Guests with Cavan links on Tommy Tiernan finale

Show aired on Saturday evening but still available online.

The season finale of The Tommy Tiernan Show had a distinctly Cavan feel to it, with several of the guests with familial links to the Breffni County.

London born comedian and actor Roisin Conaty was first up last Saturday, taking about what it was like being raised in London to Irish parents.

Her father was an Aer Lingus employee from Virginia, while Conaty’s mum was a nurse from Dromcolliher, Co Limerick.

She grew up in Camden with her younger sister, Siobhan, and spent her summers in Ireland.

“Growing up in Camden in the ‘80s, I never spent one single school holiday in London.

The second the bell went, it was straight out and dumped into a field in Cork.

“My mum was from a family of 12 sisters and one brother. A lot of women… and none of them quiet.

They inspired me.

They were very glamorous, loud, very funny Irish women.”

She also spoke of the tenderness she has towards her parents, who split at a time when it was “unusual for Irish people to divorce in London”, and of her “really, really close” relationship with her mother.

The show’s final guest was weightlifter Thammy Nguyen, who with her brother and Olympic badminton player Nhat, grew up in Belturbet.

“When I talk about my younger life I get really emotionally upset,” said Thammy, who first moved to Ireland with her father from Vietnam, leaving her mother and brother behind.

“I’m crying already because I actually don’t talk about my past. I didn’t have money, English, friends, no family… so it was just a sad time.”

The family was reunited in Ireland around three years later.

Thammy went on to say that her greatest fear was not qualifying for the Olympics. Now she has accepted she won’t qualify she is no longer fearful.

“I’m still here. I have no fear now,” said the 27-year-old entrepreneur.

She was the first Irish weightlifter to win a senior medal at the European Weightlifting Championships.