Patrick Kielty has revealed he received a thoughtful tribute to his late father from The Late Late Show team.
The comedian hosted his first episode of RTÉ’s flagship programme on Friday, September 15.
The 52-year-old admitted his father John ‘Jack’ Kielty, who was shot dead aged 44 by loyalist shooters from the Ulster Freedom Fighters when he was just 16 years old, was at the “forefront of his mind” during his hosting debut.
Speaking at a conference by the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation in Athlone, Patrick said: “After the show – I don’t know how they found this information out.”
“My brother John was down and he said he didn’t tell them.”
“My Dad was a pioneer up until he was 40 years of age and then he decided to make up for lost time.”
“A brandy and lemonade became his poison. So after the show they brought me out a brandy and lemonade.”
“I remember when I got married me and my brothers had a brandy and lemonade, which I would not recommend for either the taste or how it made you feel,” Patrick recalled.
“He was at the forefront of my mind, my mum was at the forefront in my mind as well.”
Patrick hails from the village of Dundrum in Co. Down.
When the comedian was just 16-years-old, his businessman father John ‘Jack’ Kielty was shot dead aged 44 by loyalist shooters from the Ulster Freedom Fighters.
Speaking about his father’s tragic death on The Late Late Show last year, Patrick told then-host Ryan Tubridy: “I was 16 and it was my brother’s 18th birthday. Everybody said they were sorry, everybody hugged us but nobody said they couldn’t believe it. That is how things were up [the North], that was the normality of it.”
“I was in school, and I was called to the headmaster’s office… I remember going into the office [at school] 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 I automatically said ‘Is he dead?’ and straight away they said ‘Yes’.”
Picture: Andres Poveda
Patrick said his dad was targeted for a number of reason, explaining: “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.”
In his 2018 BBC One documentary, ‘My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me’, Patrick revealed the IRA tried to recruit him to exact revenge on his killers.
He said of his father’s killers: “I can’t forgive them. But whether or not these people are in jail, it’s not going to bring Dad back… I won’t hug them and tell them it was OK – but I want to move on.”
“Everyone wants to believe their loved one died for a cause. But my dad died for nothing.”
