Northern Ireland comedian Patrick Kielty has recalled the tragic day his father was shot dead at the age of 44.
The Co Down comedian was appearing on The Late Late Show on RTE One on Friday night, ahead of his new stand-up tour Borderline, which includes eight Belfast dates.
He was only 16 when his dad Jack Kielty was shot dead in his home village of Dundrum by loyalist paramilitaries in January 1988.
Recalling finding out about the death, he told host Ryan Tubridy: "I was 16 and it was my brother's 18 birthday.
"Everybody said they were sorry, everybody hugged us but nobody said they couldn't believe it. That is how things were up there, that was the normality of it."
Over the years, Kielty has gained some clarity about the death of his father and believes it's important to speak out about it whenever he can.
The comedian and TV presenter said: "With the passing of time, you get a weird clarity to the whole thing. I was in school and I was called to the headmasters office. I was putting up Comic Relief posters and I hadn't asked the headmaster could I do it.
"I thought Brother Fergus was going to sort me out for that. I remember going into the office and Brian Cunningham, my dad's best friend, was sitting there. I could see something was up.
"They said my dad had been shot and automatically said 'Is he dead?' and straight away they said 'Yes'.
"That drive home, we passed the house where the killers, who shot him, were hiding. They didn't go straight back to Belfast, there was a local house and local people were involved."
He said his dad was target for several reasons.
"My dad was a building contractor. We subsequently found out in later years that he wasn't going to pay his protection money and he was going to give evidence in a trial, but that trial collapsed.
"So he was a dead man walking from then. He was also the chairman of the Gaelic club and he was prominent Catholic in the area."
Kielty recently presented the BBC programme One Hundred Years Of Union, which explored how the trauma of Northern Ireland’s past is shaping its future to mark the country’s centenary year.
In 2018, he presented the documentary My Dad, The Peace Deal And Me for the channel, which coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
It explored the state of Northern Ireland two decades on from the Agreement and Kielty discussed the killing of his father and the effect it had on him.
Kielty starts the Ireland and UK leg of his new stand-up tour Borderline this May and also stars in the forthcoming film Ballywater.
In Borderline, Kielty will explore his homeland’s recent history and give his personal take on Brexit’s new borders, national identity and the future of the Union.
He hopes to “make some sense” of where the future of the UK is heading in a post-Brexit landscape.
Kielty married English TV presenter Cat Deeley in 2012 and they have two children.
