His journey to the top has been rocky..but Brendan has always gone for it

BRENDAN O'Carroll turned 70 earlier this month.

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The comedian - best known for hit show Mrs Brown's Boys - is one of the most successful entertainers Ireland has ever produced.

Here, biographer AUBREY MALONE tells how Brendan came a long way from being one of 11 children who grew up in poverty in Finglas, Dublin.

I ASKED Brendan O'Carroll to contribute a story to my book The Guinness Book Of Humorous Irish Anecdotes in 1996.

He was on the way up then but not quite famous. He seemed enthusiastic at first but I made the mistake of asking him not to include any “blue” material in his story. “I don't do blue material!” he protested.

But he wished me well with the book and I used a few funny stories about him anyway. (“We were poor. I asked for a yo-yo for Christmas but I only got a yo.”)

Brendan was 70 this month. I've just finished reading his autobiography Call Me Mrs Brown. There's a photo of his mother Maureen with a caption underneath saying, “This is the woman who bought my home for me, educated my children and bought their homes for them too.”

Who would have predicted after all his stand-up shows that it would be a TV performance as a woman that would make him so rich and famous? We never know where that make-or-break character is going to come from.

His journey to the top has been rocky. Thousands of euros were lost on abandoned ventures. But Brendan has always “gone for it” every time he got an idea into his head, and one of them eventually paid off big time.

CLOWN