Jimmy Carr
(Picture: Dave Benett)The father of comedian Jimmy Carr has urged Limerick Council to strip his son of an honour it bestowed on him because he called it a “s*** town”.
The controversial comic, whose parents are from Limerick, made the comments in his new self-help book, Jimmy Carr, Before and Laughter.
In the book, he writes: “I might seem urbane, but I’m the son of two immigrants from Limerick who moved to Slough (they moved from a s*** town to another s*** town, I guess they knew what they liked).”
The 49-year-old’s father, Jim Carr Sr, took particular offence at this passage and is now calling on Limerick council to revoke the “Certificate of Irish Heritage” which was given to his son in 2013.
However, he is willing to dismiss the request if Jimmy makes “a sincere public apology”.
“He’s one sick comedian, literally and metaphorically,” Mr Carr Sr told the Limerick Leader. “It looks like it anyway. Leave all that aside, I don’t want somebody writing that about Limerick in a book.”
The 77-year-old described himself as a “proud Limerick man”.
He competed in the prestigious Harty Cup hurling competition and also played rugby for Young Munster, Connacht and London Irish.
However, his son took a very different path growing up in West London and has since become one of the most successful comedians in the UK and Ireland.
Jimmy Carr came under fire in February after joking about how the Nazis should have killed more gypsies.
But it was the description of his Limerick roots that irked his father, with whom he has not been on good terms since 2004.
“It’s the style of his comedy,” he told the publication. “He is, after all, a shock jock. His defence will be "they are only words, I’m only having a laugh.”
“Ironically, we didn’t move to Slough, we moved from Limerick to South Kensington, London,” he said.
Mr Carr Sr also took offence at a joke his son made in the book about, “how many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?”
“The Famine - that’s our Holocaust for God’s sake,” he said. He said “the book is full of defamation by word and innuendo”.
“I have instructed my lawyer, and my lawyer has issued a letter before action to Jimmy concerning defamation.
“I love him, of course, like a son, but I am still very active in business and I can’t be having my name sullied by innuendo.”
As part of the Gathering Ireland initiative of 2013, Limerick Council nominated the comedian for a Certificate of Irish Heritage.
When handing the Eight Out of Ten Cats presenter his certificate, former mayor Kathleen Leddin said: “Jimmy is very proud of his parental connections with Limerick and certainly has an emotional attachment to the city and to Ireland.”
