a close, special relationship and the comedian has put on record the terrible effect his father's killing during the Troubles had on his family.

Jack Kielty was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in January 1988.

"For a long time I didn't want to talk about my dad, so many other people went through so much worse than me," he told the programme.

This changed when he decided that it "might help someone to tell their story".

Kielty has lived a colourful life since growing up in the County Down village of Dundrum with boats, water-skiing and football.

"Growing up as a kid in Dundrum I thought it was the greatest place in the world."

Despite travelling and living around the world and living for a time in California, he has now discovered that his childhood feelings for the village have been confirmed.

"It is actually what I thought it was when I was a kid, so you come full circle."

Earlier this month, he addressed the Irish government's Shared Island forum.

In the years since winning his spurs at the Empire, the comedian has become one of the best-known faces on British television.

His marriage to the presenter Cat Deeley made him one half of a showbiz couple.

Kielty was living in Los Angeles with his young family in recent years when an incident occurred that grabbed the headlines of the UK tabloids.

"It's been very, very much overstated," he laughs.

He was taking his young son, Milo, for a burger in a mall in LA when they were told there was a lockdown "and apparently there was a shooter".

Kielty said customers were directed to the kitchen where free food and beers were handed out.

"We were essentially having a lock-in in the back of a burger bar," he said, adding that no shots were ever fired.

His family has since moved back to the UK.

Despite the fame, Kielty says there are no guarantees in the business.

"There's some things that you do and you think they're going to be a hit but they're not and sometimes you do things that you don't think are going to be a hit and they are."

You can listen to the Talkback special with Paddy Kielty on BBC Radio Ulster on 30 December at 12:00 GMT and after on BBC Sounds