TOMMY Tiernan has opened up about his pain at losing his mother to suicide in 2010 - admitting the way she died wasn't 'a surprise' to him.
The comedian spoke honestly about the death of his mother Helen – revealing for the first time that she died by suicide.
The Navan native said: “So my mam basically took her own life in 2010 and what I think happened, definitely not with all suicides, but with some people… I think my mam, she obviously found things incredibly difficult.
“But she also lived at a strange distance from us, even though she was in the same house as us. "There was a part of her that wasn’t comfortable or couldn’t cope with or didn’t want or wasn’t able for maybe – a better way of saying it – the kind of intimacy of family life.
“But she was a woman at the same time who was hugely part of setting up the first Meath’s Women’s Refuge so herself and her friend would’ve been part of a small collective of women in Navan in the 80s who decided lets set up a refuge for battered wives.
“There could be children all around the housing estate that we grew up in saying 'your mam really looked after me'. 'Anytime my mam was sick, your mam looked after me' and 'I loved your mam' and all that kind of stuff.
“But when it got to her own house she just couldn’t share in the same way. She couldn’t cope.
“When someone who has lived like that dies the way mam did, part of it isn’t a surprise. Sometimes it’s still the same. The relationship goes on.”
But the 53-year-old admitted he still has a relationship with his late mother, saying over the past number of years he has learned to love her more in death.
“She would always be on my mind in some kind of way. I would always be in dialogue with her. I would always be thinking about the strange, odd, quare life that she had.
“So it’s a process. Just because someone dies, doesn’t mean the relationship stops. It’s still there, it is still going on.”
The Derry girls star also revealed his sister Ann – who will release her first book this March – was in labour at the time of her mother’s death.
Tommy told listeners on RTE Radio One he was unsure if his mother ever looked for professional help.
“It’s not to say that she wasn’t a great mother,” he said.
But Tommy said he loves his mam more than he did when she was alive.
“I love her more than I did when she was alive. I’ve more empathy towards her. But there’s still sharks in that particular pool. There’s a danger. So it is a gradual thing. It goes on and on.”
Tommy made the shock revelation on RTE Radio One while talking about the return of his popular Saturday night chat show.
The show is making a return to our screens on RTE One this Saturday for a seventh season – but the funnyman admitted he won’t watch it when it airs.
“I give them (RTE) freedom. I just say, ‘I won’t watch it, I’ll leave it up to you’. I don’t even watch the show when it’s on. It’s not my type of show,” he said jokingly to radio host Ray D’Arcy.
The show will also see a live audience in studio for the first time.
“The show is in many ways so unpredictable that it's impossible to tell people what to expect. "It's like going to a party and not knowing who's going to be there.
"The only thing that I know for sure is that both myself and the guest are up for a conversation but where that conversation might go is anybody's guess.
"There's a studio audience there this year so how that extra energy in the room affects the chat will be interesting to see. I sincerely hope that whatever happens on the night will continue to be of interest and entertainment to the Irish public.
“The success of it is and was a huge surprise to me and I think that the show, there is something about it that you can’t define and there is something about it that you can’t nail down.”
And Tommy revealed he will be ditching his trademark hat on telly.
“I have decided it is time to take up an unpopular look. You don’t have many bald spots on television,” he added.
The Tommy Tiernan Show starts this Saturday night on RTÉ One at 9.40pm.
