Tommy Tiernan said “I did not have a happy childhood.”

Comedian Tommy Tiernan reveals visiting his hometown in Navan has been bittersweet.

In a conversation with Dion Fanning for Ireland Unfiltered, he recalled a moment of realisation he had recently when visiting his hometown.

Tommy and Dion's conversation:

Tommy: And I rolled down the window one night and I just parked the car and I wanted to breathe in the Navan air, you know. And I realised that I didn’t have a happy childhood. And that awareness came to me, I says "Yeah, I did not have a happy childhood". Things were too tense at home.

Dion: And when you say tense what do you mean?

Tommy: Just full of anger and unresolved stuff and… do you know the feeling when you’ve walked into a room and people have just had an argument and they’ve stopped the argument but you can feel something? Well, our house was like that.

Dion: All the time?

Tommy: Yeah, totally. So you’re aware of that… I had that feeling, I had a realisation and being able to name it, “I did not have a happy childhood”. But I was able to almost name it without feeling wounded by it or… laying the blame at anybody.

Dion: Angry?

Tommy: Without feeling angry, without feeling, just kinda, ok… yeah. That was my experience, you know, without laying any great pressure on it, that was just the way it was, you know. And then I drove to Slane.

Although Tommy also recalled on fond memories with friends, the visit to Navan also provoked sad ones of his family life.