I have other careers in terms of stand-up, stage acting and writing, so I don't feel too hidebound by that, but I do quite like playing those warm roles.

I listen to WTF with Marc Maron, although I'm getting annoyed with him, he's a bit too intrusive and fawning. But he's done some great interviews in the past, like with David Simon, the writer of The Wire, and Bruce Springsteen. He gets fantastic guests. I just wish he let them talk more.

The beauty of stand-up is that it's very flexible, it's very malleable and immediate. Whatever is in your head that day you can verbalise in some way that night. It's the medium that suits me best.

I was able to tour successfully and attract a fairly wide audience, but it was hard to assert myself as a stand-up because people were more familiar with me as a TV character.

I couldn't make a living as a comic in Ireland and I was watching my friends from college getting good jobs, buying houses, and I had to really take stock and say: am I going to go for this comedy thing, or what?

When we left university, in the late '80s, one of the guys had been to the Comedy Store in London, came back very excited and suggested we set up something like it. And so we did.

My mother tells me I regaled people with stories but I don't remember that. And she disputes the idea that I might be chronically shy. She says I was the most outgoing of all of us.

Where I come from people are very deadpan with a dry humour that I suppose rubbed off on me.

Irish politicians are very accessible to the public, just the messenger boys for the local constituency.

I remember being chronically shy. I came out of my shell a bit when I went to university, but I'm still fairly shy in company.